Siemens adds iOS connectivity to a high-end oven, steam oven and dishwasher, with Android and more appliances to follow next year. / Read Editors' take
Showing posts with label Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Series. Show all posts
IFA 2014: Toshiba's U Series Ultra HD 4K TV gets a showing at IFA 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Toshiba's U Series Ultra HD 4K TV Toshiba is showing off its next generation Ultra HD 4K TV at IFA 2014, with the U series aiming to convince us that it's time to upgrade from our tired old Full HD television.
Although Tosh is at pains to point out this is only a prototype, the company will launch the U series in 2015.
According to Toshiba, the television showcases significant new features, including an improved MediaGuide replay, CEVO Picture and HEVC support.
There's also a brand new design - which inevitably gets described as premium and slim.
Don't expect any more detail on launch date or the all-important price, but we doubt this is going to be competing with the budget brands in our local outlets when it does arrive next year.
IFA 2014: Acer lifts lid on convertible Aspire R 13 and R 14 Series Windows 8.1 laptops
Saturday, September 6, 2014
The Aspire R13: flexible in all the right places Acer has used the IFA 2014 expo in Berlin to unveil a pair of convertible Windows 8.1 laptops toting more positions than a Yoga manual.
First up, the Aspire Aspire R 13 features a 13.3-inch, Gorilla Glass 3-equipped display that rests on what Acer calls an Ezel Aero Hinge, which allows it to rotate 180 degrees and into six different positions.
We've seen similar hinges before on Acer products, including the Star Trek-like Aspire R7. You'll be able to choose between a full-HD (1920 x 1080) or HD (1366 x 768) display, along with a choice of Intel Core i5 or i7 processors for maximum grunt.
Other specs include up to a 1TB SSD with RAID-0 support backed up by 8GB of RAM, and an optional Active Stylus Pen with palm rejection for doodling and capturing screen content. It measures 25.4mm thick and weighs just over 3lbs.
The Apsire R 13 Series launches in the US in October starting $899 (around £546, or AUS$967), heading to European shores in November starting at €899.
Continuing the theme of flexible hinges, the new Aspire R 14 features a 360-degree dual-torque hinge design that allows it to transform into four different modes.
Like the Aspire R 13, it'll be available with a choice of Intel Core processors (i3, i5 or i7), up to 12GB of RAM and integrated NVidia GeForce 820M graphics, which is bound to capture the attention of gamers looking to frag on the move.
The Aspire R 14 comes with a HD display (1366 x 768) that features Zero Air gap technology, and once again it's available with an Active Stylus Pen.
The Aspire R 14 Series is due to reach US shores in October starting $599 (around £364, or AUS$644), and will land in Europe in mid-October, starting €499 (around US$656, £398, AUS$704).
Intel 730 Series SSD (SSDSC2BP480G4R5) (480GB)
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Pros Robust enough for professional workstations. Offers Intel's data center reliability and performance in a consumer drive. Healthy 5-year warranty.Cons Expensive. Overclocked configuration doesn't offer clear performance benefit. Bottom Line Intel's reputation for high-quality storage makes the Intel 730 Series SSD enterprise solid-state drive a good choice for professionals who can afford it.By Joel Hruska 
It has been a few years since Intel launched a new suite of solid-state drives (SSDs) in the enthusiast market, but the $449 480GB Intel 730 Series SSD (SSDSC2BP480G4R5) is designed to mark Intel's return with a vengeance. The new SSD leverages the same controllers and NAND hardware that Intel uses for its top-end server parts, with an excellent combination of performance and reliability for professional SSDs.
The 480GB version of the Intel 730 Series contains 1GB of DDR3-1600 and an unusually large pool of storage—528GB rather than the 512GB we'd typically expect. This additional storage is used for overprovisioning, i.e., having additional NAND flash on board that's reserved as replacement memory in case part of the original pool goes bad. All SSDs offer some degree of overprovisioning, but the 730 Series gives a bit more buffer room than most. Like the Crucial m500 (960GB) that we reviewed recently, the Intel 730 Series uses an internal parity scheme to ensure that a NAND failure doesn't completely wipe data off the drive.
All these features are in line with the drive's data center roots, and they're backed up by the number of drive writes per day. Intel estimates that the 730 Series can write a massive 70GB per day, every day, for five years. That works out to 125TB of data. How much is that in practical terms? If you're a gamer or you work with high-definition video, imagine downloading the equivalent of four to five modern games or transferring several hours of high-quality 1080p video back and forth across the drive, every single day, for five years straight. In short, unless your job requires you to work with an extraordinary amount of data copying, you're well-covered here.
Performance
We tested the Intel 730 Series in both single-drive and RAID Level 0 configurations. Intel emphasizes that the drives are intended to be used in high-end professional rigs, so we included those results. RAID Level 0 is a type of storage configuration in which data is striped across two drives at the same time. This lets the computer read from two drives simultaneously and theoretically doubles overall performance.
The Intel 730 Series was tested with an Intel Core i7-4770K processor in a Gigabyte Z87X-D3H motherboard with Windows 7 installed and all relevant patches and updates applied. We've made one change to our normal reporting—in this instance, we're reporting the raw storage performance scores for PCMark 7. Normally, PCMark 7's raw score closely tracks the final score. The difference between the two is that the final score inserts pauses and idle times to simulate user action.
This doesn't matter much if the raw score is 5,500 or less, but it compresses performance as we test higher-end storage solutions. The SanDisk Extreme II 480GB garnered a raw 5,776 and a final 5,373, while the Intel 730 Series in RAID Level 0 scored a 9,847 raw and a 5,576 final. In other words, the gap between the scores is different because PCMark 7's weighted algorithms distort (in certain cases) how various solutions compare against each other.
While we agree that incorporating pauses may help create a more realistic simulation of use, in this case, the impact of such pauses isn't showing the benefits of moving to RAID Level 0. If you're primarily concerned with response time and light workloads, there are no benefits to having a RAID Level 0 configuration compared with a single SSD. The benefits of RAID Level 0 appear in heavy read/write workloads—which is precisely what the raw rate measures more accurately.
We've compared the 730 Series against a larger set of drives than we typically use—the budget-priced (but incredibly fast) Samsung 840 EVO (500GB), the SanDisk Extreme II 480GB, and the high-end enterprise drive, the Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB). The Intel 730 Series most directly competes against the Toshiba HK3R family—but as we'll see, that's not just a question of performance.
What our performance figures show, however, is that while the 730 Series in a RAID Level 0 configuration was much faster than any of the single drives, the 730 Series alone wasn't particularly faster than either the Samsung 840 EVO or the SanDisk Extreme II 480GB. Its performance on our tests tended to match that of the SanDisk SSD overall, but fell back from the Samsung 840 EVO, thanks in no small part to the Samsung drive's use of a small slice of single-layer-cell (SLC) NAND to boost performance. Notably, however, it was also much slower than the Toshiba HK3R, which had a raw score even faster than the Samsung 840 EVO's (7,464).
The Intel 730 Series offers top-tier performance, but at a price some users may not be willing to pay. Ultimately, we're seeing drives divide into two different camps, with some manufacturers pushing ultra-low-cost SSDs with minimum price-per-gigabyte, and other drives holding steady close to the $1-per-gigabyte mark. Intel's drives have never been particularly cheap, and that's still the case here; the Intel 730 Series SSD has a list price of $449 for 480GB of storage. That's significantly more expensive than the Samsung 840 EVO, which costs $259, though it roughly matches the SanDisk Extreme II 480GB's price of $441. It's also much cheaper than the Toshiba, which offers the highest overall single drive performance, but at a price of $648.
Is the Intel 730 Series drive worth the extra money? That's going to depend on how you perceive Intel's reliability record compared with that of other manufacturers. There's some indication that Intel does build its drives to higher tolerances than other companies; an extensive survey of how various drives handled unexpected power failure found that only Intel's SSDs followed best practices for data preservation and successfully recovered from a power drop-out in mid-write.
If you're considering building a professional video editing rig and want to use the SSD in a matched set for RAID Level 0, the Intel 730 Series SSD may be a good option. The extra reliability and a long 5-year warranty fare positives when using RAID Level 0, since that configuration is more prone to data loss in the event of a single drive failure. Part of what our results show is that the major difference between SSDs isn't always in their performance, but in their reliability, redundancy, and life span. Intel's 730 family isn't quite as fast as Toshiba's HK3R series, which is why the Toshiba drive remains our top choice for a professional SSD—but the Intel 730 has the same type of capacitors to protect drive data as the Toshiba SSD, and it's backed up by Intel's data center pedigree. Drives like the Samsung 840 EVO and the SanDisk Extreme II are just as fast, but not necessarily robust enough for professional workstations.
Dell Latitude 13 Education Series (3340)
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Pros Rugged construction. Designed for school use. Full set of ports. Touch screen. Removable battery. Status light on top of lid. 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Anti-glare screen.Cons Basic 1,366-by-768 resolution. SSD and hybrid drive systems boot faster. Bottom Line The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series is a tough desktop-replacement laptop with a battery that lasts 10 hours. It should be on the top of your shopping list for the upcoming back-to-school season.
By Joel Santo Domingo
By Joel Santo Domingo The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series (3340) ($769 as tested) is an excellent choice for the K-12 student in your life, and would make an excellent general-use PC for anyone who tends to be a bit rough on his or her equipment. Adding to its appeal is the fact that the Latitude 13 Education offers 10 hours of battery life and a 10-point touch screen. As our new Editors' Choice for entry-level desktop-replacement laptops, it should be on your short list for back-to-school shopping this summer.
Design and Features
The laptop measures 1.4 by 13 by 10 inches (HWD). A rubberized coating around the screen and bottom lid protects the system from the scrapes and dings that students can dish out. The coating also helps you grip the case when rushing from class, to the library, and back home. The chiclet-style keyboard and touchpad are fully sealed against accidental spills. Corning Gorilla Glass NBT covers the 13.3-inch 1,366-by-768 resolution touch screen, protecting the LCD panel from scratches and impacts.
Our review unit has a touch screen and Windows 8, but is only available in black. There is also a non-touch-screen version available with Windows 7, and that can be ordered with red or blue borders around the standard black body. The system weighs 4.28 pounds, which is imperceptibly lighter than our Editors' Choice for small business laptops, the 4.44-pound Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 and within a hair of our Editors' Choice for entry-level ultrabooks, the 4.2 pound Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch.
The LCD screen has an anti-glare coating to increase readability in bright classrooms or outdoors. Its 1,366-by-768 resolution display is much tighter than more expensive systems with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution (1080p HD), but still adequate. In any case, students are unlikely to be working on multi-page spreadsheets or professional-grade photo editing, where a 1080p HD screen would start to make more sense. Since these systems are designed for classroom use, an innovative network status light on the top of the lid lets teachers and parents know if the system is using the 802.11ac Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
The Latitude 13 Education Series has a robust, forward-looking set of I/O ports, including a Gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort, an SD card reader, a security lock port, and two USB 3.0 ports. This is an improvement over our previous Editors' Choice for entry-level desktop replacements, the Dell Inspiron 14R-5437, which lacks mini DisplayPort and has a USB 2.0 port instead of a second USB 3.0 port.
The system we tested has an Intel Core i3-4005U processor, 4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, and Windows 8 Pro. Other configurations on Dell's website come with options for Intel Celeron and Core i5 processors. Schools have a wider choice of options, like mobile broadband and solid-state drives, but those are off the table for parents just buying one laptop. Thanks to the Latitude 13's educational focus, there is no bloatware or preloaded software, aside from Windows 8.1. The system comes with a one-year warranty that can be extended up to five years for $350.
Performance
The Latitude 13 Education scored a very good 1,967 points on the PCMark 8 Creative Accelerated test, which strenuously tests the system on everyday tasks, including navigating the Web, multimedia editing, light gaming, and office tasks. This is better than the 1,009 points scored by the Acer Aspire E1-510P-2671 with its Intel Celeron N2920 processor, and was competitive with the Dell Venue Pro 11 (7139) tablet (1,931 points) with its Intel Core i5-4300Y processor. The Latitude 13 Education bumped into its limits on the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test, taking a leisurely 11 minutes, ten seconds to complete the 11-step test. The Dell Inspiron 14R-5437 was a smidge quicker, but the Lenovo U430 Touch (6:13) and Lenovo Edge E431 (5:38) took almost half the time, showing that their Core i5 processors are better suited for heavier workloads and multimedia tasks.
This is an all-day laptop, lasting an excellent 10 hours 17 minutes on our battery rundown test. The Dell 14R-5437 was closest at just under 10 hours (9:46). To add to the appeal, the Latitude 13 Education has a removable 65-watt battery, which can be replaced when it stops holding a charge. This is a nice alternative to the sealed ultrabooks like the IdeaPad U430 Touch.
The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series should certainly be on your short list when shopping for a moderately priced laptop for your K-12 student. Other systems may have faster processors or more memory, but the Latitude 13 Education has a ten-hour battery life and is designed to be a durable companion for the next few years (and then some). It's our new Editors' Choice for entry-level desktop replacement laptops.
Dell Latitude 13 Education Series (3340)
Friday, July 11, 2014
Pros Rugged construction. Designed for school use. Full set of ports. Touch screen. Removable battery. Status light on top of lid. 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Anti-glare screen.Cons Basic 1,366-by-768 resolution. SSD and hybrid drive systems boot faster. Bottom Line The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series is a tough desktop-replacement laptop with a battery that lasts 10 hours. It should be on the top of your shopping list for the upcoming back-to-school season. By Joel Santo Domingo
By Joel Santo Domingo The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series (3340) ($769 as tested) is an excellent choice for the K-12 student in your life, and would make an excellent general-use PC for anyone who tends to be a bit rough on his or her equipment. Adding to its appeal is the fact that the Latitude 13 Education offers 10 hours of battery life and a 10-point touch screen. As our new Editors' Choice for entry-level desktop-replacement laptops, it should be on your short list for back-to-school shopping this summer.
Design and Features
The laptop measures 1.4 by 13 by 10 inches (HWD). A rubberized coating around the screen and bottom lid protects the system from the scrapes and dings that students can dish out. The coating also helps you grip the case when rushing from class, to the library, and back home. The chiclet-style keyboard and touchpad are fully sealed against accidental spills. Corning Gorilla Glass NBT covers the 13.3-inch 1,366-by-768 resolution touch screen, protecting the LCD panel from scratches and impacts.
Our review unit has a touch screen and Windows 8, but is only available in black. There is also a non-touch-screen version available with Windows 7, and that can be ordered with red or blue borders around the standard black body. The system weighs 4.28 pounds, which is imperceptibly lighter than our Editors' Choice for small business laptops, the 4.44-pound Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 and within a hair of our Editors' Choice for entry-level ultrabooks, the 4.2 pound Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch.
The LCD screen has an anti-glare coating to increase readability in bright classrooms or outdoors. Its 1,366-by-768 resolution display is much tighter than more expensive systems with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution (1080p HD), but still adequate. In any case, students are unlikely to be working on multi-page spreadsheets or professional-grade photo editing, where a 1080p HD screen would start to make more sense. Since these systems are designed for classroom use, an innovative network status light on the top of the lid lets teachers and parents know if the system is using the 802.11ac Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
The Latitude 13 Education Series has a robust, forward-looking set of I/O ports, including a Gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort, an SD card reader, a security lock port, and two USB 3.0 ports. This is an improvement over our previous Editors' Choice for entry-level desktop replacements, the Dell Inspiron 14R-5437, which lacks mini DisplayPort and has a USB 2.0 port instead of a second USB 3.0 port.
The system we tested has an Intel Core i3-4005U processor, 4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, and Windows 8 Pro. Other configurations on Dell's website come with options for Intel Celeron and Core i5 processors. Schools have a wider choice of options, like mobile broadband and solid-state drives, but those are off the table for parents just buying one laptop. Thanks to the Latitude 13's educational focus, there is no bloatware or preloaded software, aside from Windows 8.1. The system comes with a one-year warranty that can be extended up to five years for $350.
Performance The Latitude 13 Education scored a very good 1,967 points on the PCMark 8 Creative Accelerated test, which strenuously tests the system on everyday tasks, including navigating the Web, multimedia editing, light gaming, and office tasks. This is better than the 1,009 points scored by the Acer Aspire E1-510P-2671 with its Intel Celeron N2920 processor, and was competitive with the Dell Venue Pro 11 (7139) tablet (1,931 points) with its Intel Core i5-4300Y processor. The Latitude 13 Education bumped into its limits on the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test, taking a leisurely 11 minutes, ten seconds to complete the 11-step test. The Dell Inspiron 14R-5437 was a smidge quicker, but the Lenovo U430 Touch (6:13) and Lenovo Edge E431 (5:38) took almost half the time, showing that their Core i5 processors are better suited for heavier workloads and multimedia tasks.
This is an all-day laptop, lasting an excellent 10 hours 17 minutes on our battery rundown test. The Dell 14R-5437 was closest at just under 10 hours (9:46). To add to the appeal, the Latitude 13 Education has a removable 65-watt battery, which can be replaced when it stops holding a charge. This is a nice alternative to the sealed ultrabooks like the IdeaPad U430 Touch.
The Dell Latitude 13 Education Series should certainly be on your short list when shopping for a moderately priced laptop for your K-12 student. Other systems may have faster processors or more memory, but the Latitude 13 Education has a ten-hour battery life and is designed to be a durable companion for the next few years (and then some). It's our new Editors' Choice for entry-level desktop replacement laptops.
Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB)
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Pros Best performance we've seen from an enterprise-level solid-state drive (SSD). Comprehensive protection of data from power failure.Cons Expensive. Less over-provisioning than some other enterprise SSDs. Bottom Line The Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB) is a high-end solid-state drive (SSD) with a focus on enterprise. It doesn't skimp on performance—or data protection. By Joel Hruska 
By Joel Hruska When Toshiba bought OCZ Technologies earlier this year, it wasted no time rolling out a new set of high-end solid-state drives (SSDs). The new HK3R series of SSDs isn't meant for the average consumer; rather, it's targeted toward the enterprise segment. The Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB) ($648), a SATA SSD, is the fastest enterprise drive we've ever tested—and one with some fascinating data protection mechanisms. The HK3R series includes on-board capacitors and firmware protections designed to ensure data in-flight is never lost, even in the event of power failure. This type of advanced protection, combined with blistering performance, is why the HK3R Series (480GB) has earned our Editors' Choice award for enterprise-class SSDs.
The HK3R Series we reviewed is a 480GB SSD, but it is also available in 120GB and 240GB capacities, priced at $184 and $336, respectively.
One of the significant concerns enterprise users have when using NAND flash storage is whether or not the drives are susceptible to data corruption in the event of power failure. To address that concern, Toshiba has baked two kinds of power protection into the drive—Power Failure Management (PFM) and Power Loss Protection (PLP). PFM describes Toshiba's firmware-level response to power loss, while PLP refers to the additional supercapacitors Toshiba includes inside the drive itself.
If the SSD detects that drive power has dropped below a predefined level, the SSD automatically transfers power draw to the supercapacitors on the SSD itself. While these only have enough power to run the drive for seconds, that's enough time for the drive to copy the data out of the onboard DRAM buffer and safely to the NAND. Meanwhile, the PFM firmware keeps a redundant copy of the page management table (which is essentially where the operating system stores its mappings of virtual addresses to physical addresses) on two physically different NAND chips to ensure it remains in pristine condition. The contents of every data write in progress are retained as well—meaning that if a write fails halfway through due to power loss, the original information is always kept in a backup location on the drive. Previous states can therefore be restored automatically.
Toshiba notes that data that resides in DRAM is always written back to the SSD within two seconds, which means the window for a power failure to impact SSD reliability is smaller than the maximum amount of time the supercapacitors can run the drive.
Performance
The Seagate 600 Pro, we tested last year is the most direct comparison to the Toshiba HK3R Series. Unlike the Seagate drive, which offers a huge pool of additional storage as a buffer against data failure, the Toshiba drive is more modest—Seagate's 400GB SSD actually contains 512GB of NAND flash, while the Toshiba's 480GB drive has 512GB of NAND flash.
The 32GB of NAND over-provisioning on the Toshiba SSD is standard in this class, but if you're worried about drive longevity, the Seagate 600 Pro does have an edge in that area. As NAND wears out, unused blocks from the over-provisioned section are cycled in to replace the dead older blocks. The more replacement NAND a drive carries, the more NAND failures it can tolerate with no degradation of total capacity or performance.
Both drives were tested in Windows 7 with all patches and updates installed. For these enterprise tests, the VDBench enterprise throughput program stands in for our more pedestrian AS-SSD synthetic tests, though we've retained the latter benchmark for testing file-copy speeds. PCMark 7 and PCMark 8 are also used for evaluating storage performance using real-world application traces.
In AS-SSD's file copy tests, the Toshiba HK3R 480GB drive was ahead of its Seagate rival by more than 100MBps in the ISO test, by 93MBps in the Program Files test, and by 10MBps in the Game Files test. These results were mirrored in both PCMark tests, where the Toshiba SSD was 6 percent faster in PCMark 7's storage test and about 1 percent faster in PCMark 8's storage test, though we should note that both PCMark 8 and PCMark 7 have a tendency to compress performance results as a drive's raw data rates increase. That means that the Toshiba SSD will be faster than the Seagate drive in transferring data.
Finally, in VDBench, which we use to test disk read/write performance in enterprise storage scenarios, we saw excellent performance from the HK3R Series (480GB). We tested VDBench with multiple thread settings and queue depths and chose the 4K data size, since that maps directly against the SSD's stated performance characteristics. The Toshiba SSD was fast, blitzing past the Seagate 600 Pro in the sequential reads and writes tests. It was somewhat slower in random single-threaded reads than the Seagate drive, but nearly twice as fast in random writes.
In the 32-thread test, the gap wasn't nearly as large between the two drives, but it was still significant. The Toshiba HK3R was 32 percent faster than the Seagate 600 Pro (363MBps to 273MBps, respectively) in sequential reads, tied for sequential writes (336MBps to 333MBps), and outperformed it by a similar margin in 32-thread sequential reads (363MBps to 272MBps). The Seagate's random-write results with 32 threads were higher than the Toshiba HK3R by 15 percent, but that was a relatively rare win for the Seagate drive on our tests. Overall, the Toshiba HK3R offers superior database performance in both read and write workloads—while it loses a few specific tests to the Seagate, when it beat that drive on our tests, it tended to beat it soundly.
Conclusion
Overall, the Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB) is certainly the best-performing enterprise SSD we've testsed. The Seagate 600 Pro's additional over-provisioning may still be worth investing in if you have an exceptionally heavy write workload in a product like MySQL, but it's generally overmatched in terms of raw performance. Neither of these drives is inexpensive, but the Toshiba SSD offers the best overall value for your dollar. Its strong performance on our benchmark tests, combined with its comprehensive data protection, make it an excellent all-around solution. All this earns the HK3R Series (480GB) our Editors' Choice for high-end SSDs.
Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB)
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Pros Best performance we've seen from an enterprise-level solid-state drive (SSD). Comprehensive protection of data from power failure.Cons Expensive. Less over-provisioning than some other enterprise SSDs. Bottom Line The Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB) is a high-end solid-state drive (SSD) with a focus on enterprise. It doesn't skimp on performance—or data protection. By Joel Hruska
By Joel Hruska When Toshiba bought OCZ Technologies earlier this year, it wasted no time rolling out a new set of high-end solid-state drives (SSDs). The new HK3R series of SSDs isn't meant for the average consumer; rather, it's targeted toward the enterprise segment. The Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB) ($648), a SATA SSD, is the fastest enterprise drive we've ever tested—and one with some fascinating data protection mechanisms. The HK3R series includes on-board capacitors and firmware protections designed to ensure data in-flight is never lost, even in the event of power failure. This type of advanced protection, combined with blistering performance, is why the HK3R Series (480GB) has earned our Editors' Choice award for enterprise-class SSDs.
The HK3R Series we reviewed is a 480GB SSD, but it is also available in 120GB and 240GB capacities, priced at $184 and $336, respectively.
One of the significant concerns enterprise users have when using NAND flash storage is whether or not the drives are susceptible to data corruption in the event of power failure. To address that concern, Toshiba has baked two kinds of power protection into the drive—Power Failure Management (PFM) and Power Loss Protection (PLP). PFM describes Toshiba's firmware-level response to power loss, while PLP refers to the additional supercapacitors Toshiba includes inside the drive itself.
If the SSD detects that drive power has dropped below a predefined level, the SSD automatically transfers power draw to the supercapacitors on the SSD itself. While these only have enough power to run the drive for seconds, that's enough time for the drive to copy the data out of the onboard DRAM buffer and safely to the NAND. Meanwhile, the PFM firmware keeps a redundant copy of the page management table (which is essentially where the operating system stores its mappings of virtual addresses to physical addresses) on two physically different NAND chips to ensure it remains in pristine condition. The contents of every data write in progress are retained as well—meaning that if a write fails halfway through due to power loss, the original information is always kept in a backup location on the drive. Previous states can therefore be restored automatically.
Toshiba notes that data that resides in DRAM is always written back to the SSD within two seconds, which means the window for a power failure to impact SSD reliability is smaller than the maximum amount of time the supercapacitors can run the drive.
Performance
The Seagate 600 Pro, we tested last year is the most direct comparison to the Toshiba HK3R Series. Unlike the Seagate drive, which offers a huge pool of additional storage as a buffer against data failure, the Toshiba drive is more modest—Seagate's 400GB SSD actually contains 512GB of NAND flash, while the Toshiba's 480GB drive has 512GB of NAND flash.
The 32GB of NAND over-provisioning on the Toshiba SSD is standard in this class, but if you're worried about drive longevity, the Seagate 600 Pro does have an edge in that area. As NAND wears out, unused blocks from the over-provisioned section are cycled in to replace the dead older blocks. The more replacement NAND a drive carries, the more NAND failures it can tolerate with no degradation of total capacity or performance.
Both drives were tested in Windows 7 with all patches and updates installed. For these enterprise tests, the VDBench enterprise throughput program stands in for our more pedestrian AS-SSD synthetic tests, though we've retained the latter benchmark for testing file-copy speeds. PCMark 7 and PCMark 8 are also used for evaluating storage performance using real-world application traces.
In AS-SSD's file copy tests, the Toshiba HK3R 480GB drive was ahead of its Seagate rival by more than 100MBps in the ISO test, by 93MBps in the Program Files test, and by 10MBps in the Game Files test. These results were mirrored in both PCMark tests, where the Toshiba SSD was 6 percent faster in PCMark 7's storage test and about 1 percent faster in PCMark 8's storage test, though we should note that both PCMark 8 and PCMark 7 have a tendency to compress performance results as a drive's raw data rates increase. That means that the Toshiba SSD will be faster than the Seagate drive in transferring data.
Finally, in VDBench, which we use to test disk read/write performance in enterprise storage scenarios, we saw excellent performance from the HK3R Series (480GB). We tested VDBench with multiple thread settings and queue depths and chose the 4K data size, since that maps directly against the SSD's stated performance characteristics. The Toshiba SSD was fast, blitzing past the Seagate 600 Pro in the sequential reads and writes tests. It was somewhat slower in random single-threaded reads than the Seagate drive, but nearly twice as fast in random writes.
In the 32-thread test, the gap wasn't nearly as large between the two drives, but it was still significant. The Toshiba HK3R was 32 percent faster than the Seagate 600 Pro (363MBps to 273MBps, respectively) in sequential reads, tied for sequential writes (336MBps to 333MBps), and outperformed it by a similar margin in 32-thread sequential reads (363MBps to 272MBps). The Seagate's random-write results with 32 threads were higher than the Toshiba HK3R by 15 percent, but that was a relatively rare win for the Seagate drive on our tests. Overall, the Toshiba HK3R offers superior database performance in both read and write workloads—while it loses a few specific tests to the Seagate, when it beat that drive on our tests, it tended to beat it soundly.
Conclusion
Overall, the Toshiba HK3R Series (480GB) is certainly the best-performing enterprise SSD we've testsed. The Seagate 600 Pro's additional over-provisioning may still be worth investing in if you have an exceptionally heavy write workload in a product like MySQL, but it's generally overmatched in terms of raw performance. Neither of these drives is inexpensive, but the Toshiba SSD offers the best overall value for your dollar. Its strong performance on our benchmark tests, combined with its comprehensive data protection, make it an excellent all-around solution. All this earns the HK3R Series (480GB) our Editors' Choice for high-end SSDs.
JBL Series 3 LSR305
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Pros Accurate, clean audio performance with powerful output. Adjustable high frequency, low frequency levels. Affordable.Cons No RCA input. Bottom Line The JBL Series 3 LSR305 speakers deliver powerful, accurate audio performance with rich lows and a focus on the high-mid range.By Tim Gideon
JBL presents its Series 3 studio monitors as eminently affordable speakers you can use for serious recording, and they deliver on that promise. They're offered in 5-inch-woofer and 8-inch-woofer versions. We tested the smaller of the two, the LSR305 ($399.98 per pair as tested; $199.99 each). With a powerful output and considerable frame, even the LSR305 might be more muscle than a small room or home studio requires, but they provide detail, clarity, and serious power when needed in a studio. The monitors extend down into the sub-bass realm, but the sound signature's focus, if any, seems to be more on the high-mids despite laudable richness and depth in the lows. They're an appealing, affordable studio pair, though the Editors' Choice KRK Rokit 6 G3 edge them out with a bit more low-end response.
Design
Although we tested the LS305 as a stereo pair, they're all identical and available individually. For the sake of simplicity, we will describe a single speaker in this section. Visually, the Series 3 does little to distinguish itself from the competition in the studio monitor realm: It's nearly uniformly black save for the metallic JBL logo plate at the bottom of the front panel, measures 11.8 by 7.3 by 9.9 inches (HWD), and weighs 10.1 pounds. Aside from a glossy ring around the low-frequency driver, the surface of the speaker is completely matte black. A white LED between the tweeter and woofer indicates that the power is on.
On the rear panel, the LS305 has a port to release air flow and regulate driver movement. Two inputs—one XLR and one 1/4-inch—sit below the port, with the connection for the included power cable below them. There is no RCA input, which is a bit of a bummer but not really a deal-breaker. Several switches sit on the rear panel next to these ports, including the power switch, individual controls for Low Frequency and High Frequency Trim with +/-2dB adjustments, and a recessed Input Sensitivity switch that spans from -10dBv to +4dBu.
The bi-amped, powered LSR305 is slightly smaller than its more expensive sibling the LSR308, with its 5-inch low frequency driver versus the LSR308's 8-inch driver. The 1-inch soft-dome tweeter and the 5-inch woofer both receive 41W of power and combine for a frequency range of 43Hz to 23kHz, according JBL's specs. Each speaker ships with the power cable and four rubber pads for the bottom of the speaker to prevent movement on slippery surfaces.
Performance
We primarily tested the LSR305s with the switches for Low and High Frequency Trim set to neutral, but they can be adjusted to bring a subtle boost or reduction if necessary in your listening space, or if you simply prefer a slightly more bass-heavy or bright mix.
With the switches on zero, the LSR305 still delivers a powerful dose of low-end, as long as that low-end already exists in the mix. On The Knife's "Silent Shout," the sub-bass thump sounds powerful, just as intended. Since the speakers can dig down into the subwoofer realm a bit, they produce plenty of deep bass information, though frequencies above 100Hz get a bit more attention than sub-bass. This means kick drums and baritone vocals both get a nice amount of richness, and sub-bass presence still comes through with synth or percussion.
On Bill Callahan's "Drover," his voice gets a nice baritone richness, but the crispness of its high-mid presence is much more noticeable. Meanwhile, the drums don't compete with vocals for the spotlight, but come through with palpable and accurate thump. On some slightly less bass-capable speakers, that would not necessarily be the case.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop's attack gets the right amount of snap to cut through the dense mix, with less low-end sustain than on bass-boosted consumer-level speakers. The sub-bass synth hits on this track are delivered with a decent amount of sub-bass rumble, but at moderate volumes the high-end raspy presence of these synths hits remain prominent. Increasing the lows with the Trim switch will bring these hits out slightly more, but the increase is subtle and seems more focused on the normal, above-100Hz bass range than on the lower, sub-bass realm.
Compared with the twice-as-expensive Editors' Choice KRK Rokit 6 G3 on these tracks, with both speaker pairs set to neutral, the LS305 seems to be the less rich of the two monitors. Both systems deliver a clear, accurate presentation, but the KRK monitors tend to give Callahan's vocals a bit more low-mid presence and add some oomph to the sub-bass synth hits on the Jay-Z and Kanye West track. The JBL pair tends to highlight more of the high-mid content, but the sound signatures aren't wildly different outside of those two points. The KRK can also be adjusted to 2dB above or below the neutral position in both the highs and lows. These systems are both solid studio tools for music production, but if you tend to want a tiny bit more bass out of your monitors, the KRK Rokit lineup may be the direction to go, while the JBL Series 3 will appeal more to those who prefer more of a focus on high-mid clarity.
The Audioengine 2+ and the Editors' Choice Audioengine 5+ are also worth considering for non-producers; they're not necessarily studio monitors, but they deliver flat, reliable response. However, their sizes vary greatly from the Series 3 and the Rokit 6 G3. The M-Audio BX5 D2 is also a solid studio option, but it lacks dB adjustments on the back. All told, the JBL Series 3 LSR305 is an excellent option for both home and pro studios in a category where it's easy to spend twice as much money or more.
JBL Series 3 LSR305
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Pros Accurate, clean audio performance with powerful output. Adjustable high frequency, low frequency levels. Affordable.Cons No RCA input. Bottom Line The JBL Series 3 LSR305 speakers deliver powerful, accurate audio performance with rich lows and a focus on the high-mid range.By Tim Gideon
JBL presents its Series 3 studio monitors as eminently affordable speakers you can use for serious recording, and they deliver on that promise. They're offered in 5-inch-woofer and 8-inch-woofer versions. We tested the smaller of the two, the LSR305 ($399.98 per pair as tested; $199.99 each). With a powerful output and considerable frame, even the LSR305 might be more muscle than a small room or home studio requires, but they provide detail, clarity, and serious power when needed in a studio. The monitors extend down into the sub-bass realm, but the sound signature's focus, if any, seems to be more on the high-mids despite laudable richness and depth in the lows. They're an appealing, affordable studio pair, though the Editors' Choice KRK Rokit 6 G3 edge them out with a bit more low-end response.
Design
Although we tested the LS305 as a stereo pair, they're all identical and available individually. For the sake of simplicity, we will describe a single speaker in this section. Visually, the Series 3 does little to distinguish itself from the competition in the studio monitor realm: It's nearly uniformly black save for the metallic JBL logo plate at the bottom of the front panel, measures 11.8 by 7.3 by 9.9 inches (HWD), and weighs 10.1 pounds. Aside from a glossy ring around the low-frequency driver, the surface of the speaker is completely matte black. A white LED between the tweeter and woofer indicates that the power is on.
On the rear panel, the LS305 has a port to release air flow and regulate driver movement. Two inputs—one XLR and one 1/4-inch—sit below the port, with the connection for the included power cable below them. There is no RCA input, which is a bit of a bummer but not really a deal-breaker. Several switches sit on the rear panel next to these ports, including the power switch, individual controls for Low Frequency and High Frequency Trim with +/-2dB adjustments, and a recessed Input Sensitivity switch that spans from -10dBv to +4dBu.
The bi-amped, powered LSR305 is slightly smaller than its more expensive sibling the LSR308, with its 5-inch low frequency driver versus the LSR308's 8-inch driver. The 1-inch soft-dome tweeter and the 5-inch woofer both receive 41W of power and combine for a frequency range of 43Hz to 23kHz, according JBL's specs. Each speaker ships with the power cable and four rubber pads for the bottom of the speaker to prevent movement on slippery surfaces.
Performance
We primarily tested the LSR305s with the switches for Low and High Frequency Trim set to neutral, but they can be adjusted to bring a subtle boost or reduction if necessary in your listening space, or if you simply prefer a slightly more bass-heavy or bright mix.
With the switches on zero, the LSR305 still delivers a powerful dose of low-end, as long as that low-end already exists in the mix. On The Knife's "Silent Shout," the sub-bass thump sounds powerful, just as intended. Since the speakers can dig down into the subwoofer realm a bit, they produce plenty of deep bass information, though frequencies above 100Hz get a bit more attention than sub-bass. This means kick drums and baritone vocals both get a nice amount of richness, and sub-bass presence still comes through with synth or percussion.
On Bill Callahan's "Drover," his voice gets a nice baritone richness, but the crispness of its high-mid presence is much more noticeable. Meanwhile, the drums don't compete with vocals for the spotlight, but come through with palpable and accurate thump. On some slightly less bass-capable speakers, that would not necessarily be the case.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop's attack gets the right amount of snap to cut through the dense mix, with less low-end sustain than on bass-boosted consumer-level speakers. The sub-bass synth hits on this track are delivered with a decent amount of sub-bass rumble, but at moderate volumes the high-end raspy presence of these synths hits remain prominent. Increasing the lows with the Trim switch will bring these hits out slightly more, but the increase is subtle and seems more focused on the normal, above-100Hz bass range than on the lower, sub-bass realm.
Compared with the twice-as-expensive Editors' Choice KRK Rokit 6 G3 on these tracks, with both speaker pairs set to neutral, the LS305 seems to be the less rich of the two monitors. Both systems deliver a clear, accurate presentation, but the KRK monitors tend to give Callahan's vocals a bit more low-mid presence and add some oomph to the sub-bass synth hits on the Jay-Z and Kanye West track. The JBL pair tends to highlight more of the high-mid content, but the sound signatures aren't wildly different outside of those two points. The KRK can also be adjusted to 2dB above or below the neutral position in both the highs and lows. These systems are both solid studio tools for music production, but if you tend to want a tiny bit more bass out of your monitors, the KRK Rokit lineup may be the direction to go, while the JBL Series 3 will appeal more to those who prefer more of a focus on high-mid clarity.
The Audioengine 2+ and the Editors' Choice Audioengine 5+ are also worth considering for non-producers; they're not necessarily studio monitors, but they deliver flat, reliable response. However, their sizes vary greatly from the Series 3 and the Rokit 6 G3. The M-Audio BX5 D2 is also a solid studio option, but it lacks dB adjustments on the back. All told, the JBL Series 3 LSR305 is an excellent option for both home and pro studios in a category where it's easy to spend twice as much money or more.
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