RunCore Pro V Max 120GB SATA III SSD Review

RunCore Gets In On The SF-2281 SATA III Action

RunCore is not one of the companies that immediately comes to mind when thinking of SSD manufacturers but they have been churning out drives since 2007. We’ve even featured the SATA II version of the Pro V awhile back. The SF-1200 controlled, SATA II drive proved to be a good performer although at the time the pricing was a little above the competition. Back to present day, the Pro V line has been upgraded to the newest SandForce SF-2281 controller and along with that, the interface has been upped to 6Gbps SATA III. They sent us over the Pro V Max 120GB version for evaluation so we’ll get started by telling a little bit about it.

One of the reasons the RunCore name doesn’t come up a lot is their products aren’t carried by many of the mainstream retailers. RunCore lists the MSRP of the 120GB drive as $229. Searching a few of the retailers they list on their site, the lowest current pricing we found online for the 120GB version is $199. There are also capacities available of 60GB, 240GB, and 480GB at MSRPs of $129, $429 and $899 respectively which should cover just about everyone in terms of capacity needs.

Pro V Max Model	Capacity	Price (MSRP)
RCP-V-T2560-MCS	60GB	$129
RCP-V-T251B-MCS	120GB	$229
RCP-V-T2524-MCS	240GB	$429
RCP-V-T2548-MCS	480GB	$899

The max read and write specifications are in line with what we have seen with many of the other SF-2281 drives at 560MB/s reads and 525MB/s writes. RunCore has also informed us that the Pro V Max drive is running what they termed as “Golden” firmware from SandForce which has been limited to only a handful of manufacturers. This firmware has an optimized compiler that increases burst performance, total IOPS over 85K, and has better sustained performance in reads and writes.

RunCore Pro V 120GB Features and Specifications

Model		RCP-V-T25XX-MCS
Specification	Interface:	SATA III
	Dimension:	100.2mm69.85mm9mm
	Weight:	80g
	Capacity:	60/120/240/480GB
	Cache:	N/A
	Flash Media:	MLC
Performance	Max. read speed:	560MB/s
	Max. write speed:	525MB/s
	4KB Random Read IOPS:	51,897IOPS (202 MB/s)
	4KB Random Write IOPS:	61,359IOPS (239 MB/s)
Electrical	Input Voltage:	5V 5%
	Power consumption:	3.0W
	Idle power consumption:	1.65W
Reliability	MTBF:	2,000,000 Hours
	ECC:	55bits/512B sectors
	Wear-leveling:	Static and Dynamic wear-leveling algorithm based
Others	Operating temperature:	Commercial Temperature(0C~+70C)

The drive we received came sans packaging, arriving instead in a static proof bag with the above inspection certification insert. This is the first time we’ve seen something like this and if you are a consumer, it may give you the warm fuzzies inside knowing an actual human performed some sort of inspection and/or quality test prior to the drive leaving the factory. The drive itself has an aluminum case with the RunCore name and logo etched on the top and a sticker with the pertinent manufacturing and legal information around on the back. Not a bad look overall.

Let’s see what may be lurking beneath the shiny aluminum exterior…