OCZ Issues Destructive Firmware for Octane Speed Increase

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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AznCracker 6 years ago

lol i thought the firmware made the ssd explode.
JohnnyLucky 6 years ago

"destructive firmware"

I couldn't help but laugh at the phrase because of all the problems OCZ has experienced.
knekker 6 years ago

Just sensational headline wording by Tomshardware.

Other Comments

AznCracker 6 years ago

lol i thought the firmware made the ssd explode.
jacobdrj 6 years ago

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...
Anonymous 6 years ago

Me too XD
nevertell 6 years ago

Customer support at it's best.
knekker 6 years ago

Just sensational headline wording by Tomshardware.
JohnnyLucky 6 years ago

"destructive firmware"

I couldn't help but laugh at the phrase because of all the problems OCZ has experienced.
mrkdilkington 6 years ago

Pathetic.
willard 6 years ago

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:

Quote:

WARNING: This is a Destructive Flash, back up all data on SSD. Proceeding with this update will result in complete loss of data on the SSD.
freggo 6 years ago

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.
pjmelect 6 years ago

Thats a huge speed increase I wonder why the original firmware was so slow?
zybch 6 years ago

nevertellCustomer 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??
tecmo34 6 years ago

Anonymous said:

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.
king_maliken 6 years ago

freggoreinstall 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.
tlmck 6 years ago

Sounds like their old ram on an ASUS mobo.
dietcreamsoda 6 years ago

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.
__-_-_-__ 6 years ago

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.
slabbo 6 years ago

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
alidan 6 years ago

dietcreamsodaOr 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.
Camikazi 6 years ago

zybchUm, 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).
Camikazi 6 years ago

alidanyea, 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

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