An interesting thing about NAND Flash SSD (Solid State Drive) technologies, beyond the fact that the market is flush with competitive product offerings, is that the technology itself is very flexible and adaptable to a number of different design approaches, other just the straight-forward SATA-based SSDs. Take for example the RAID 4-pack configuration we setup here with Intel’s X25-M SSD or perhaps the omnipotent Fusion-io ioDrive. Granted, these are rather high-end, pricey setups, but you get the gist that solid state storage arena is just getting warmed up.

In a sort of hybrid version of Fusion-io’s product and our little RAID 4-pack array we setup for testing, memory solutions manufacturer OCZ Technology has introduced an almost fully integrated solution of their SATA-based SSD technology, along with a third party RAID controller, all wrapped up clean and tidy on a standard plug and play (no longer pray) PCI Express X8 adapter card. Dubbed the Z-Drive, we first got a look at this wild-eyed beast back in May. It wasn’t quite ready for prime time back then and it re-emerged again in early September with specs that admittedly caused a pavlovian response of our salivary glands.

Today, we get to satiate ourselves with a deep dive look at the new OCZ Z-Drive, in a tasty 256GB variant that drops in at an almost reasonable $899 price point that is on near cost parity with a standard mid-range SSD. This is a very different approach to SSD technology, one that occupies a PCI Express slot instead of a SATA port. First we’ll dig into what makes it tick and then we’ll see how it ticks through our benchmark time trials.

There are a few notables to take away from the spec list here that tip us off to the fact that we’re on to something unique. First, the Z-Drive has a “hardware” RAID controller on board, namely the LSI SAS1068E 8-port SATA/SAS controller. In fact, the underlying main card is a Supermicro AOC-USAS-L4I controller with 256MB of on-board cache. As you’ll see on the forthcoming page, the card has been heavily modified, however, and the SAS port on the front plate of the card has been removed. The card requires a PCI Express X8 slot, which means it has more than enough bandwidth to handle the task at hand. Finally, the 256GB model we tested was factory set to a RAID 0 mode configuration in the LSI BIOS with a 4x64GB OCZ Vertex style SSD setup. More details on these specific components, next…

article from NowPublic

Whoever came up with the Verizon Droid ads should get a raise. The internet has been abuzz with interest about the new Motorola Droid phone, in large part because of the Droid Do ads that have aired during this weekend’s baseball playoff and NFL games.

The 30-second Droid Does commercial is seen as a direct shot at Apple and the iPhone. The ad talks about all the thing that the iPhone doesn’t have and that the new Droid presumably will have. For instance, it says “iDont have a real keyboard, “iDont’ have the ability to run simultaneous apps, iDont have a camera that takes 5-megapixel photos, etc.

The Motorola iDont ads seem to have created a lot of hype around the new Droid phone. Customers, however, will have to wait until November to get their hands on one.

CanalPlus.fr has posted a new Iron Man 2 behind-the-scenes video featuring footage and interviews with director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. You can watch the video using the player below! Iron Man 2 hits theaters on May 7, 2010.

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting an interesting rumor that Jackie Earle Haley, who played Rorschach Watchmen and stars as Freddy Krueger in the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street, is the front runner to play Green Lantern villain Sinestro.

Not only that, but the site says that Superman may make a cameo appearance as well!

In case you’re not familiar with the character, you can read all about Sinestro here.

Green Lantern, to be directed by Martin Campbell and starring Ryan Reynolds, is targeting a June 17, 2011 release date.

i have a confession which you may or may not be ready for…but you’ll just have to deal with it:

Halloween is one of my least favorite holidays.

i know i know, i can already hear the gasps and feel the sense of disappointment furrowing in your brow. but hear me out…

now, i didn’t say that i hated Halloween. in fact, i love this time of year: i love carving pumpkins, i love trick-or-treaters (the real kind…you know, kids dressed up cute? remember those?), i love all things spooky and scary like slasher movies and haunted houses and the like.

i also love fun-size candy bars, which, c’mon…that’s what Halloween is really about, right?

but, i don’t dress up. or should i say i absolutely loathe dressing up. i’ve only been forced to do it a few times in my life and i’m glad to say that those peer pressure days are long gone. and to be quite honest, i don’t like it when you dress up either.

i will, however, give props to those whom try. i think it’s admirable – the amount of ambition, money, and time you dedicate toward finding the perfect costume. sort of. i’d rather put my money toward clothing items i’d wear more than once a year, but that’s just me. but again, “some of you” do really spectacular things that are amazing and include elaborate makeup and get-ups that have so much detail i don’t know if it’s halloween or if i fell into that same damn hole alice did, making wonderland my new playground. hi everybody! that cat is pretty!

and just for the record, just because i don’t like to dress up doesn’t mean that i’m not fun. i’m not a party pooper. i’m not a dud. any of you who actually know me know that i can be the life of a party. I’m a great conversationalist, I’ve never met anyone that didn’t like me (give or take a few extreme, isolated incidents), and i know how to work a room. so don’t prejudge me as a Debbie downer. I’m actually a fun franny.

but, back to my point, Halloween is ruined for me on a few levels:

1) girls
2) gays
3) bars

first, girls. they single-handedly ruined Halloween. Halloween is no longer about dressing up as a ghost or a vampire. thanks to the female species, it’s about naughty nurses and stripper cops. its about showing as much tna as humanly possible and getting screwed at the end of the night because of it.

second, gays. you’re in the same exact boat. it’s no longer about being he-man or a power ranger. it’s about being the half-naked operation guy or perhaps Michael Phelps in all his speedo glory. it’s about look at these abs, i’ve been starving for weeks to get’em! somebody, anybody, look at me!

you peeps ruined it. i want to go on a hayrack ride, not see how much vodka you can consume in your trojan costume that, correct me if I’m wrong, if that’s all the protective clothing actual Trojan fighters wore back when…um, you’d have a spear through your sixpack in nanoseconds. i.e. skin exposure was the enemy. history is frowning.

long story short: yes, not all of you girls fall into this category and yes, not all of you gays fall into this category either–i know that, delete that nasty email you were about to send to me. this is just my interpretation of why i don’t enjoy Halloween.

I’m the kind of guy that likes to stay home, chill, watch the original Halloween movie while keeping tally of the body count, get creeped out by all of the spooky spiderwebs i hung everywhere, and last but certainly not least, somehow force myself to stay away from the fun-sized snickers because, you know, it’s for the trick-or-treaters. how sad will they be when all i have left is butterscotches and peppermints? they want bars! but i want bars, too. and i only eat the fun-size bars because they’re healthier, right? eating just one wouldn’t hurt anything. until one turns into 17.

zoops.

anyway, i get it. you’re crazy about Halloween. it’s your most favorite day of the year because wooo! party!

3) bars. everyone goes to the bars for Halloween. where else would you be? my two main categories, the girls and the gays, go there to show some tail, get some tail, and hopefully have their tail still attached to their costume by the end of the night. you can’t get a drink from the bar because surely a girl or more likely a gay has wings on that take up a good five feet. i need a scotch! and you sir need some scotch tape because, last time i checked, tinkerbell was a girl and by the look of things…you, in fact, are not.

ugh, i couldn’t be farther away from all that hub-bub. in fact, i’ll be in galva for Halloween…the furthest place from fun, possible. instead, i’ll get to take pictures of my nephews and niece dressed up in actual costumes, i’ll get to carve a pumpkin bc god knows my parents aren’t going to (i’m also the one who has to both put up and decorate the christmas tree, otherwise it’d never go up. and if anyone else in my family attempted to do it, the tree just wouldn’t look right and i’d have to ultimately re-do it anyway), and i get the joy of rationing out candy to all those cute trick-or-treaters who come to the front door with their winter coats on over their costumes because the Midwest is a big, fucking stick in the mud when it comes to having decent weather. oh, you’re supposed to be Spider-Man? you look like an oversized columbia coat.

happy Halloween everybody.

Article by: Ryan Sumner

The Ryan Sumner