Introduction



At first I want to thank Walton Chaintech for providing me their Apogee SSD Convertor (RAIDON SF2020-2F-S1 SSD enclosure) along with two APOGEE CompactFlash Cards 606x 16GB for testing and reviewing.


Walton Chaintech are now selling a product both unique and interesting, that is thought to replace the more expensive 2.5” SSDs on the market. The device looks like a SSD, but inside it hides two removable CompactFlash cards, that can function in both RAID1 and NRAID modes, depending on what we need more: data reliability or more capacity.

About Walton Chaintech :
“The Chaintech Computer Corporation was founded in November of 1986 and introduced its own motherboards and video cards into the computer hardware market. Before long, Chaintech earned a reputation for producing state-of-the-art motherboards, boasting unsurpassed performance, extreme reliability, and aesthetical design. Its video cards were also praised by critics and consumers alike, earning recommendations and awards throughout the international community. With an established, technologically sound foundation, Chaintech was now primed to focus on product diversification.

In 2005, a partnership was formed between Chaintech and Walton Advanced Engineering in order to introduce new products into the memory modules markets. Walton Advanced Engineering, known for their integrated circuits (IC) testing and packaging, provided valuable expertise and insight in designing, manufacturing, and packaging the newly introduced products. The partnership was further solidified by Chaintech’s membership into the Passive System Alliance (PSA), whereby a total of twenty companies, five of which are publicly traded, would ultimately mutually collaborate and share resources.

Currently, the products of focus have been on dynamic random access memory (DRAM), flash USB drives, flash cards, graphics cards, and solid-state drives (SSD). Although the products have varied, the high standards have been sustained. Walton Chaintech continues to wholeheartedly devote itself to create products that satisfy the needs and wishes of the consumer.

The scope of Walton Chaintech’s success can easily be measured by its international presence. As favorable critic reviews and product demand increased, distribution partnerships in every major market formed. Walton Chaintech’s reach touches continents like Asia, America, Australia, and Europe as well as traditionally defined markets like Russia, Japan, Korea, and China.

Under the support of the PSA family of corporations, Walton Chaintech is able to take advantage of the plethora of resources provided. Taking advantage of technologies and insights gained from providing products and services like printed circuit boards (PCB), hardware components, and IC packaging technology, Walton Chaintech is in a prime position to push the envelope in terms of design, functionality, and utility.

The expansion of products and services did not end there. Walton Chaintech also began to provide electronics manufacturing services (EMS). Among the available services were subcontracting processes including original equipment manufacturers (OEM), original design manufacturers (ODM), and contract electronic manufacturers (CEM). All operating under the Fortech Electronics name, the Walton Chaintech owned company boasts clients like HannStar, Zyxel, Haier, TCL, BIOSTAR, and PNY, just to name a few. As an award winning manufacturing partner due to our relentless efforts for customer satisfaction and meticulous methodology in quality control, Fortech Electronics provides an EMS second to none.

During the same year in which Chaintech and Walton Advanced Engineering entered the memory module markets through packaging, APOGEE was founded to enter the memory market through innovative product design and functionality. In 2006, APOGEE introduced its first refined product. Integrating excellence in the research and development aspects of the company with the already established rigorous testing methods of Walton Chaintech, APOGEE’s products were of the utmost quality and raised the standard for the entire industry. The only product in the entire market utilizing the “wafer-in” and “module-out” technology, APOGEE stormed into market. In 2008, DDR3 and DDR2 RAM developed by APOGEE gained international acclaim and passed the high standards of the Computer Memory Test Labs (CMTL). In 2009, APOGEE announced that it would enter the Mainland Chinese market with its award winning products.

In the 20 years of Walton Chaintech, success has been founded on the four principles of ingenuity, quality, distinction, and customer satisfaction. With the never ending pursuit of developing new technologies and designs, Walton Chaintech places its focus on the consumer and their demands. As an industry leader, Walton Chaintech proudly takes it upon itself to keep the customer’s needs at the forefront of future products and services.”


About RAIDON:


“RAIDON Technology Inc. was established in year 2000; as a Professional Storage Solution Provider, RAIDON is focusing on designing and manufacturing RAID and Storage products and developing brand name.

In year 2000, to meet the growing customer demands for data safety, RAIDON started to deploy and develop small-scaled disk array system application for small & medium enterprises.

In year 2002, RAIDON launched a new brand STARDOM to meet the growing need for data storage and backup from SOHO groups and small & medium enterprises. STARDOM is devoted on designing disk array storage solutions and external hard disk driver enclosure.

In the further future, RAIDON will keep working hard on designing and developing storage solution for small & medium enterprises, SOHO groups and consumers with professional technology. Combined with the ability of developing and band marketing, RAIDON expects to become a professional small-scaled storage solution provider and provide the most complete and comprehensive data security service.”

Inside the box, closer look

The Walton Chaintech Apogee SSD Converter arrived at my place in bulk form. On the left we can see the CD with utilities, user manuals and user guides and on the right we can find the converter wrapped in protective foam:



If we remove the top part of the protective foam, we can see that it is split into two compartments: one which holds the actual product and another one in which we can find the screws:



The screws come in a little labeled sealed bag and the SSD enclosure is fully wrapped in an anti-static bag:



On the top of the SSD enclosure we can find explanations on how to switch from RAID1 mode to NRAID, some LED indications, the product code name, its operating temperatures and its rated operating voltage:



The top part of the enclosure can be lifted; after the installation is over, we can fix the top cap permanently by inserting the screw in the hole presented in the photo:



On the laterals, we can see the holes where the fixing screws will go, if we decide to install it inside a case:



On the back of the product, we can see a large APOGEE logo, a product serial number and the fact that the product was manufactured in Taiwan:



On the opposite side, we can see the SATA DATA and POWER headers:



If we lift the top part of the enclosure, we can see the two pre-installed APOGEE 606x 16GB CF cards:



The Apogee CF 606X are Walton Chaintechs’ latest high speed, high capacity memory card. The memory card boasts write and read speeds of 91MB/sec and 93MB/sec. Available in 16GB and 32GB, the incredible capacity of the product will allow users to perform uninterrupted recording of high image video with DSLR cameras without missing any bits and pieces of the fascinating moments in life worth capturing. Using the Apogee CF 606X in conjunction with the Apogee SSD Converter will enable users to expand the memory card's functions to general storage applications while achieving ultra-high speed transfer performance that surpasses conventional hard disks:



Near the CF cards, we can see on the enclosures’ PCB a very little switch which allows us to navigate between the RAID 1 and NRAID modes:



Here is a view of the enclosures’ PCB, with the CF cards removed:

Test Setup

Stefan's Test Setup
CPU	Core i7 920 @ 3.2Ghz
Cooling	Stock
Mainboard	Asrock X58 Extreme
Memory	G.Skill F3-12800CL8T-6GBPI PI Series
VGA	AXLE GeForce 210 512MB DDR2 ATI Radeon HD 4550
Other	Power Supply : Antec True Power New 750W HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10

When the device is operating, we can see the status LEDs on one of the product sides:



The product arrived set to RAID1. Here is what Everest Ultimate Edition report about it in this case:



The free space reported by Windows with the RAID 1 mode activated is about 14.9GB and the device was formatted FAT32:



When I have used the switch to get into the NRAID mode and restarted the system, I have seen that I had accessible again only about 14.92GB. To be able to use all the available space, I had to repartition the device:





Here is the Everest Ultimate Edition report, with the NRAID mode activated:

Benchmarks

We compared the SSD converter’s performance in RAID1 and NRAID to that of two desktop drives (Western Digital and Hitachi) as well as a compact portable 500Gb Hitachi HDD.

The results are a mixed bag, the NRAID is faster than the RAID1 mode, but not as much as expected. Compared to the old HDDs this plug and play SSD offers low access times, low write speed, good read speeds and noticeable better random IO performance.




CrystalMark



Everest Disk Benchmark



HD Tach



HD Tune



PcMark 2005



PcMark Vantage

Conclusive Thoughts

The SSD converter from Walton Chaintech is a very interesting device, with decent performance when combined with their latest CompactFlash cards, the APOGEE 606x.

The device can also use older CompactFlash cards if we have some lying around and we can use the enclosure to backup our important data, in RAID 1 mode (in case one of the cards becomes corrupted, we won’t lose the data, because we will have exactly the same information in the second card).

With high speed CF cards like Walton Chaintech has launched recently, the converter can be used as a HDD for netbooks and notebooks, instead of using a more expensive SSD. If we need more storage space, we should think about purchasing higher capacity CF (128GB CF are now also available) cards and use them in NRAID mode or a normal 2.5’’ HDD. (Editor’s Note: you’re kidding right? 128Gb CF cards cost $400+ ;-))

The device can be also used as a portable HDD inside a SATA enclosure to store data or as a device used for recovery.

I would like to thank again to Walton Chaintech for making this review possible.