Final Thoughts
First let’s talk about the capacity of this drive, 40GB. It seemed that the 60GB capacity was going to become the smallest capacity standard for solid state drives, but all of a sudden many manufacturers were coming out with 40GB drives. The 40GB size still is great for a boot drive for your operating system. You can then store all of your games and media on a separate, less expensive, higher capacity drive. Also if you have a netbook or even a notebook that you do not have the need for a lot of storage space the 40GB size is great.
The performance on this drive was a little lacking, at least the write performance. It ATTO we scored 267MB/s write, which still is good, but was lower than the other drives we have tested. Also the drive scored lower in all other write tests. The read speeds were right on the money for the most part. ATTO gave us a score of 286MB/s read, which was the highest out of the 3 drives we tested.
This is a SandForce-based drive so you do get the added features that the SandForce SF-1200 controller offers. The drive will do real-time loss-less compression. This is why there is no need for a cache chip, but also means less writes to the data cells. RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) is a term we have heard a lot with these new drives. So on top of ECC for data protection RAISE adds another level of security. This drive also supports TRIM.
I like that G.Skill does include a mounting bracket. It seems this is becoming standard with all 2.5-inch solid state drives, but there are still a few that do not come with mounting brackets. Also keep in mind that many cases still do not have 2.5-inch hard drive mounting systems.
At our favorite online retailer there are 6 40GB solid state drives that are based off the SandForce controller. Right now the G.Skill 40GB drive sells for $119.99, which is very close to that $100 price point. It is currently sitting with the OCZ Vertex 2 at that price, the other 4 drives are a few dollars cheaper. This drive does perform well and it set to get solid state drive technology into the hands of consumers. Overall ThinkComputers gives the G.Skill Phoenix Pro 40GB Solid State Drive an 8 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Impressive 286MB/s read speeds in ATTO
– Included mounting bracket
– 3-year warranty
– Very close to that $100 price point
Cons:
– Poor write speeds in our testing
