14 DAY TRIAL // Patriot Memory did not limit itself to just RAM memory, having used CES 2011 as an opportunity to also deliver a certain series of solid state drives, called Wildfire and powered by next-generation controller chips.
Solid State Drives have been getting faster and more capacious with each passing month, even as their prices have slowly drifted downwards.
Of course, since technology has this habit of getting better, it was obvious that such storage devices would also improve.
That said, not long ago, companies like SandForce and Marvell created SSD controller chips capable of handling the SATA 6.0 Gbps interface.
Now, Patriot has put on display the Wildfire solid state drives, which stand out from the existing mass of NAND Flash-based units thanks to support for this very connection.
This revelation comes after the outfit unveiled such things as Class 10 memory cards and DDR3 memory kits for the new Sandy Bridge-supporting motherboards that Intel's various partners have released and will keep showing off at CES 2011.
Unfortunately, the folks over at TechPowerUp were unable to determine anything about the drives except for what storage capacities they will boast once they are finally made available for purchase.
While both the SandForce SF-2582 and Marvell 9174 chips can push transfer rates beyond 500 MB/s, it is unknown exactly how much of this potential the newcomers live up to.
There is also the fact that the aforementioned chips aren't the only ones available, though they are among the most noteworthy.
Basically, three units will be available, at least at first, with capacities of 60 GB, 120 GB and 240 GB, respectively.
Their different capacities will, of course, have some impact on the read and write performance.
The exact numbers, plus the random 4K write performance, of these 2.5-inch models will no doubt be specified sooner or later.