It's no mystery that when building a performance PC, no matter how fast you build it, one of your biggest bottlenecks of the system will be your HD. Even if you plan on using SCSI or RAID, your system will eventually be waiting on your HD to finish it's task before it can move on to the next. Today we'd like to introduce a fairly new and innovative product that will simply make HD access times, write and read times obsolete. What we're talking about is the CENATEK Rocket Drive Solid State Disk. Utilizing a card that resides on your PCI Bus, running PC133 memory, this thing is absolutely smokin' fast. But just how much faster than a conventional HD setup is it you might ask? That's what we are here to find out today.
Introduction It's no mystery that when building a performance PC, no matter how fast you build it, one of your biggest bottlenecks of the system will be your HD. Even if you plan on using SCSI or RAID, your system will eventually be waiting on your HD to finish it's task before it can move on to the next. Today we'd like to introduce a fairly new and innovative product that will simply make HD access times, write and read times obsolete. What we're talking about is the CENATEK Rocket Drive Solid State Disk. Utilizing a card that resides on your PCI Bus, running PC133 memory, this thing is absolutely smokin' fast. But just how much faster than a conventional HD setup is it you might ask? That's what we are here to find out today.
Overview
Interestingly enough, the CENATEK™ Rocket Drive was announced back in July of 2001 as an affordable High Speed Storage solution. "Cenatek's premier product, the Rocket Drive™ SSD, delivers performance of up to one million transactions per second to achieve the fastest data-access speeds of any storage device available. Like other SSDs, Rocket Drive functions as a hard drive but stores data using memory chips rather than magnetic media. However, the Cenatek product is vastly different from conventional SSDs that attach to the host computer via channel technologies such as SCSI and high-speed fibre. Instead, Rocket Drive attaches directly to the system s PCI bus, utilizing standard Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM) to reduce costs and significantly improve data transfer rates."
This drive is simply intriguing to PC Enthusiasts for many reasons. First, it uses PC133 SDRAM that can be obtained rather cheaply and easily (check HERE for memory compatibility chart). Second, imagine having a few of your favorite or most used programs loaded on the Rocket Drive and seeing a drastic decrease in load times and obvious increases in performance anytime storage access comes into play. The drive is as simple of an item as you may suspect. Simply a PCI card with 4 sticks of SDRAM installed. However, unexpectedly, the drive requires an outside A/C power source. And unfortunately if the Rocket Drive ever loses power, any programs you had previously loaded on the drive will either be lost, or corrupted. My first instinct was to simply attach the rocket drive to a UPS and as suspected, Cenatek also recommends this when using the card in your PC. While this may not be a major drawback when the Rocket Drive is targeted towards the small business, workstation or server market, many gamers and PC builders out there simply do not have a UPS and cannot afford to purchase one. But bear in mind, if you plan on getting a Rocket Drive, you'll definitely want to have an uninterruptible power source for which to plug it into.
The unit arrived in great shape and the box was really well packed so as to eliminate any possibility of damage during transport.
The card was packed neatly in grey foam and anti-static bag. Underneath was the instruction manual, A/C power adaptor and drivers. Lets take a look at the full unit specs before we take the Rocket Drive out of the box for the full once-over.
Specifications
PERFORMANCE SPECS
Access time:
0.6µs
I/Os per second:
100,000*
Compliance:
PCI 2.2 full
Capacity:
4 GB
Burst data rate:
132 MB/s
Sustained data rate:
80 to 100 MB/s
Reliability
MTBF: 1 million hours
Durability: Resistant to shock and vibration; operates in environments of up to 136 degrees Fahrenheit.
Customization
Scalability: Capacity from 512 MB to 4 GB
Compatibility*: The Rocket Drive
TM supports the following operating systems:
Microsoft® Windows® 2000, XP and NT 4.
Red Hat Linux® 7.3
Free BSD®
Solaris® 8/UltraSPARC II
*Under Development: MAC® OS X;
HP-UX®; AIX®; MS-DOS®; and Microsoft
Windows 98, Millennium Edition
POWER
Power: <20W
Board voltages: +2.5 VDC
+3.3 VDC
+5 VDC
+12 VDC
PHYSICAL
Physical dimensions: .9" W x 3.9" H
x 7 D
Weight: < 1 lb
Ambient operating
temperature: 0
°C - 60°C
Humidity 0% - 90% RH
DIMM CONFIGURATIONS
The Rocket Drive is a fully scalable storage device
offered in a variety of Synchronous Dynamic
Random Access Memory (SDRAM) configurations
ranging from 512 MB to 4 GB.
CABLES
External power supply A/C power cable
DISK
A disk is included and contains:
O/S Drivers Installation Notes Documentation
Here are also a few key features listed on the Cenatek Website.
Beyond an innovative PCI bus-attached design and affordable pricing, Rocket Drive also offers the following key features:
Scalability: Rocket Drive is available in several configurations to meet the varying needs of Cenatek’s customers. Memory configurations start at 512 MB and go up to 4 GB, with plans to expand to 8 GB.
High-Speed Data Transfer: Rocket Drive’s data transfer rates reach up to 132 MB per second (burst rate) and 80 MB to 115 MB per second (sustained rate), depending on the system’s load. These rates represent speeds that are two-to-five times faster than conventional SSDs and thousands of times faster than standard hard disk drives.
Ease of Use: Rocket Drive’s board-level, plug-and-play design automates installation into a company’s desktops and servers. Installing a Rocket Drive takes less than five minutes and requires no special software.
Ok, now that we have the specifics covered, lets move over to page 2 and see what this card really looks like.
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