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I've been meaning to write this review for a while, just never been able to get around to it (work is such a bummer
).
Anyways, a few months ago I got the itch for adventure and, after much thought and research, I finally decided to take the plunge into the esoteric world of solid state drives. However, I didn't get just any SSD, but one of the fastest drives available on the market: the OCZ RevoDrive PCI-Express SSD (I figured if I was going to spend gobs of money on a SSD I might as well get a really good one). Instead of SATA this drive uses the PCI-Express bus for transferring data, resulting in blazing fast performance.
Specifications
First of all, here are the official specs for the drive:
- PCI-Express interface (x4)
- Internal RAID 0
- Shock Resistance: 1500g
- Seek Time: 0.1 ms
- Power Consumption: 3W Idle, 8W active
- MTBF: 2,000,000 hours
- Read: Up to 540 MB/s
- Write: Up to 480 MB/s
- Sustained Write: Up to 400 MB/s
- Randon Write 4KB (Aligned): 75,000 IOPS
For more info you can go to the official OCZ product page.
Pictures
Now for some pictures. Here is a shot of the box.
Note: some of the images might look curved due to the cheap camera that I used, which was the only thing I had available at the time.
![]()
Here's a shot of the box opened. Note the sticker.
![]()
A shot of the front of the drive. The center chip (the one with the 'R' sticker) is a Silicon Image PCI-X SATA controller (4 port). The chip at the bottom converts PCI-X to PCI-E while the two Sandforce chips control the NAND chips for each drive (the drive is actually two 55 GB drives in RAID 0).
![]()
A shot of the back of the drive.
![]()
A close-up shot of the memory chips.
![]()
A close-up shot of the front of the drive.
![]()
A shot of the drive after being installed.
![]()
A shot of the drive actually working (sorry for the bad picture quality). Note the blue light on the front of the drive, which indicates drive activity.
![]()
I also took this picture of the system start-up. You can clearly see the two 55 GB drives listed.
![]()
Installation
The physical installation of the drive was pretty simple, like any other PCI/PCI-E device. The drive required no physical configuration or any connectors so there wasn't much to go wrong. Windows installation was also pretty simple; it was quickly able to identify the drive after being pointed to the drivers. There were only a couple of hiccups, neither of which proved to be a long-term problem. First, the system failed to boot when the drive was first installed (black screen, no beeps or errors). Subsequent boots were okay though. Second, the Windows installation failed to complete the first time (it stopped after copying the files to the drive). I had to restart the installation, which then completed successfully. Beyond that, the drive has performed perfectly.
Benchmarks
Now for the moment that everyone's been waiting for. I used Performance Test and SiSoft Sandra to measure the performance of the drive. This first shot shows Performance Test, comparing the drive (green) to a typical system (red). As can be seen, the SSD drive is capable of stunning speeds, reaching up to 439 MB/s sequential read.
![]()
The next is SiSoft Sandra, which again shows a huge difference in both speed and access time (the red line is the RevoDrive). Sandra records a drive score of 363.8 MB/s with 100 microsecond access time.
![]()
The last shot is the details of the Sandra results. The SSD drive seems to show a lot of variability but it soars well above the competition.
![]()
Conclusions
As this review show, the OCZ RevoDrive is one incredibly fast drive. In my experience the difference can be most felt when starting Windows and running/installing programs. Putting the Windows page file on the drive also eliminates any and all hard drive thrashing, making the system a lot more responsive. The OCZ RevoDrive is also one of the more affordable SSD drives on the market that can still deliver top-of-the-line performance (I paid a little less than $400 CAD for it). Finally, the drive runs silently, consumes only minimal power, and produces very little heat. It is ideal for anyone looking for a silent yet fast/powerful system.
Of course, this drive will only improve performance where the hard drive is the limiting factor. 3D gamers won't derive much value from this drive (except for loading times). Size is also an issue, since costs go up prohibitively with a larger drive size. For storing large amounts of data HDDs are still the way to go.
Overall, my first experience with a SSD has been a positive one and I will be using this drive as my main drive from now on (it seems to complement my more-or-less silent water-cooled system pretty well). The RevoDrive is an excellent product from one of the best technology companies out there and, if the RevoDrive is any indication, SSDs have a bright future ahead of them.
That's it for the review, thank you for reading.
).Anyways, a few months ago I got the itch for adventure and, after much thought and research, I finally decided to take the plunge into the esoteric world of solid state drives. However, I didn't get just any SSD, but one of the fastest drives available on the market: the OCZ RevoDrive PCI-Express SSD (I figured if I was going to spend gobs of money on a SSD I might as well get a really good one). Instead of SATA this drive uses the PCI-Express bus for transferring data, resulting in blazing fast performance.
Specifications
First of all, here are the official specs for the drive:
- PCI-Express interface (x4)
- Internal RAID 0
- Shock Resistance: 1500g
- Seek Time: 0.1 ms
- Power Consumption: 3W Idle, 8W active
- MTBF: 2,000,000 hours
- Read: Up to 540 MB/s
- Write: Up to 480 MB/s
- Sustained Write: Up to 400 MB/s
- Randon Write 4KB (Aligned): 75,000 IOPS
For more info you can go to the official OCZ product page.
Pictures
Now for some pictures. Here is a shot of the box.
Note: some of the images might look curved due to the cheap camera that I used, which was the only thing I had available at the time.
Here's a shot of the box opened. Note the sticker.
A shot of the front of the drive. The center chip (the one with the 'R' sticker) is a Silicon Image PCI-X SATA controller (4 port). The chip at the bottom converts PCI-X to PCI-E while the two Sandforce chips control the NAND chips for each drive (the drive is actually two 55 GB drives in RAID 0).
A shot of the back of the drive.
A close-up shot of the memory chips.
A close-up shot of the front of the drive.
A shot of the drive after being installed.
A shot of the drive actually working (sorry for the bad picture quality). Note the blue light on the front of the drive, which indicates drive activity.
I also took this picture of the system start-up. You can clearly see the two 55 GB drives listed.
Installation
The physical installation of the drive was pretty simple, like any other PCI/PCI-E device. The drive required no physical configuration or any connectors so there wasn't much to go wrong. Windows installation was also pretty simple; it was quickly able to identify the drive after being pointed to the drivers. There were only a couple of hiccups, neither of which proved to be a long-term problem. First, the system failed to boot when the drive was first installed (black screen, no beeps or errors). Subsequent boots were okay though. Second, the Windows installation failed to complete the first time (it stopped after copying the files to the drive). I had to restart the installation, which then completed successfully. Beyond that, the drive has performed perfectly.
Benchmarks
Now for the moment that everyone's been waiting for. I used Performance Test and SiSoft Sandra to measure the performance of the drive. This first shot shows Performance Test, comparing the drive (green) to a typical system (red). As can be seen, the SSD drive is capable of stunning speeds, reaching up to 439 MB/s sequential read.
The next is SiSoft Sandra, which again shows a huge difference in both speed and access time (the red line is the RevoDrive). Sandra records a drive score of 363.8 MB/s with 100 microsecond access time.
The last shot is the details of the Sandra results. The SSD drive seems to show a lot of variability but it soars well above the competition.
Conclusions
As this review show, the OCZ RevoDrive is one incredibly fast drive. In my experience the difference can be most felt when starting Windows and running/installing programs. Putting the Windows page file on the drive also eliminates any and all hard drive thrashing, making the system a lot more responsive. The OCZ RevoDrive is also one of the more affordable SSD drives on the market that can still deliver top-of-the-line performance (I paid a little less than $400 CAD for it). Finally, the drive runs silently, consumes only minimal power, and produces very little heat. It is ideal for anyone looking for a silent yet fast/powerful system.
Of course, this drive will only improve performance where the hard drive is the limiting factor. 3D gamers won't derive much value from this drive (except for loading times). Size is also an issue, since costs go up prohibitively with a larger drive size. For storing large amounts of data HDDs are still the way to go.
Overall, my first experience with a SSD has been a positive one and I will be using this drive as my main drive from now on (it seems to complement my more-or-less silent water-cooled system pretty well). The RevoDrive is an excellent product from one of the best technology companies out there and, if the RevoDrive is any indication, SSDs have a bright future ahead of them.
That's it for the review, thank you for reading.
