New Sandforce Firmware spotted?

We believe this update has yet to be recognized within the SSD community because legal agreements are in place between SandForce and manufacturers which prevent them from discussing it.

Not too sure how much I'd read into that article, as they stated 3000 Mb = 300 MB. It's actually 3000 Mb = 375 MB (Base 8 for bits and bytes, not base 10!). If 3 Gb/s = base 8 counting instead of base 10, then it's actually 3072 Mb/s = 385 MB/s.

http://thessdreview.com/latest-buzz/sandforce-firmware-update-confirmed-great-news-for-new-ssd-buyers/

That article is pretty vague. I'll look into it. ::pirate::

Hey Guys....couldn't help but joining up to clarify some things or...you to me....if thats the way it should be.

If I may... to start with bits and bytes... Its generally recognized that things are rounded off. SATA II (if I am right) is considered to be at 3.0Mb which is Mbits and not MB which is MegaBytes.

With respect to speeds reached... I have never seen anything surpass 285MB/s. Theoretically, it should go as high as 300MB/s but hardware and software have made us comfortable with the 285MB/s level.

Now I know we are going to start counting exact bits and bytes and we all know 1000 to the real world is 1024 to us.

Next...

If I am vague, hit me up. I put the tests right there in front of you. How do we dispute what is? Once upon a time, I used to just throw the score up there and then people accused me of making it up... I cant cheat the program, especially with confirmations. They were done in test after test.

Thanks for the opportunity to respond and look forward to checking here again. I was kind of floored that the Tech Spt guy never knew of the firmware. Vantage is a great program for showing things behind the truly meaningless measured performance speed.

Hey Guys....couldn't help but joining up to clarify some things or...you to If I am vague, hit me up. I put the tests right there in front of you. How do we dispute what is? Once upon a time, I used to just throw the score up there and then people accused me of making it up... I cant cheat the program, especially with confirmations. They were done in test after test.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to respond and look forward to checking here again. I was kind of floored that the Tech Spt guy never knew of the firmware. Vantage is a great program for showing things behind the truly meaningless measured performance speed.

SandForce has released a new firmware update to client level manufacturers that significantly improves the performance of ’SandForce Driven’ drives. As far as we can tell, the firmware is only available in new SSD purchases and we haven’t seen the same firmware available to present owners of SSDs using SandForce technology.

 

 

We believe this update has yet to be recognized within the SSD community because legal agreements are in place between SandForce and manufacturers which prevent them from discussing it. The SSD community also relies so heavily on rating solid state drives by their advertised performance specifications that we have overlooked the simple truth that these advertised specs are not a realistic indicator of the typical users SSD performance.

As I said, the info at the link posted above is vague.

Thats my link. Ask away. The firmware is new. Its only evident in Vantage testing where we can see the scores jump, scores representative of the transfer speed.

Oh and 26000 and 7000 posts...my God man! Do I have my work cut out for me on this one?

Both of our post counts have been trimmed multiple times over the years as well lol :)

Regarding the math, I don't know what the offical answer is, base 8 vs base 10. If it's the former all around, then there's 100 MB/s missing, and that can't all be overhead.

Regarding the theory of new firmware from SandForce, it's not a surprise. That's one way how they make their money. Make a firmware, then get paid by OEMs to allow it to run on their drives, and add said company's custom tweaks of course.

I understand. I simply followed the industry standard explanation which was 3.0Mb rather than confusing most.

I agree with the second statement except, and perhaps someone can test and jump on if they have this answer....I haven't found a drive that matched this unless they were the new release or a refresh. This might (might) mean that that other Fseries drives don't have the same f/w; a question I am trying to get answered.

I agree with the second statement except, and perhaps someone can test and jump on if they have this answer....I haven't found a drive that matched this unless they were the new release or a refresh.

This might (might) mean that that other Fseries drives don't have the same f/w; a question I am trying to get answered.

My God 92000 posts. I dont think that is unbeatable on all the internet.

If someone wants to get me the other F series drives to compare to the F90, I would love to prove that they all reach the same level. The amount of sales from my e-mail pile on this same question would net Corsair a ton.

My God 92000 posts. I dont think that is unbeatable on all the internet.

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/member.php?u=514

If someone wants to get me the other F series drives to compare to the F90, I would love to prove that they all reach the same level. The amount of sales from my e-mail pile on this same question would net Corsair a ton.

Would it surprise you that the top five performing solid state drives are all SandForce processors and the last of the five is actually the SF-1500 processor? As coincidental as it seems the first four are brand new released drives with the most recent firmware update only available through SSD sales and not as a consumer f/w drive update.

Just FYI, an SF1500 is the same controller as a 1200. The difference is basically their enterprise firmware. From what I have read, there is little to no difference in performance as it is the same controller and same NAND. The 1500 simply has options related to enterprise usage.

Of course it is:

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/member.php?u=514

 

 

Were you asking earlier if the F90 and the other F drives (F80, F120, etc) have the same firmware? If so, it looks like it, seeing that your review showed 2.0 on the F90 and that's the same as what's already publicly available (link's on the left).

2.0 was released to the public as an upgrade on NOV 1, 2010.

Your testing results are in line with some I have performed recently and that were done with both firware 1.1 and 2.0.

Got a link to the thread in question?

I think he's talking about http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=91668

I am glad this thread was reopened because i didnt think it was really fair that the comment was made about 'where one thought it was going'. To clarify a bit, I didn't start the thread or come here to beg for SSDs. The 40 or so I have to my left are plenty thanks and I have a great relationship with marketing at Corsair.

I came to the site to offer a response to any questions and, should I have had some sort of incorrect facts, to correct the article. I am still open to any such thoughts.

EDIT: Yellowbeard... If you have tested any of the other SSDs in Vantage, please post the results so I can link the 50 or so people who have emailed with this question.

SandForce has released a new firmware update to client level manufacturers that significantly improves the performance of ’SandForce Driven’ drives. As far as we can tell, the firmware is only available in new SSD purchases and we haven’t seen the same firmware available to present owners of SSDs using SandForce technology.

Has this been clarified properly for everyone involved?

If I may... to start with bits and bytes... Its generally recognized that things are rounded off. SATA II (if I am right) is considered to be at 3.0Mb which is Mbits and not MB which is MegaBytes.

 

With respect to speeds reached... I have never seen anything surpass 285MB/s. Theoretically, it should go as high as 300MB/s but hardware and software have made us comfortable with the 285MB/s level.

 

Now I know we are going to start counting exact bits and bytes and we all know 1000 to the real world is 1024 to us.

Actually 3.0 Gbps results to approximately 358 MB/s if you use base 1024 for the Byte -> MB conversion. Not sure where that 285 number is coming from, other than the advertised speed of the Force drive.

my work:

3 Gigabits

3000000000 Bits

375000000 Bytes

366210.9375 KiloBytes

357.6278687 MegaBytes

By scientifice standard those are obviously Kibi and MibiBytes, but on a WINDOWS machine we can say the same thing..

Not too sure how much I'd read into that article, as they stated 3000 Mb = 300 MB. It's actually 3000 Mb = 375 MB (Base 8 for bits and bytes, not base 10!)

This is wrong too actually, you can only divide bits by 8 to go to bytes directly, if you're up on the prefix scales like mega, you have to go back to bits first. Unless you're thinking of true scientific definition of megabytes, but who does? If you're using the 1024 conversion that is standard on Windows, you have to go to bits first. See my post above. :)

I have to admit, you guys here are very amusing and I hope to meet at least one at the CES Corsair Meet and Greet...

We could spend alot of energy discussing bits and bytes you know.