November 11, 2009 -- In past articles we have delivered plenty of file-system benchmarks from testing out EXT4 to Btrfs to NILFS2. We have also delivered benchmarks from traditional hard drives to solid-state drives. One area though where we have not published any file-system benchmarks is for USB flash drives. Most users end up staying with the default FAT32 file-system for flash drives, but are there any performance advantages to using EXT3, EXT4, XFS, Btrfs, or ReiserFS? We have the benchmarks today to share atop the latest Linux 2.6.32 kernel build.

November 09, 2009 -- Back in August we reviewed the OCZ Agility SATA 2.0 SSD, which we found to be a reputable solid-state drive that offered nice performance under Linux. However, a step up from the Agility series is the Agility EX line. The OCZ Agility EX is designed to offer maximum performance with its SLC NAND-based storage and Indilinx controller. How though does the performance of this $400 SSD for just 60GB of storage compare to their other MLC-based SSDs under Linux? We have the benchmarks.

August 10, 2009 -- Back in May we reviewed the OCZ Vertex SSD, which performed well against a Super Talent SSD and two different rotating mobile HDDs. This OCZ SSD was not exactly cheap but it was not too expensive either and it ended up receiving our Editor's Choice award. Since then, OCZ Technology has introduced the Agility SATA 2.0 Solid-State Drives. The Agility is designed to fill OCZ's mainstream SSD offerings with models up to 120GB in size, MLC flash memory, 64MB cache, and slightly better prices. In this review we are testing out the OCZ Agility 120GB Serial ATA 2.0 SSD, under Ubuntu Linux, of course.

June 01, 2009 -- Years ago we looked at Super Talent DDR2 memory at Phoronix and with what was tested we ran into problems when overclocking, motherboard compatibility issues, and some very sticky heatsinks. The experience was not the best, but the memory did work as intended. Nearly three years have passed and today we have moved on to look at the Super Talent MasterDrive OX Serial ATA 2.0 Solid State Drive. These Super Talent SSDs are MLC NAND Flash based and come in sizes down to 16GB, which leads to prices lower than many other SSDs on the market, but how do they perform?

May 22, 2009 -- Besides offering an impressive selection of USB flash drives and DDR2/DDR3 memory products, OCZ Technology has been quick to expand their selection of solid state drives. OCZ manufacturers SSD products in their value, mainstream, performance, and enterprise series with some of these series containing multiple product families. Earlier this year we provided Linux SSD benchmarks using an OCZ Core Series V2 SSD, but introduced just recently has been the OCZ Vertex SSD series, which we happen to be reviewing today. The OCZ Vertex SSDs go up to 256GB in size and offers 64MB of onboard cache, RAID support, and is rated for 1.5 million hours MTBF.

February 24, 2009 -- In early January we had delivered Linux Solid-State Drive Benchmarks of an OCZ Core Series V2 SSD, which was a low-cost low-capacity single-cell drive. The increased performance and decreased power consumption compared to a 5400RPM Serial ATA 2.0 hard drive was nice for a netbook, but how are the higher-end solid-state drives performing? In this article, we have a high-performance Intel X25-E Extreme SSD on a System76 notebook running Ubuntu Linux.

January 30, 2009 -- Unless you are located in Germany or some other parts of Europe, chances are you have never heard of Compustocx. Compustocx, or CSX for short, is a German manufacturer of system memory modules for computers and is one of the largest memory upgrade providers for Apple computers. CSX has also ventured into producing solid-state drives, audio products, and FB-DIMM memory. Recently though we were asked by a US representative for Compustocx to look at one of their newest DDR3 memory kits, which we gladly accepted. The RAM we are testing out today is the CSX 3GB DDR3-1660MHz (CSXO-CEC3-1600-3GB-3KIT) memory kit.

January 16, 2009 -- In late 2005 we looked at the ATP ToughDrive 1GB flash drive and in 2006 looked at ATP's ProMax 150x CF card, but since then we haven't heard much from this company. However, they have recently released two new products, which we are looking at today. There is the ATP 8GB EarthDrive, which is advertised as the world's first recyclable USB drive, and secondly there is the ATP 8GB ToughDrive. The EarthDrive is made of a biodegradable material that is derived from corn.

January 09, 2009 -- Most netbooks currently on the market offer 512MB or 1GB of system memory and only a single DDR2 SO-DIMM slot. However, with most of the netbooks a 2GB memory module could be easily installed, but what performance benefits does that yield for an Intel Atom powered device? In this article we have a few benchmarks comparing the 1GB versus 2GB memory performance on the Atom-powered Samsung NC10.

January 01, 2009 -- With the number of netbooks on the market continuing to increase each month and more of these mobile devices switching to solid-state drives for their reliability, extended battery life, and faster performance, SSDs are becoming quite common and finding themselves meeting many Linux hosts. How though does the real-world performance differ between hard disk drives and solid-state drives on Linux? We have run several tests atop Ubuntu on a Samsung netbook with a HDD and SSD. In addition, we have also looked at the encryption performance using both types of drives.