Final Thoughts

Even though we are working with very early samples, it is safe to proclaim the RunCore Pro V with the SandForce 1500 controller and low cost MLC flash a very fast solid state drive. At this time I feel comfortable saying that the Pro V will be the enthusiast SSD in which all others will be compared to for the first half of 2010. The synthetic numbers don't show the true potential of the Pro V, but as soon as we get to real world Windows operations the synthetics be damned, this is the real deal.

What we really need to know before passing the final judgment is cost. We already know that the Pro V will cost more than the Barefoot powered Pro IV, but is it going to be a 10, 20 or 30% increase in cost? Another thing we need to consider is how the drive will compare to next generation products based on SandForce 1200, Marvel and Indilinx. The SandForce 1200 products should show up around the March timeframe and the latter two should arrive early Q2 if we are lucky.

What we do know is the RunCore Pro V is fast, fast enough to satisfy our needs and limited in many cases by other hardware like SATA II and even processor speed. The 4K performance is the highest we have ever tested to date; it is simply amazing. Every enthusiast on the planet will want this drive!

As you might have noticed, we have a matched pair of 100GB drives. Tune in tomorrow for our RAID 0 benchmarks!