OCZ Launches PCIe-Based HDD/SDD Hybrid Drive

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By Kevin Parrish
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OCZ has launched the RevoDrive Hybrid, a PCI Express-based storage solution combining SDD and HDD drives on one PCIe card.

Wednesday OCZ Technology announced the shipment of its RevoDrive Hybrid, a unique PCI Express-based storage solution that combines SSD and hard disk drive (HDD) technologies on one add-on card.

By bypassing the SATA bottleneck, OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid promises transfer speeds up to 910 MB/s and up to 120,000 IOPS (4K random write). The SSD aspect reportedly uses a SandForce SF-2281 controller and the hard drive platters spin at 5,400rpm. On a whole, the hybrid drive makes good use of the company's proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture.

But because the PCIe drive partially relies on old-school HDD technology, the overall product only has a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 600,000 hours – a third of the typical MTBF for SSDs. That said, the shortened lifespan is a tradeoff for the zippy speed across the PCIe bus, as even the PCIe-based RevoDrive X2 SDD only manages up to 740 MB/s reads and up to 720 MB/s writes, depending on the capacity.

Wednesday OCZ also said that the RevoDrive Hybrid comes bundled with Dataplex caching software which dynamically manages the use of the 100 GB SSD with the 2.5-inch 1TB HDD for "superior overall storage performance." This means the most frequently used "hot" data will stay on the SSD whereas the "cold" data will remain on the larger capacity HDD.

"Advanced caching algorithms learn user behavior and adapt storage policies to ensure optimal performance for each individual user, maximizing productivity for the most demanded programs and applications," the company explained in a press release.

"The RevoDrive Hybrid leverages the best attributes of both solid state drives and traditional hard drive technology to deliver dynamic data-tiering on a single easy to deploy PCIe storage drive," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "Leveraging Dataplex software to efficiently manage frequently accessed data delivers superior performance and capacity, making the RevoDrive Hybrid the ideal solution for high performance computing and media content creation."

OCZ's 1 TB RevoDrive Hybrid comes backed by a three-year warranty and will be available worldwide for an MSRP of $499.99.

Kevin Parrish
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39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Kamab
    SSD*
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    I don't see a point of those.... you don't want extra devices in the PCI/PCI Express slots. Normally, GPUs cover everything; you're lucky if you can stuff in a sound card or a WLAN one...
    Reply
  • randomstar
    I can not see this as a bad thing. Similar devices have existed in the past, but perhaps this will be a better product?
    still, about $150.00 too high..
    Reply
  • jackofhearts495
    great idea. no need for conventional hard drives or SSD's. This is definitely the epitome of convenience of speed - nearly 1gb/s. Nice.
    Reply
  • cadder
    600,000 hours MTBF? This IS OCZ that we're talking about here, I thought their MTBF was usually between 0 hours and 7 days. (At least according to the hundreds of people that post feedback on newegg.com.)

    But about the technology itself- Seagate has hybrid drives too. IF the caching algorythm is good this would seem to be a decent technology. I would like to have drives such as these in all of my machines.
    Reply
  • utengineer
    amk-aka-phantomI don't see a point of those.... you don't want extra devices in the PCI/PCI Express slots. Normally, GPUs cover everything; you're lucky if you can stuff in a sound card or a WLAN one...You don't see the point because you are thinking like a gamer and not a professional. The drive is marketed for high performance computing and media content creation. These types of customers usually have one GPU in their workstation and none in their servers. This type of drive benefits them more so.
    Reply
  • 3 year warranty is that a joke? $50 Seagates have a 3 year warranty. A drive sporting that kind of price should be at least 5. At 500 bucks a pop you're well into enterprise level territory.
    Reply
  • JohnnyLucky
    SandForce based ssd's have had more than their fair share of problems and issues. I wonder how long before something goes wrong with this hybrid.
    Reply
  • aznshinobi
    Why can't we just start the R&D for tech like the Momentus XT. Something we consumers can afford w/o breaking bank.
    Reply
  • Ciuy
    500$ ... WTF !!!! Make `em cheaper so we can all have them.
    Reply