OCZ Storage Solution's RevoDrive series has historically been RAID-based workstation products. That is about to change with an upcoming PCIe 3.0 x4 m.2 part we saw at Computex today. Although currently unnamed, the new product was said to feature a new Toshiba controller paired with Toshiba's newest MLC NAND flash.
Details are still light at this time, but it's clear that OCZ is behind Samsung and Marvell who already have parts shipping in the channel. When released in Q3 (estimate), OCZ will have to compete with a number of other PCIe-based products, some even sinking into the mainstream.
Shown above resting on top of the current RevoDrive 350, we can see just how far OCZ, and the SSD industry at large, has come in the last few years. However, the new m.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 product looks and feels a bit out of place for this series. RevoDrive has always been a product series designed for workstation use with high throughput, a large increase over single drive performance and a justifiable premium price. As a single m.2 solution, we don't feel another m.2 PCIe-based drive is worthy of RevoDrive branding at this time. Let's hope OCZ's new RevoDrive manages to deliver the goods in abundance as native PCIe-based 4-channel SSDs will soon be common in the industry.
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
