Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD
Samsung’s new PB22-J 256GB solid-state disk (SSD) promises a goodly amount of storage and high performance for the well-heeled notebook user.
The future is static. Compared to the rapidly spinning and fragile platters of your normal hard disk drive, the future of storage would seem to be solid-state memory. Static, unmoving, solid-state drives (SSD) don’t suffer from the perils of being moved around while in use — suiting laptops and portable devices perfectly — as well as offering many other advantages. The list of potential benefits include low (zero) noise, lower power consumption and heat output, and very quick read speeds.
Write speeds are another matter, though, especially with the newer high-capacity generation of technology featuring multi-layer cells (MLC), used to raise formerly small capacities and lower impossibly out-of-reach price tags. But price is still an issue, so if you’re intent on acquiring a quarter terabyte of solid-state storage for less than the price of a, say, a complete 15in laptop — best look away now.
Samsung is a world leader in semiconductors, and that includes the type of silicon used in RAM and NAND Flash memory. Its new Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD promises very high performance, and in our straightforward tests at least, certainly delivered.
We were keen to throw the full gamut of multi-platform tests at this 2.5in notebook drive, but the message we received from Samsung at the outset was clear: that this drive should only be tested on a Microsoft Windows operating system (OS).
So we ran the drive through the HD Tach benchmark, using Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, with the Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD connected directly to the internal SATA bus of a Dell Studio XPS 13 notebook. Boot volume was the notebook’s original storage (itself a 128GB Samsung SSD) connected via eSATA.
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