Digital Trends

Larger Image | More Images

The company's next-generation of Core drives will hit read speeds of 170 MB/s and store up to 250GB.

Last we heard from OCZ, the Sunnyvale, Calif. company was unveiling an ultra-cheap line of solid-state drives designed to bring down the astronomic prices that have kept many consumers away from SSDs. Now the company has introduced its new Core Series V2 SATA II 2.5-inch drives, which will focus more on improvements to storage capacity and speed than price concerns.

That focus on performance shows up in the new drives’ impressive specs. They will be available in sizes up to 250GB, boast read times of 170 MB/s, write times of 98 MB/s, and seek times between 0.2 and 0.3 milliseconds – all numbers that put them a notch above the recently unveiled budget drives.

Still, OCZ doesn’t plan to abandon its price-conscious ways entirely. While it hasn’t yet announced prices for the new drives, it claims they will be 50 percent cheaper, on a per-gigabyte basis, than comparable high-speed drives on the market.

When the drives show up on the market, they will be available in 30GB, 60GB, 120GB and 250GB capacities.