Introduction

I always get excited when G.Skill announces a new solid state drive. Every SSD we have reviewed from the company was priced aggressively and the cost of ownership was usually around 20 to 30 USD cheaper than similar drives from G.Skill's competitors. G.Skill also has an amazing track record when it comes to releasing the latest solid state technology. The original Falcon was the first Indilinx Barefoot SSD we received in our testing lab and today the Falcon II is the first Barefoot ECO we have received as well.

Even with all of the good things G.Skill has managed to achieve with their solid state line, there was still one issue that we came across. The issue has been availability and if you can't buy the drive then it might as well cost 30 Dollars more than the competition. You can see the catch 22 in what is going on. G.Skill sells a great product that costs less than others; because of this popular e-tailers like Newegg have a problem keeping them in stock. What we would really like to see is G.Skill ramp up production to get the supply of drives in check for everyone who wants the drive with the best cost to performance ratio to be able to get it.

The Falcon II uses Indilinx's newest version of the Barefoot controller called the ECO. The ECO is a mildly reworked controller that allows new memory types to be used in conjunction with the controller, namely new 34nm parts from Intel. Intel and Micron have been cooking up new 34nm NAND Flash memory that is cheaper to manufacture, thus cheaper for companies to implement into their new reworked products. Eventually we should start to see the Falcon II selling for less than the Falcon I thanks to the new 34nm flash.

We have a lot to cover today, so let's move on and take a look at the specifications and pricing.