The OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 Preview: Second-Gen SandForce Goes PCIe

Meet OCZ's RevoDrive 3 X2

SSDs are still one of those line-in-the-sand inflection points that change everything. But if you're accustomed to the throughput and responsiveness of a mechanical hard drive, there's very little reason to look beyond familiar SATA-based SSDs for a significantly better computing experience. The latest offerings from Crucial and OCZ deliver speeds often exceeding the limits of 3 Gb/s signaling, and if you have to have the best, it's hard for us not to recommend OCZ's Vertex 3.

The latest SandForce SF-2200-based drives are starting to roll out in greater volume, and they promise to serve as the performance benchmark by which other SSDs are measured (after the bugs are worked out, of course). Crucial's m4 is arguably a cheaper alternative for those that want higher performance, but either way, it's clear that nobody is going to be handicapped by SATA 6Gb/s on the desktop any time soon.

That's not to say there aren't enthusiasts interested in pushing the boundaries of storage performance. But if today's 2.5" SSDs aren't fast enough for your workload, you need to look beyond SATA's 600 MB/s limit. If you're an enthusiast and have the cash to spare, you may have your eye on a PCI Express-based SSD. Or, you're considering slinging several SATA-based drives together in a RAID configuration; either way, you sacrifice TRIM support in Windows. OCZ's RevoDrive and RevoDrive X2 are two of the most well-known workstation-oriented offerings, since they're bootable.

But those two products are centered on the controller at the heart of OCZ's last-gen Vertex 2 family. Today we have Vertex 3, which employs SandForce's second-generation controller and is capable of surpassing the performance of even those PCI Express-based boards when you harness a couple of them in RAID. It's only natural, then, that the company would follow up with an SF-2200-equipped RevoDrive 3 X2 to redefine enthusiast-class workstation storage performance.

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Header Cell - Column 0 Vertex 2 ERevoDrive X2Vertex 3RevoDrive 3 X2
Model240 GB240 GB240 GB240 GB
Max Sequential Read285 MB/s740 MB/s550 MB/s1500 MB/s
Max Sequential Write275 MB/s720 MB/s500 MB/s1250 MB/s
4 KB Random Write50 000 IOPs120 000 IOPs60 000 IOPs200 000 IOPs
Market Price$390$560$540$699 (MSRP)

OCZ's newest PCI Express-based SSD claims impressive performance thanks to a PCIe-to-SAS controller (remember, the RevoDrive X2 employed PCI-X-to-SATA) and four second-gen SandForce controllers.

No doubt, the RevoDrive 3 X2 is to Vertex 3 as the RevoDrive X2 was to the Vertex 2. The names make more sense when you consider that the original Vertex was Indilinx-based. So, the Vertex 2/RevoDrive center on first-gen SandForce logic, and the Vertex 3/RevoDrive 3 simply put both devices on the same generational level.

If you're a storage nut, it's hard not to get excited. If you've seen the video by our friends at Engadget, the RevoDrive X3 is the first enthusiast drive (don't count the LSI or Fusion-io products destined for enterprise installs) claiming speeds beyond 1 GB/s.

But if you're a price-conscious storage nut, you're also probably painfully aware that the fastest devices are the most expensive. And if a Vertex 3 SSD is pricey, the equivalent of multiple Vertex 3s on a PCI Express card are naturally even more so. The name of the game here is performance, and you're going to pay dearly for access to it.

With that understanding, the only questions that remain are: How does this drive achieve those bold claims? What are the real-world performance numbers look like? And does the RevoDrive 3 solve the compatibility issues Chris Angelini discussed at the beginning of OCZ’s RevoDrive X2: When A Fast PCIe SSD Isn’t Fast Enough?

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OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2CapacityPricePrice Per GB
240 GB$699.99$2.92
480 GB$1699.99$3.54
960 GB$3199.99$3.33
  • reyshan
    YoT!damn fast ssd and damn expensive ssd. might buy one 5 years from now(pci-e kind).
    Reply
  • KingArcher
    Wish I had won a lottery :)
    So that I could afford me some drives like these.
    Reply
  • Why_Me
    omg this drive is fast! But way out of my budget :(
    Reply
  • warmon6
    It's not a business-class product. It's for the power user who is able to tax it using the right workload. If you're not one of those folks, the RevoDrive 3 X2 is seriously overkill.

    OVERKILL?!?!
    Nothing is overkill in the computer arena in terms of performance. :p

    Just the price can be over kill. o.0
    Reply
  • julius 85
    Just the price can be over kill. o.0For me the price is a bottleneck :)
    Reply
  • ElectroGoofy
    Dear Santa...
    Reply
  • acku
    Santa is going to need a bigger expense account... :)

    Personally, I'm hoping that OCZ adds TRIM prior to September.

    Cheers,
    Andrew Ku
    TomsHardware.com
    Reply
  • chefboyeb
    Jesus!
    Reply
  • greenrider02
    I saw defense of the Vertex 3's occasional low numbers, but no mention of the solid (and sometimes better) performance that the cheaper and more miserly Crucial m4 showed throughout your tests.

    Perhaps you have some bias towards the Vertex 3 that needs reconsideration?

    Other than that, $700 seems like a fair price when considering the performace difference, especially if utilized properly, for instance as a high traffic web/corporate server
    Reply
  • acku
    greenrider02I saw defense of the Vertex 3's occasional low numbers, but no mention of the solid (and sometimes better) performance that the cheaper and more miserly Crucial m4 showed throughout your tests.Perhaps you have some bias towards the Vertex 3 that needs reconsideration?Other than that, $700 seems like a fair price when considering the performace difference, especially if utilized properly, for instance as a high traffic web/corporate server
    If you read the first page then you know that I give a nod to Vertex 3s as the fastest MLC based 2.5" SSD. I consider that plenty of love. :).

    We'll discuss the lower capacity m4s in another article. FYI, I suggest that you read page 5 and page 6. We are not testing FOB. We are testing steady state. That's part of the reason the SF-based drives are behaving differently with incompressible data.

    On your second point, this is in no way targeted toward an enterprise environment (that's what Z-drives are for). There is no redundancy in the array if a single SF controller fails. The whole card is a dud afterward. You can add higher level redundancy, but enterprise customers have so far been nervous on SandForce products. Plus, there's a general preference for hardware vs. software redundancy. (That's them talking not me). Overall, this makes it unacceptable for any enterprise class workload.




    Reply