Adata launches its XM13 series of mSATA SSDs by VR-Zone.com
SSD caching has as yet not take off, at least not that we're aware, although some of the first Ultrabooks seems to be taking advantage of Intel's SRT technology. Now Adata has announced its first mSATA SSDs which are as far as the press release is making it sound like, intended for use as hard drive caching SSDs.
The XM13 series of mSATA SSDs won't be breaking any speed records as far as SSDs are concerned, but they're one upping
OCZ's Nocti series of mSATA SSDs in terms of performance. The XM13 will be available in 30 and 60GB sizes and Adata is rating the max sequential read performance at 280MB/s, with the read performance hitting 260MB/s. The random read and write performance should hit 12,500 IOPS according to Adata.
Both SKUs feature an unspecified Sandforce controller, although we're most likely looking at something similar to that of OCZ's Nocti series, as the XM13 sports a SATA 3Gbps interface. Adata is suggesting that you should pair up its new mSATA SSD's with one of Gigabyte's mSATA sporting Z68 motherboards, although it should also be possible to upgrade mSATA equipped notebooks too, at least as long as you're not afraid of a bit of notebook DIY. No word on pricing or availability, so it's hard to tell if these mSATA SSDs will be competitive or not.