OCZ Issues Destructive Firmware for Octane Speed Increase
OCZ Technology offers firmware update to improve IOPS performance on its Octane SSD series
OCZ Technology has provided a firmware update (V 1.13) to provide a performance increase with its Octane SSD series drives. OCZ states that the firmware provides a significant improvement in random write 4K performance (double the performance on some capacities) over the current firmware (V 1.12).
| Random Write 4K IOPS Firmware V 1.12 | Random Write 4K IOPS Firmware V 1.13 | |
|---|---|---|
| Octane 128 GB | 7,700 | 18,000 |
| Octane 256 GB | 12,000 | 25,000 |
| Octane 512 GB | 16,000 | 26,000 |
In discussions with OCZ Technology, it is important to know that this is a "destructive" firmware update on the Octane drive, meaning the drive will be empty after the flash. OCZ recommends end users to make an image of the drive, boot off of a spare drive, flash the Octane, then image back to the Octane. End users may choose to do a fresh install of their OS and programs instead of utilizing an drive image.
The new enhanced IOPS firmware will begin shipping in the next batch of drives to resellers, and the firmware upgrade is available to existing customers via the company's website.
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lol i thought the firmware made the ssd explode.
Umm, wow. Good job OCZ... Now, find a way to reduce the occurring of failure under 1 year for your Vertex drives, and you will be speed kings and be usable in mission critical situations...
Me too XD
Customer support at it's best.
Just sensational headline wording by Tomshardware.
"destructive firmware"
I couldn't help but laugh at the phrase because of all the problems OCZ has experienced.
Pathetic.
To the people complaining about the use of the word destructive, that's actually a common usage of the word in the technical world. And in this case, the wording came from OCZ themselves.
From OCZ's page:
reinstall OS and all software I guess... way too much trouble. I'd rather leave it alone until the next upgrade is due anyway. Than I'd delete the drive, upgrade the firmware and use it as a spare or something.
Thats a huge speed increase I wonder why the original firmware was so slow?
Customer support at it's best.
Um, wouldn't good customer service (you know, keeping customers happy) be to release a product that DIDN'T need data destructive firmware updates to perform to the level expected??
Thats a huge speed increase I wonder why the original firmware was so slow?
At CES 2012, OCZ revealed its Indilinx Everest 2 controller. This will be their second controller after buying Indilinx Everest in 2011. My guess is with the original Octane being OCZ's first SSD based on its own controller and the improvements with the 2nd controller, they were able to improve the drives performance through the firmware update.
reinstall OS and all software I guess... way too much trouble. I'd rather leave it alone until the next upgrade is due anyway. Than I'd delete the drive, upgrade the firmware and use it as a spare or something.
Just use an image... Simple and fast, why do people complain so much, I'm happy about this.
Sounds like their old ram on an ASUS mobo.
Or you could just buy a HDD and not have to do such silly things as imaging your OS drive and flashing the firmware. All I can say is...thank you early SSD adopters. Years of your collective frustration will mean that someday I can own one without any hassles.
this SSD will crash in 3.... 2... 1... BOOM!
all data lost and months waiting for a new one from RMA
nice performance increase, irrelevant since OCZ SSD reliability is still crap.
still pretty expensive for it's capacity. On another note, the prices of a 2TB WD harddrive kinda went down. I just got one at amazon for $115
Or you could just buy a HDD and not have to do such silly things as imaging your OS drive and flashing the firmware. All I can say is...thank you early SSD adopters. Years of your collective frustration will mean that someday I can own one without any hassles.
yea, as a pure boot drive, ssds are great, i will never go back to hdd boot again, and by boot i mean i have a 120gb ssd, and space to back everything up if a flash ever killed the drive. i store no info on the ssd itself, all the storage info is on hdds.
once a 4tb drive comes to 200$, i am getting that instead of haveing 5 hdds.
Um, wouldn't good customer service (you know, keeping customers happy) be to release a product that DIDN'T need data destructive firmware updates to perform to the level expected??
I believe the SSDs were working to the level of performance they originally said they would, this is a speed boost, a free upgrade in performance, not a fix to a broken product (not this specific firmware fix at least).
yea, as a pure boot drive, ssds are great, i will never go back to hdd boot again, and by boot i mean i have a 120gb ssd, and space to back everything up if a flash ever killed the drive. i store no info on the ssd itself, all the storage info is on hdds.once a 4tb drive comes to 200$, i am getting that instead of haveing 5 hdds.
I said that about 1TB drives, then when they came out and got to 90$ I ended up buying 4 of them
Wow, Crucial AND OCZ needing some firmware upgrades just to perform as they were supposed to (and sometimes just to keep your system running).
What is going on with these SSD manufacturers? Can't they get it right from the first time? I mean, it's not like SSDs have been around only for a few months or something.
All I have heard and read bad about OCZ. I just can't get excited about this.
OCZ has some nerve, doubling performance with a quick flash update and expecting us to bother making a drive image.
ITT people using system restore on their SSDs.
"an drive image" really?
At least they are fixing their problem even if it's an inconvenient fix to apply. I'd still never spend that much money on a drive that's still that slow but I do respect the large performance increase anyway. Makes me feel better about their controller knowing it's capable of okay performance without resorting to compression like Sandforce. It may become a decent part of the non Sandforce SSDs but the current ones (Crucial m4, Samsung 830 if I remember correctly) still seem better than it.
1) Windows PE, Bart PE, or whatever PE you want.
2) External hard drive that's larger than your SSD
3) Symantec Ghost 11.5.1 (or better)
4) Local Disk to Image
5) Select SSD
6) Select folder on external hard drive
7) ?????
8) Profit!
Afterwards, flash your SSD, and then:
1) Back to PE
2) Plug in external hard drive
3) Launch Ghost
4) Local Disk FROM Image
5) Select the .gho file from your external hard drive
6) Select SSD
7) ??????
8) Moar profit!
I am pretty sure people will wonder where their data has gone after the flash, because most of them NEVER read the warning signs!
Well... this wasn't the article I was expecting at all. Fail naming on OCZ's part XD
reinstall OS and all software I guess... way too much trouble. I'd rather leave it alone until the next upgrade is due anyway. Than I'd delete the drive, upgrade the firmware and use it as a spare or something.
With the price of these drives, I do not understand why you would not want to get the most out of it. A flash that completely clears the drive out is very big update. If you don't like to have to reinstall everything then make a image of your system. the capability is built right into Windows 7 and has been there since Vista. Make an image, store it on second drive or external drive then do the flash and then restore your system. Go watch tv or something why you are waiting.
i currently have everything on a 1T HDD, so if I bought a SSD (just for the OS and as a boot drive), is there any sort of way for me to just copy the OS part on my current HDD?
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I wanna move the OS from my current HDD to the SSD, then remove the OS from the original HDD and just use that HDD for storage. Any way for me to do that without reformatting or reinstalling all the programs I currently own? If not...someone start a company and get on this!!!