Introduction

In this business you hear quite a bit about 'reference designs', but rarely do you hear about the reasons why companies choose to design their own printed circuit boards (PCB). Before SandForce turns thousands of SF-2200 controllers over to companies, they send over a standard circuit board design that allows manufacturers to quickly get products to market.

As with any product, the more time you put into refining it, the better the end result. Reference designs may go through several revisions before they will reach optimal performance. That said, as time passes small issues that can cause problems in rare instances are isolated and solutions are implemented on an ongoing basis to make products better.

Corsair has shared with us their approach in fine tuning their PCB design for the new Force 3 and Force GT products. We've been told this approach increases the clarity of the timing signal and thus should enhance the overall reliability.

Corsair has also made some other changes to the Force 3 and Force GT lineup since we reviewed the 120GB capacity sizes of these models. Corsair now offers the Force GT in 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 180GB and finally the 240GB size that we are looking at today. The Force 3 is also offered in the same capacity sizes; quite a change compared to the standard 60GB / 120GB / 240GB sizes offered by most manufacturers. The new capacity sizes allow you to get a Force Series SSD at even more price points, an opportunity to maximize your capacity per Dollar.