Colossus 3.5-in SSD Combines Quad Controllers

Vigile writes "The new Colossus SSD comes in capacities starting at 256GB and going all the way up to 1TB in a standard 3.5-in hard drive form factor. This larger size was required because the drive actually integrates not one but four Indilinx SSD controllers and three total RAID controllers in a nested RAID-0 array. All of this goodness combines to create an incredibly fast drive that beats most other options in terms of write speeds and is competitive in read tests as well. Using some custom 'garbage collection' firmware, the drive works around the fact that TRIM commands aren't supported in RAID configurations to maintain high speeds through the life of the SSD."

Comments

Random write speed?

[evanbd]

I thought it was pretty clear that what matters for most desktop users is the random small write speed. See, for example, Anandtech's SSD anthology and later followups.

So, where are the 4 KiB random write benchmarks? They are conspicuously absent from this review. We can see the effect, I think, in the IOMeter results -- the X-25M outperforms the OCZ drive across the board on those, despite the OCZ win in the throughput tests. But, personally, I'd like to see the raw numbers on 4 KiB random writes. Have this many reviewers really learned so little about benchmarking SSDs since they came out?

Re:Useless

[seanalltogether]

What I don't understand is that if they're going to make a RAID SSD in a 3.5 enclosure, why don't they give it 2 SATA links in so they can saturate 2 buses? In fact, how many SATA links could you support in a single 3.5 enclosure?

SLC pricing is a scam

[haruchai]

and the companies ( Hello, Samsung!) should be ashamed. It wasn't until a few years ago that MLC was commercially viable but it only increases
by a factor of TWO. That's one of the lowest, most pointless tradeoffs ever in recent computing.

So, I get merely TWICE the storage for a TEN TIMES reduction in average component life, a 40% reduction in write speed, without fancy controller
redesign, and we get to enjoy all the ludicrous "benefits" of MLC for the price that SLC would have been anyway, through market forces and silicon die shrink

Re:Speed

[AllynM]

It would, but don't do it with that one or you'll fry either the board. They rewired the internal connectors so they could pass 2 channels over a single SATA connector. The SATA data lines passed via the power connector IIRC, so yeah, don't do it :).

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=821&type=expert

Allyn Malventano
Storage Editor, PC Perspective