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OCZ Preps Second-Gen TLC, First NVMe SSDs For 2016

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OCZ Storage Solutions plans to release two new products in early 2016. Both show the direction the SSD industry is headed and the large performance divide between casual and enthusiast users.

Enthusiasts have long waited for NVMe to trickle down from the enterprise market. There are currently a few solutions available, but many users want more options and better pricing. The new for 2016 RevoDrive 400 gives users another NVMe option. In our meeting, OCZ stated that the new drives will be cost competitive with other NVMe offerings available today.

ProductRevoDrive 400
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x4
ProtocolNVMe 1.1b
ControllerToshiba
FlashToshiba 15nm MLC
Capacity128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB
Sequential Read2400 MB/s
Sequential Write1500 MB/s
Random ReadUp to 210,000 IOPS
Random WriteUp to 140,000 IOPS
Warranty5 Years ShieldPlus

The specifications above come from OCZ's official specification sheet, but in a private showing, we observed higher performance. The RevoDrive 400 512 GB achieved nearly 2700 MB/s sequential read and just over 1600 MB/s sequential write speeds. The performance compares well to existing NVMe products on the market today.

Although not shown at CES 2016, OCZ will bring this NVMe SSD to market in four capacity sizes, including the elusive 1 TB size that other companies have yet to deliver in the M.2 form factor. This is important because it not only gives gamers what they demand (large capacity high performance storage), but it also gives business users with new Ultrabooks an upgrade path to higher data capacities.

OCZ has always competed aggressively on price. Toshiba's 15nm TLC flash packs the most bits per wafer of any NAND flash available today. Flash makes up the majority of an SSD's cost, so any reduction in NAND price leads directly to your wallet. The Trion 150 is OCZ's second-generation SSD with 3-bit per cell NAND flash. The transition to 15nm flash should allow OCZ to compete more aggressively with other low cost SSDs.

ProductTrion 150
InterfaceSATA 6 Gbps
ProtocolAHCI
ControllerToshiba
FlashToshiba 15nm TLC
Capacity120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB
Sequential Read550 MB/s
Sequential Write530 MB/s
Random Read90,000 IOPS
Random Write64,000 IOPS
Warranty3 Years ShieldPlus

OCZ's first generation TLC SSD, the Trion 100, already sells for as low as $69 in the 240 GB capacity size and is one of the lowest-cost drives sold today. The new Trion 150 should shave a little from that price. We also expect OCZ to deliver higher performance outside of the SLC buffer by using new sequential write algorithms that nearly double performance in this key area. If implemented, the Trion 150 may become a favorite among PC gamers looking for low cost flash performance. 

Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mapesdhs 08 January 2016 12:26
    "OCZ has always competed aggressively on price."

    That depends on where you live. OCZ's SSDs have been way too expensive in the UK for quite some time now, if one can find them at all (the Vector 180 barely surfaced). Hardly anywhere here sells the Trion 100, and the price is too high anyway (an 850 EVO is cheaper; who in their right mind would buy a Trion instead of an 850 EVO??).

    I like OCZ SSDs a lot, I own several dozen, but their prices have been far too high for a long time now. I've still yet to see any SSD product that could pull me away from buying an 850 EVO, under 60 UKP for 250GB, 111 UKP for 500GB. Cheaper models aren't worth the cost saving once one takes into account warranty, reliability, etc.
    Reply
  • bauboni 08 January 2016 13:31
    Here in Brazil they're expensive as well. In US, the Arc 100 for $72,93 is a great MLC SSD value.
    Reply
  • hannibal 08 January 2016 22:09
    Samsung 3d nand has no competition at this moment. They could sell 850 even cheaper, but they don't have to. We need at least 2 more nand companies to produce 3d nand and we began again see some real competition.
    Until that Samsung can trim their prices according what other companies can do with older technology.
    That real competition will happen soon, so only one or two years and we have multiple 3d nand solutions in the market!
    Reply
  • Mac266 09 January 2016 09:46
    Samsung 3d nand has no competition at this moment. They could sell 850 even cheaper, but they don't have to. We need at least 2 more nand companies to produce 3d nand and we began again see some real competition.
    Until that Samsung can trim their prices according what other companies can do with older technology.
    That real competition will happen soon, so only one or two years and we have multiple 3d nand solutions in the market!

    I don't know, I've picked up a couple of Crucial drives, and they're not too bad.
    Reply
  • hannibal 09 January 2016 20:22
    True, there are other good drives, but it is more expensive to manufacture them than Samsung drives, so Samsung has an edge.
    Reply
  • mapesdhs 10 January 2016 14:42
    It's interesting that Samsung has allowed pricing to drop as low as it has. Until the recent currency slide, the 850 EVO 250GB hit as little as 53 UKP total in the UK (Amazon during the xmas period). Assuming Samsung is still making a decent profit at these prices, perhaps the low pricing is merely their attempt to drive volume in order to make up for financial issues they've been having in other areas of their business empire. Normally, SSD vendors don't allow pricing to go so low if they don't have to - this happened in late-2012/early-2013 after massive offer-related sales of the 830 256GB showed there was just no need to position a 256GB mainstream unit that low, so pricing across the board from all vendors shot back up again (around 150 UKP) and stayed there for over a year until things finally started to move once more with the 840/EVO.

    Can anyone compete with Samsung? Well, whatever happened to SanDisk's stated goals from a year or so ago that they wanted to rapidly ramp up capacity to 4TB, 8TB, etc.? Pricing is obviously key, but there's a core market who care about capacity just as much. I really wanted to buy a 950 Pro NVMe for my laptop, but in the end I couldn't ignore the fact that an 850 EVO SATA would provide the same capacity for half the cost, and atm the higher capacity PCIe M.2 modules do seem to have thermal issues.

    Perhaps we still need to see the emergence of a pricing/capacity sweetspot that will really drive sales; until recently I'd have said that would be a 512GB device, but I've noticed a lot more people in forums recently talking about wanting 1TB minimum for their main SSD purchase.

    Isn.

    Reply
  • Nintendork 11 January 2016 02:11
    And i mean, unless you actually edit video and or copy data from more than 1 m.2 pcie ssd, you won't notice a difference.

    My ideal machine would run a 2TB 850EVO and 4 Western Digital Black 6TB (+another 4 as backup off-machine).
    Reply
  • Nintendork 11 January 2016 02:12
    And i mean, unless you actually edit video and or copy data from more than 1 m.2 pcie ssd, you won't notice a difference.
    Reply
  • mapesdhs 11 January 2016 10:51
    Probably true, thatas always I plan on doing proper tests. I'll leave it for a while though, let prices fall, and hopefully newer/rival products will solve thermal throttling issues. I particularly want to see whether having an M.2 SSD instead of a SATA SSD would help with AE when used as the main cache (lots of people post opinions, but nobody's actually tested it).
    Reply