Samsung Flash SSD (32GB)

Verdict: Fast and silent, the ideal storage device

Samsung is one of the largest DRAM and flash memory manufacturers in the world, but it's taken a long time for the company to get its own branded flash drive out of the door.

The Flash SSD is the end result, and it's available in capacities of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. We tested the latter model. As it's a 2.5in EIDE drive, the Flash SSD should work in any EIDE laptop, although you'll need to buy a 44 to 40-pin EIDE adaptor for around £10 if you wish to use it in a desktop PC. Like most flash drives, the Flash SSD doesn't have any buffer memory, so data is read from and written directly to the NAND flash memory.

The Flash SSD was very fast for a flash drive, with a read STR of 50MB/sec and a write STR of 27.3MB/sec. It's also extremely quick at loading games, taking just 34 seconds to load Far Cry and 31 seconds to load Silent Hunter 4 - which is considerably quicker than the fastest hard disk, the Raptor X. However, like all flash drives, the Flash SSD suffers from poor writing speeds, as demonstrated by its mediocre score of 0.97 in Paint Shop Pro. In contrast, the Seagate Momentus 7200.1, a 7,200rpm 2.5in hard disk, scored 1.44 in the same test system. However, the Flash SSD is still nearly twice as quick as any other flash drive, bar the Enterprise-class ZeusIOPS.

Not only is the Flash SSD one of the largest-capacity SSDs in production right now, it's also incredibly fast at reading data - so much so that it makes a mockery out of even the most advanced mechanical hard drives.

Considering that it's silent, consumes far less power and is more robust than any hard drive, the Flash SSD is a definite must-have upgrade for any laptop. It's also worth considering for hardcore gamers who want the fastest-possible loading times from their desktop PC.