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As each generation of hard drives grew in capacity at a
breakneck pace, storage space on spindle-based drives was rarely an issue.
However, performance gains from one generation to the next have always been, at
best, incremental. Now, with solid state storage in its ascendency, the
opposite is true: SSDs offer massive performance but miniscule storage capacity
relative to their cost. With the aptly named Accelerator 60GB cache drive,
Corsair hopes to sell consumers on a solution that will give them the best of
both technologies with none of the associated drawbacks.
Much like OCZ’s Synapse, the Corsair Accelerator relies on
Nvelo’s Dataplex software to meld with the user’s existing hard drive into one
“hybrid” storage solution. While this approach does require a certain amount of
processor overhead, allowing the software to decide what gets cached on the
speedy SSD and what can reasonably be tucked away on the slow-but-steady HDD
has its merits. Namely, it allows for increased storage flexibility and performance
while also keeping the associated hardware costs relatively low. As the
Dataplex solution is fairly robust with only moderate CPU requirements, we have
no concerns with Corsair’s decision to follow OCZ in this regard.
What is questionable is the actual solid state drive they
have included as part of the bargain. Rather than using a Corsair Force 3 60GB
for the Accelerator, Corsair has instead opted for their Nova Series 2 60GB
drive. Unlike the competition, this drive uses the less capable SF-2181
controller. Furthermore, it has only the typical 7% overprovisioning found with
the standard Nova Series 2 drives which could cause an issue for long term
durability when used for caching purposes. This is completely different than
OCZ’s Synapse series, which relies on a more capable, 100% over provisioned
SF-2281-based Agility 3 60GB drive. With an online asking price of $90—or just
ten dollars less than that of the Synapse 64GB—the Accelerator will have to be
impressive if it hopes to overcome its potential limitations.
To keep things as fair as possible, we will be pairing the
Accelerator with the same 1TB hard drive we tested the OCZ Synapse with. This
will allow us to find out how much performance is possible from a truly budget
setup and judge theAccelerator’s overall efficiency and effectiveness.
Compared to that of the OCZ Synapse, the Corsair
Accelerator’s exterior is more robust and reassuring. While some SSD makers use
a metal-and-plastic solution, the Accelerator’s outer shell is a full metal
affair that seems like it could shrug off damage that would leave a Synapse in
pieces.
Unfortunately, the interior architecture of the Accelerator
is not as satisfying. Not only is the PCB half the size of what is normally
found in SandForce-based devices, but so too is the number of NAND ICs greatly
reduced. Whereas 16 dual-layer NAND modules are housed within most solid state
drives, this model has only eight. This means that the density of the chips is
higher than that of most contemporary 64GB SSDs. However, the Accelerator may
not be able to take advantage of this moderate potential increase in
performancefor the simple reason that (unlike any other SandForce-based drive
we have reviewed to date) the Accelerator does not use an SF-2281 controller and
relies instead on the slower and less capable SF-2181.
