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RunCore

RunCore, founded in 2007 and now building the largest SSD factory in China, has more than 50 patents in the field of solid-state storage - and designs products for industrial, enterprise, military and consumer applications.

RunCore is pursuing the philosophy of technology-led products at the core, service as a fundamental business; relying on more than 10 years of research techniques of National Defense University, with high performance solid state drive as a start, constantly enrich solid-state storage products.
RunCore SSDs click for more info
7mm high 2.5" SATA 3 SSDs for Ultrabooks  - click for more info
7mm high SATA 3 SSDs
for high performance Ultrabooks
from RunCore
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RunCore - addresses and links
RunCore Innovation Science & Technology Ltd....
Room 307-310 NO.662 Lugu Road
Yuelu Zone, Changsha,
Hunan,
P.R.C
url:- http://www.runcore.com
....
Runcore (USA)
1580 Oakland Rd, Ste C104,
San Jose, CA 95131
USA
tel:- +1 408.380.4580
new sales office July 2011
SSD ad - click for more info

see also:- RunCore - editor mentions on StorageSearch.com


Who's who in SSD? - by Zsolt Kerekes, editor

January 2012 - RunCore is 1 of more than 50 companies in the military SSD market, 1 of more than 50 companies in the industrial SSD market, 1 of over 40 companies in the PCIe SSD market, 1 of countless companies in the notebook SSD market and 1 of more than 100 companies in the 2.5" SSD market.

RunCore has also had frequent appearances in the Top SSD Companies List.

RunCore is one of the world's fastest growing SSD companies. It was recently listed in the 2011 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 China List (pdf) - with a revenue growth rate of over 700%.

Another unusual thing about RunCore - compared to SSD companies founded in the US - is that the company is involved in both the military and consumer markets. This is a difficult act to pull off successfully - because the design and manufacturing processes for military SSDs are an order of magnitude more complex and stringent than those for consumer SSDs - where to put it bluntly - the more things you leave out of the design and testing - the more likely you are to get the product to market at a low enough price to be competitive. These 2 distinct markets involve product management pulls in opposite directions.

One of the ways in which RunCore has tried to differentiate its consumer SSDs in recent years - is to incorporate design elements from the military and industrial side to create in effect innovative added value consumer SSDs.

A new example - which will be shown this coming week at the Consumer Electronics Show (booth 37015) is the Xapear SSD - aimed at the mobile phone market - which protects data regions in the SSD by means of an RFID tag - which can also be used to control fast erase.

A more conventional consumer product - also due to be shown at the show - is a 7mm high 2.5" SATA SSD for ultrabooks - with 540/500 MB/s R/W speeds.

For more info about RunCore take a look at the links above and RunCore editor mentions on StorageSearch.com

I currently talk to more than 300 makers of SSDs and another 100 or so companies which are closely enmeshed around the SSD ecosphere - which are all profiled here on the mouse site.

I learn about new SSD companies every day, including many in stealth mode. If you're interested in the growing big picture of the SSD market canvass - StorageSearch will help you along the way. Many SSD company CEOs read our site too - and say they value our thought leading SSD content - even when we say something that's not always comfortable to hear. I hope you'll find it it useful too.
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RunCore milestones from SSD market history

In December 2008 - RunCore announced 1.8" PATA SSDs aimed at the notebook upgrade market. Available with capacity upto 128GB (retail price $389.99 ) an inbuilt slave USB port enables users to easily clone their internal hard drive using Acronis True Image (or similar) software. The SSD can then be installed in the notebook typically giving a 4x speedup. RunCore also launched its Hyper Speed - a 2.5" SATA SSD with 256GB with RW speeds of 230MB/s and 150MB/s respectively priced under $700

.In February 2009 - RunCore launched a mini PCI-e form factor, SATA interface compatible flash SSD with 16GB to 128GB capacity. R/W speeds are 125MB/s and 90MB/s respectively.

In May 2009 - RunCore's Pro IV 2.5" MLC SSDs was reviewed in an article in TweakTown.com - which concluded...

"All things considered, the RunCore Pro IV is a hell of a drive that is able to cross over into several market segments; consumer, prosumer and enterprise. The Pro IV is fast, one of the fastest on the market, but that speed comes at a cost and that is really where our only issue sits."

In July 2009 - RunCore was listed #5 in the 9th quarterly edition of the - Top 10 SSD Companies. (Same as before.)

In November 2009 - RunCore announced availability of the Runcore Pro IV Light mini-SATA 50mm PCI-e SSD - a regular flash SSD design and small form factor - which is designed to accelerate netbooks. Capacity options include:- 16GB (32MB cache), 32GB and 64GB (64MB cache) with smaller capacity drives for oems available on request. Sustained R/W speeds are 125MB/s and 80MB/s. Random R/W speeds (4K blocks) are 18MB/s read and 5 MB/s respectively. RunCore says it's compatible with all major OSes and installs easily via its USB slave port.

Mobile computing blogger JKKmobile.com has created many videos about upgrading notebook PCs with SSDs - here's an example with an earlier model from RunCore.

In January 2010 - RunCore started shipments of the 1st SSDs aimed at the PXI Express market (a standard which brings PCIe performance and functionality into the robust modular form factor popular in automated instrumentation test systems). RunCore's 3U CPCIe\PXIe SSD card provides upto 768GB MLC or 384GB SLC capacity and has sustained R/W speeds upto 400MB/s. Available with industrial operating temperature range and MIL-STD-810F processing, the module provides a fast purge rate of 5GB/s.

Also in January 2010 - a benchmark review article in TweakTown.com concluded that RunCore's upcoming Pro V 2.5" SSD - which uses SandForce's SF-1500 SoC is the fastest SATA 2 SSD they have tested.

In March 2010 - RunCore unveiled a new security feature for a consumer notebook SSD at CeBIT 2010. If your notebook is stolen you send a (cell-phone) text message to it - and it destroys the data. There's a video interview of RunCore's SSDs done by hexus tv here. It's very boring at the start - and I was just about to turn it off (even though RunCore is a customer of mine) - when I started to hear a lot of very significant stuff about their rugged and military technology and how some of that expertise was trickling down into consumer SSDs - like a waterproof SSD.

In April 2010 - RunCore's Pro-V SSD (which uses a SandForce SF1200 SoC) was reviewed in an article in BenchmarkReviews.com. Their conclusion - "The 200GB RunCore Pro-V SSD delivered 286/277 MBps peak read and writes speeds using ATTO Disk Benchmark and trailed by 253/248 MBps in Everest, making this one the fastest SATA-3GBps MLC SSDs we've tested."

In May 2010 - RunCore started sampling 2.5" and 3.5" SAS flash SSDs for the enterprise server market. The Kylin II product line, available with MLC, EMLC or SLC flash, has R/W speeds upto 270MB/s and 260MB/s respectively, R/W IOPS of 30,000 and 25,000, upto 400GB capacity and 3 years warranty.

In September 2010 - RunCore announced significant price reductions on its ProV 2.5" SATA SSDs - which have SandForce's SF1200 controllers inside.

In December 2010 - RunCore unveiled a 3.5" SATA 3 flash SSD with 1TB capacity. Internally the SSD includes 2 drives, each with its own SandForce 1200 controller, which can be configured as separate drives or in a simple RAID 0 configuration. The product will be demonstrated at CeBIT in March 2011.

In July 2011 - RunCore has opened its first international sales office outside its its original roots in China. The new office - which will handle sales and distribution is in San Jose, California. The company also launched a 6Gbps mSATA SSD based on the SandForce SF-2281 controller - with R/W rates upto 550 MB/s and 470 MB/s respectively and upto 120GB capacity.

In August 2011 - RunCore announced it is preparing to build the biggest SSD factory in China to enable the company to cope with the increasing international demand for its products. The new factory and test facility - based in Jinzhou Development Zone in Changsha city - is expected to be complete in early 2012.

In September 2011 - RunCore started sampling a low power SATA SSD chip - in a BGA micro-chip package for embedded apps like mobile phones and tablet PCs. The rSSD T100 will be available in industrial temperature versions - and includes SMART commands to monitor the life expectancy of the product.

In October 2011 - SSD Flash Drive Reviews published initial results of Windows 7 benchmark tests for RunCore's Pro V 2.5" SATA III SSD.

In November 2011 - RunCore announced it has been ranked #14 in the new Deloitte Technology Fast 50 China Program of 2011 - which ranks companies based on revenue growth over the past 3 years.

In January 2012 - RunCore announced it is shipping a 7mm high, Sandforce-based, 2.5" SATA 3 SSD for the high performance Ultrabook market.
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"In this quarter RunCore announced it is building the biggest SSD factory in China to enable the company to cope with the increasing international demand for its products..."
...Editor:- from the 2011 Q edition of the Top SSD Companies.
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the changing face of the industrial SSD market
One of the oldest markets for flash SSDs is the embedded industrial market - where rugged flash SSDs have been used since the mid 1990s.
image shows mouse building storage - click to see industrial SSDs article This is a slowly changing market and it rarely makes the SSD news headlines - but many facets in this market have changed in the past 5 years. ...read the article
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Surviving SSD sudden power loss
Why should you care what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?

This important design feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases - has a strong impact on SSD data integrity and operational reliability.

This article will help you understand why some SSDs which (work perfectly well in one type of application) might fail in others... even when the changes in the operational environment appear to be negligible.
image shows Megabyte's hot air balloon - click to read the article SSD power down architectures and acharacteristics If you thought endurance was the end of the SSD reliability story - think again. ...read the article
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Why isn't "rugged" good enough for MIL?
The need for fast and secure data erase - in which vital parts of a flash SSD or its data are destroyed in seconds - has always been a requirement in military projects.

Fast Purge flash SSDs directory & articlesAlthough many industrial SSD vendors offer products with extended "rugged" operating environment capabilities - and even notebooks SSDs come with encryption - it's the availability of fast destructive data purge which differentiates "truly secure" SSDs which can be deployed in sensitive applications. Which vendors make these SSDs? How do they work? And what are the characteristics and limitations of the various methods used? Click on the link above to find out more in my special article / directoryabout fast purge SSDs.
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Are MLC SSDs Safe in Enterprise Apps?
Are MLC SSDs Safe? - is a very popular article which looks at the risks posed by MLC Nand Flash SSDs which - having hatched from their breeeding ground as chip modules in cellphones - have in the past 4 years morphed and crept into many (but not all) enterprise SSDs.

In a notebook (where you aren't exactly expecting a 5 nines uptime quality data experience) MLC SSDs can be a good thing from the reliability and cost point of view. But how about in the datacenter?

Some leading vendors support MLC in enterprise and industrial grade SSDs - others don't. Ever wondered why? There's a lot more to the MLC vs SLC in SSDs debate than simply endurance.
are MLC SSDs safe in enterprise apps - recently updated   popular article This classic article explains the technical differences. It also includes recent updates and comments from industry leaders to show you why in some cases MLC is a viable solution - but in other cases it's still not. (No matter how clever the controller.) ...read the article
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the 3 fastest flash PCIe SSDs - list / lists
Are you tied up in knots trying to shortlist flash SSD accelerators ranked according to published comparative benchmarks?

You know the sort of thing I mean - where a magazine compares 10 SSDs or a blogger compares 2 SSDs against each other. It would be nice to have a shortlist so that you don't have to waste too much of your own valuable time testing unsuitable candidates wouldn't it?

StorageSearch's long running fastest SSDs directory typically indicates 1 main product in each form factor category but those examples may not be compatible with your own ecosystem.

If so a new article - the 3 fastest PCIe SSDs list (or is it really lists?) may help you cut that Gordian knot. Hmm... you may be thinking that StorageSearch's editor never gives easy answers to SSD questions if more complicated ones are available.
the 3 fastest  PCIe SSDs  - click to read article But in this case you'd be wrong. (I didn't say you'd like the answers, though.) ...read the article
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