G.Skill Falcon II 128GB SSD Review

First Impressions

The Falcon II drive is a darn near dead ringer for the original in terms of construction and the overall graphical design of its labels. The body has been done in an all-black metal and the top logo look identical to the original Falcon’s. However the white with red fading to black still looks down right handsome.


On the plus side, the Falcon II is a down right gorgeous looking drive and the bottom label is full of all the details and information we have come to expect from a top notch company like G.Skill.

We really wish more companies would follow G.Skill’s lead and include information like read and write speeds on their drive labels. As we have come to expect, this one is full of information which will be useful sometime down the road when you are thinking of upgrading to the latest and greatest.


Flipping the drive over we come to the other label, the label which is actually more important and useful than the colorful top one. This is where you will find the various standards it meets and most importantly: the maximum power draw of the unit. In the case of the Falcon II 128GB model, this unit is rated to draw 0.55 of an amp off the 5V line. This translates to 2.75 watts, or in other words: the Falcon II 128GB has the exact same power draw as the original Falcon 128GB SSD.

Needless to say the “Eco” in the controller title does not stand for “ecologically friendly” or other such meaningless “buzz” words. Though to be fair and to put this in perspective, a typical 2.5” high performance 7200rpm drive uses about 3 watts of power (about 0.6A on the 5v line) and the more “typical” 5400rpm uses about 2.4 watts (about .48A on the 5v line). So this drive is far, FAR from being a “1 amp wonder” (AKA power hog) like a certain 80GB SSD line is.


Like all properly designed Indilinx SSDs we have looked at in the past, the Falcon 2 not only has an SATA and power port on the end but also two small jumper pins. While some companies have gone with jumper-less firmware updates, G. Skill has continued its original course and made all of their firmware updates require jumpers. The down side to doing this is that you do have to remove the drive and install the jumper pin before flashing and then remove it again to remove the jumper. However, G.Skill states that they are doing it the “old fashioned way” as there is a lot less risk of bricking your drive (compared to the jumper-less method).