Phoenix Pro Overview
The Phoenix Pro is a 2.5-inch drive and looks like every other solid state drive that we have reviewed. It has a black aluminum housing that will help protect everything inside, although since there are no moving parts it is not that big of a deal. On the front of the drive there is a sticker that lets you know that it is a Phoenix Pro drive and that it is 60GB.
Flipping the drive over there is another sticker with all of the serial numbers and bar codes on it. It also lists the max read and write speeds which are 285 MB/s and 275 MB/s respectively. This seems to be standard on all SandForce-based drives we have looked out. The actual product model name is listed on the back too, which is: FM-25S2S-60GBP2. Just like all solid state drives you have the normal SATA data and power connectors on the back. There is no integrated USB Mini-B port like we have seen on other solid state drives.
Ok so let’s take a look at what’s under the hood. Getting the drive open is pretty simple all you have to do is remove 4 small screws on the back of the drive and slide the back of the drive off. Once the back of the drive is off you can see what’s inside. Just like all SandForce-based drives we have looked at the Phoenix Pro utilizes the SandForce SF-1200 solid state drive processor, more specifically the SF-1222TA3-SBH chip.
Around the controller are 8 8GB Intel flash NAND chips arranged in a horseshoe fashion. These chips give you 64GB of storage space, yet only 60GB is used. If we remove 4 more screws we can take the entire PCB out. Flipping it over there isn’t much on the back, lower capacity SSD’s have all the NAND chips on the front part of the PCB.
