Corsair Memory, a leading producer of premium PC components, has introduced a new family of solid-state drives designed specifically for caching and operating just like Intel Corp.'s Rapid Storage technology. Corsair promises up to five times speeds up compared to regular hard disk drives and more or less affordable pricing.

Corsair Accelerator solid-state drives will be available in 30GB, 45GB and 60GB versions. The drives offer maximum sequential read speed of up to  280MB/s and max sequential write speed of up to 270MB/s. The Accelerator family SSDs come with intelligent caching software, developed for Corsair by Nvelo, which automatically learns which files and programs are accessed the most and optimizes system performance by caching these to the Accelerator SSD. The software learns as it goes and the caching gets more efficient eventually. No drive mapping, no reinstallation of the operating system or applications, no need for a new mainboard and no complex file management is needed: the Accelerator SSD cache drives work in tandem with the customer's existing hard drive to provide optimized performance.

"Our new Accelerator Series SSD cache drives have compelling price points and provide one of the most economical solutions for a quick system performance boost that doesn't require manual drive reconfiguration. It's ideal for consumers and enthusiasts who'd like to improve their PC's speed without investing the time and cost into a complete PC upgrade. There's no complex configuration involved, and their PC will work as it always has — just a lot quicker, said Thi La, vice president of Memory Products at Corsair.

According to Corsair's performance tests, Accelerator 60GB SSD can speed up Windows boot time by 5-7 times, increase PCMark Vantage storage score by 5 times, reduce time needed to start Photoshop CS5.5 by three times and double the scores in ATTO disk benchmark.

Corsair Accelerator family of solid-state cache drives are backed by a three-year warranty and are expected to be available in February from Corsair's worldwide network of authorized retailers and distributors at a U.S, suggested retail price of $99 for the 60GB model, $84 for the 45GB model, and $69 for the 30GB model.

Tags: Corsair, Accelerator, SSD, Nvelo