The need for throughput speed has brought us to the next paradigm shift in data access: the Solid State Drive, or SSD. If you're any type of PC enthusiast then you know that SSDs use fast NAND flash chips to store and retrieve data, which have significantly higher throughput rates and lower access times than even the fastest of magnetic hard drives. These drives are starting to become cheap enough that they're within reach of the average consumer, and every computing enthusiast should have at least one.

The competition has become very fierce in the SSD market, and Corsair (known for their outstanding computer memory products), has introduced their Force Series of Solid State Drives. These drives use fast Intel flash memory, and the highly-praised SandForce controller chip to delegate the digital bits. Corsair sent over a pair of their F40 drives, which have a capacity of 40 Gigabytes each for us to put through the test lab.