The Barefoot controller from Indilinx was all the rage last year, it was on many solid state drives we reviewed including the Crucial M225 and both the OCZ Vertex and Agility. It seems this year SandForce is getting a lot of attention, but don’t forget about the Barefoot controller. Indilinx’s new Barefoot controller, called the Barefoot ECO allows drive manufactures to use the 32nm Intel NAND flash rather than the 40nm NAND we are used to seeing in other Indilinx-based drives. Because of the smaller production process of the NAND chips this brings down the cost of the drive. Today we will be taking a look at the 128GB Nova Series Solid State Drive from Corsair that is based on Barefoot ECO controller and is less expensive than other drives based on the older Barefoot controller.
Special thanks to Corsair for providing us with the Nova Series 128GB Solid State Drive to review.
Features
– Maximum sequential read speed 270MB/second
– Maximum sequential write speed 195 MB/second
– Indilinx Barefoot controller and MLC NAND flash for fast performance.
– 64MB cache for stutter-free performance
– Internal SATA II connectivity
– TRIM support (O/S support required)
– No moving parts for increased durability and reliability and quieter operations over standard hard disk drives
– Decreased power usage for increased notebook or netbook battery life
– 2.5″ form factor for your portable computer needs
– Included 2.5″ to 3.5″ bracket for installation on your desktop computer
– Two year warranty
Specifications
| Model | CSSD-V128GB2-BRKT | CSSD-V64GB2-BRKT |
| Technology | Fast performance MLC NAND flash | Fast performance MLC NAND flash |
| Form factor | 2.5 inch | 2.5 inch |
| Unformatted capacity | 128GB ‡ | 64GB ‡ |
| Interface | SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Backward compatible with SATA I |
SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Backward compatible with SATA I |
| Performance | 270 MB/s sequential read 195 MB/s sequential write |
215 MB/s sequential read 130 MB/s sequential write |
| DRAM cache memory | 64MB | 64MB |
| Weight | 80g | 80g |
|
Electrical and Power Characteristics |
||
| Voltage | 5V ±5% | 5V ±5% |
| Power consumption (active) |
2.0W Max | 2.0W Max |
| Power consumption (idle/standby/sleep) |
0.5W Max | 0.5W Max |
|
Reliability |
||
| S.M.A.R.T. support | Yes | Yes |
| MTBF | 1,000,000 hours | 1,000,000 hours |
| Shock | 40G | 40G |
| Warranty | Two Years | Two Years |
Packaging
The Nova Series drive comes in a small retail package not much larger than the drive itself. On the front there is a picture of the drive and on the back there is a short description.
Getting the drive out of the packaging it is nicely packed in a plastic clamshell. Corsair also provides a 2.5-inch drive adapter and mounting screws. I really like the drive adapter, not many companies are shipping these with solid state drives.