Verdict: Faster than a 2.5in hard disk at loading games, but much slower in write-intensive apps

PQI is one of the few companies to produce an SSD with a S-ATA interface and, in addition to the Turbo Plus range, it also sells a wide range of standard RAM products. The model we tested has a capacity of 16GB, but 8GB, 20GB, 32GB and 64GB models are also available, with the latter selling for a whopping £1,086.19 inc VAT.

The Turbo Plus is packed inside a case that will fit into any standard 2.5in laptop drive bay with S-ATA connectors. Fortunately, unlike mobile EIDE, which uses a different connector from that used for desktop EIDE (44-pin vs 40-pin), mobile S-ATA is the same as desktop S-ATA, so you can plug the Turbo Plus into a desktop PC without needing an adaptor.

The Turbo Plus uses standard NAND flash without any extra buffer memory to speed it up. Its measured read STR was a reasonable 23.2MB/sec but, like all standard flash drives, it's much slower at writing, with an STR of 17.1MB/sec. These low STR figures contributed to the Turbo Plus' very slow performance in our real-world tests, scoring just 0.65 in Paint Shop Pro and taking 40 seconds to load Far Cry. However, it loaded Silent Hunter 4 in an impressive 36 seconds - less time than the Raptor X. To put the performance of the Turbo Plus into perspective, it's nearly two and a half times slower than a 2.5in hard disk at write-intensive tasks such as photo editing, but between 14 and 20 per cent faster at read-intensive tasks such as loading games.

While the Turbo Plus is one of the cheaper 2.5in flash drives in terms of gigabytes per pound, it's considerably slower than the Samsung Flash SSD.

Although it has the benefit of a S-ATA interface, making it easier to install in a desktop PC, it's so much slower than a 3.5in hard disk at writing that this would be pretty pointless. However, the Turbo Plus would be a very beneficial upgrade for a gaming laptop.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
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• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards