OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid: Solid-State Speed With Hard Drive Capacity

Meet OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid

Enthusiasts shopping for storage face a gut-wrenching decision. Do you buy a hard drive and enjoy gobs of capacity for a very low cost, accepting that it'll be relatively slow. Or do you scoop up an SSD, pay significantly more per gigabyte, and get a lot less capacity? 

When you do the math, it's easy to figure out what the extra performance of an SSD costs you. For $80 you can either purchase a 2 TB hard drive or a low-end 60 GB SSD. That comes out to $0.04 per GB for the hard drive and $1.31 for the SSD (and oh, by the way, the cost per gigabyte on the SSD only goes up from there).

So, do you pick capacity or performance?

RevoDrive Hybrid

How about splitting your budget in half and spending money on a smaller SSD and hard drive, in the interest of enjoying the benefits of both? The challenge there, at least for some folks, is actively managing the applications that live on the SSD and balancing that with conventional storage space.

OCZ is trying to offer a more streamlined option with its RevoDrive Hybrid by matching a 1 TB hard drive up to a 120 GB RevoDrive 3 for caching. This combination is supposed to deliver solid-state-class performance at a fraction of the cost you'd pay for a 1 TB SSD. 

While the $500 asking price certainly feels more SSD-ish than characteristic of a hard drive, the math indicates $0.50 per GB. That's far less than the $1.75 per GB typical of leading SSDs like the Vertex 3.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 Vertex 3RevoDrive 3RevoDrive Hybrid
Model120 GB120 GB1 TB w/ 120 GB RevoDrive 3
Max Sequential Read535 MB/s975 MB/s910 MB/s
Max Sequential Write480 MB/s875 MB/s810 MB/s
Max 4 KB Random Write80 000 IOPs120 000 IOPs120 000 IOPs
Market Price$200$400$500
Price Per GB$1.60$3.33$0.50

Our experience with SSD caching solutions has been mixed. The Smart Response Technology component of Intel's Z68 Express chipset is great in that it's built into the core logic and only really requires a $120 SLC-based SSD 311 to enable it. But, practically, the performance improvements are largely situational, and certainly not what you'd hope for from an SSD. Add-in solutions like HighPoint's RocketHybrid aren't much different. To that end, we're still recommending that enthusiasts who want the experience of an SSD go the mixed-device route.

However, that's the conclusion we've reached based on the caching devices made available to us so far. Often, they're either handicapped by a small SSD or a slow drive. OCZ is the first company to come out with something different: a blend of solid-state and magnetic storage in one package. The promise, at least on paper, is that we'll see the speed of a RevoDrive 3 without sacrificing the space typical of a hard drive.

  • aznshinobi
    This should be compared with the Seagate Momentus XT, where's that?
    Reply
  • LuckyDucky7
    Except for those who don't have SATA 6GB/s controllers on their motherboards, this product is a little redundant.

    I mean, it's really cool and all, but since Vertex 3 drives on their own run about 200 bucks for 120GB, you could get 2 x OCZ Vertex 3's in RAID, and a high-performance 1TB 7200 RPM drive like the Western Digital Caviar Black (the one mounted there is 5400RPM) for the same price as this drive.

    So instead of the rather limited 120GB, you'd get 240GB of SSD storage instead, along with a faster hard drive. Because with 240GB, who needs cache?
    Reply
  • chumly
    What a dumb idea.
    Reply
  • zybch
    LuckyDucky7Except for those who don't have SATA 6GB/s controllers on their motherboards, this product is a little redundant.I mean, it's really cool and all, but since Vertex 3 drives on their own run about 200 bucks for 120GB, you could get 2 x OCZ Vertex 3's in RAID, and a high-performance 1TB 7200 RPM drive like the Western Digital Caviar Black (the one mounted there is 5400RPM) for the same price as this drive.So instead of the rather limited 120GB, you'd get 240GB of SSD storage instead, along with a faster hard drive. Because with 240GB, who needs cache?Yeah, like i want to use 'scary'RAID in my system. Screw that.
    Reply
  • alidan
    zybchYeah, like i want to use 'scary'RAID in my system. Screw that.
    than i believe use a raid 5, i think thats it, raid the 2 ssds and get another hdd in there as a backup for the two ssds
    Reply
  • rantoc
    alidanthan i believe use a raid 5, i think thats it, raid the 2 ssds and get another hdd in there as a backup for the two ssds
    For a raid 5 at least 3 drives is needed. And the chipset integrated raid5 solutions don't have powerful checksum offloading either meaning its either slow or hogs the cpu. Sure raid 5 is awesome in its ways but it also has its drawbacks.
    Reply
  • billybobser
    Just raid 0 and actively backup important files yourself if you can't take the drawbacks of it.

    If something just created is really worth saving, save it twice. Else just a back up image per week.
    Reply
  • shqtth
    This should be compared with the Seagate Momentus XT, where's that?
    ..

    It should be !


    Also why use 5400rpm? why not 7200rpm? Or use the XT.


    To me, this product looks like its hurting. Overpriced.


    I tested a few of the XT's are they are quick. Pretty much constant 100+ data and super low latency on common tasks.
    Reply
  • Reynod
    Could you please look at a direct comparison with the Momentus XT please?

    I have one as well.

    From what I can see this is a bit better than the XT but it would be good to know Andrew.

    Cheers !
    Reply
  • nebun
    zybchYeah, like i want to use 'scary'RAID in my system. Screw that.download the correct drivers and set it up correctly and you will have no issues....i have been using raid 0 for over 5 years with no issues at all
    Reply