OCZ Onyx SSDs Start Under $100

By Kevin Parrish
published

OCZ launched a value-priced line of SSDs, starting with the $100 32GB model.

On Wednesday OCZ Technology Group, Inc. revealed its new line of Onyx SATA II 2.5-inch solid state drives. The new series targets customers looking for both high performance and "exceptional value," with prices starting just under $100 for the 32 GB model. This should be ideal for consumers leaving the traditional HDD scene and wanting to test the SSD waters without sinking a load of funds into the new technology.

OCZ's new Onyx SSDs are MLC-based and use the Indilinx Amigos controller. The series also features read speeds of up to 125MB/s, write speeds of up to 70MB/s, 64MB of on-board cache, 3.0Gb/s interface, and TRIM support, rounding out an attractive-yet-cheap package.

“Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group.

This may be the way to go for Windows XP users ready to upgrade their laptops, tossing out the clunky HDD for this super-fast 32GB drive. Granted that's not the best storage capacity for downloading media or installing over-stuffed games, it should at least provide an impressive performance boost on the go.

Kevin Parrish
41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • industrial_zman
    32GB, come on, realy?!? What have you been smoking OCZ. Yeah I know this would make a great boot disk for a GUIless Linux, however most people buying the SSD are Windows platform people that would need a lot more than that to boot. I would only use a drive that size for my virtual memory.
    Reply
  • randomizer
    I have Windows 7 x64, 3DS Max, Office 2007 and numerous other programs installed on a 30GB OCZ Vertex. I still have 10GB free. I don't know why you think only a command-line Linux distro would work.
    Reply
  • The Greater Good
    125 / 70 is too slow. I'd rather spend the extra 20-40 bucks and get read speeds up to 250 MB/s. Then again, I'd just buy two or three and run a disk stripe. Not using these slow things, however...
    Reply
  • yzfr1guy
    industrial_zman32GB, come on, realy?!? What have you been smoking OCZ. Yeah I know this would make a great boot disk for a GUIless Linux, however most people buying the SSD are Windows platform people that would need a lot more than that to boot. I would only use a drive that size for my virtual memory.
    You could install several Windows installations on a drive of this size, what the h4ck are you smoking n00b? with 32 gigs I could nicely install both Win7 and Xp with adequate room for page files and tons of pr0n :)
    Reply
  • mavanhel
    This wouldn't be a bad choice at all for a netbook user with an HDD (like I) instead of an SSD. I run Linux and it's really just for the internet so you don't need a lot of data storage, so 32GB would be just fine.
    Reply
  • vant
    I don't like this article.

    Reason - It's equivalent to reporting a new car for sale and stating how big the brakes are, but neglecting to say how fast it can stop.

    Randoms please.
    Reply
  • husker
    Not a good deal at over $3 per GB for a sub par SSD.
    Reply
  • razor512
    For like $30-40 more, you get a hard drive with twice the read speeds.

    and 32GB is not enough. While it can work bot booting windows. it doesn't help for much else.

    wow so windows boots in about 10 seconds instead of the usual 15 seconds (windows XP boots in about 15 seconds for me on my 1TB western digital black drive)

    If I get a SSD, I want enough space for the OS to make it boot faster and I also want to be able to install my games on it. A ssd is great for gaming as you can load maps faster. (great for games like battlefield 2 where if you load first, you get first dibs on the jets and tanks and stuff)

    I also want to improve the loading speeds and responsiveness of programs like photoshop, maya 3d and my various video and audio editors

    (when working on a large project, you can easily wind up with image files that are multiple GB in size each and I will have multiple files in the 1-3GB range open at the same time in more than 1 program (especially since many of the programs that I use can detect changes in the file and update to reflect the new changed, I will have multiple editing apps opened, each opening some of the same file and each doing their own memory and hard drive caching of the data. This is not a easy problem to fix with RAM, you need a fast hard drive.

    my current solution is to put their scratch disks each on their own hard drive (photoshop gets use of the 1TB drive, and the other apps get use of my 120GB, 500GB 80GB and 60GB drive)

    I would love to have photoshop, maya3d and adobe aftereffects use a SSD while also being installed on one, but there just too small and large ones cost too much
    Reply
  • ben850
    huskerNot a good deal at over $3 per GB for a sub par SSD.
    Agreed, but still far better than just a few months ago! The light at the end of the SSD tunnel is getting bigger :)
    Reply
  • abzillah
    Kingston SSD drives seem like a better value and better performance. For example, 64GB kinstong SSD for 144 dollars with 200MB read and 110MB write. Perfect for a netbook!
    Reply