14 DAY TRIAL // Showcased for the very first time at the CeBIT 2011 fair, Corsair's Force GT series of solid state disks has finally started shipping to the company's authorized distributors and will be available for purchase in the coming weeks.
Just as many other SSDs that have been announced lately, the Force GT is based on SandForce's SF-2280 controller that features native support for SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3).
Combined with fast ONFI synchronous NAND Flash memory, the drive is capable of reaching transfer speeds that put to shame most other SandForce-based SSDs available out there since sequential read and write speeds can reach 555 MB/s and 525 MB/s, respectively.
These fast transfer speeds are accompanied by an impressive 4K random write performance, as Corsair claims the 120GB and 240GB Force GT solid state drives can reach up to 85K IOPS (input/output operations per second).
This is, of course, the best case scenario as the data has to be aligned for these speeds to be achieved.
"With the rapid adoption of systems with SATA 3 support, enthusiasts are demanding SSDs that can push the limit of SATA 3 bandwidth," said Thi La, vice president of Memory Products at Corsair.
"The new Force Series GT line delivers amazing speed under the most demanding conditions, making them ideal for high-performance systems," concluded the company's rep.
Force Series GT SSDs are currently shipping to Corsair's network of authorized distributors and retailers worldwide and will be available in July at a US suggested retail price of $149 USD for the 60GB model and $279 USD for the 120GB model.
The 240GB model hasn't started shipping yet, even though Corsair has listed it on the company's website.
All Force Series GT models are also backwards compatible with SATA 2, and include a 3.5-inch adapter for those desktop cases that come without any 2.5-inch drive bays.