OCZ's RevoDrive Preview: An Affordable PCIe SSD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 25, 2010 2:15 AM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
This test reads/writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time. All requests are 4KB aligned.
Compared to a single Vertex 2, the RevoDrive is nearly twice the performance. The Revo actually outperforms our two Vertex 2s in RAID-0 thanks to the controller on the card. This is more the exception rather than the rule however, Intel’s ICH10R is one of the fastest desktop SATA 3Gbps controllers we’ve ever seen.
At low queue depths random write performance doesn’t actually improve that much. A single Vertex 2 SSD is already running at close to peak performance here. Compared to last year’s more expensive Z-Drive m84 the performance improvement is tremendous.
Crank up the queue depth for a particularly intensive workload and you’ll see the RevoDrive separate itself from a single drive:
At over 300MB/s there’s no single SATA 3Gbps drive that could deliver this sort of performance. And honestly it’s in these high queue depth scenarios that the RevoDrive really shines. The majority of desktop users simply aren’t pushing this many IOs at a given time, but if you are the Revo won’t disappoint. A pair of Vertex 2s in RAID-0 won’t either. It all comes down to cost and preference.
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cgaspar - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
If you re-flash the card with SIL3124 non-RAID BIOS, it should look just like 2 SSDs, and TRIM should work.oshato - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
I too would like to see the pass through configuration ( non-raided ) tested for TRIM support and db IOPS #s. Curious how feasible this would be for a zfs ZIL in pass through mode.marraco - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
I'm worried about video performance in single and dual setups with this SSD working.marraco - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link
What about boot time?the RAID controller should increase the POST time, and that frequently destroys the boot advantage of SSD under RAID.
javaman3 - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
Does anyone know if this card will work in OSX? I would like to know specifically if it will run in an Xserve.clarkn0va - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
I think there's another, if less common need for this: places where you lack drive bays or SATA ports. Some examples:-SFF servers, most of which accommodate only 1 3.5" drive or 2 2.5" drives. Would be nice to have a little 1U Atom board running a small NAS/application server and cram a little more storage in. I have a mini-ITX server doing nfs, torrents, voip, monitoring, etc and would love to move it to a small rack, but until now couldn't justify the loss of drive space. With the OS and applications running on a RevoDrive, bulk data can live on a pair of 2.5" drives and we're all good.
-Enterprise servers. I'm shopping out a terminal server at work and the cost of purchasing drives with your new server is laughable. The highest-end SLC drives from Intel and OCZ cost less than the OEM-branded grab-bag the server vendors are offering. I would much rather put my own drives in there, thanks, and cruising ebay for compatible drive caddies just feels wrong. pcie slots, on the other hand, come with the server without paying some stupid OEM storage premium.
Now the questions.
1. The article says you configure your own RAID-0. Will the utility also let me configure it as RAID-1 if I want?
2. Anybody know what it's like to try to boot Linux from one of these devices?
cosplay - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Nice reading, thanks for another SSD review.btw, on Installation and Early Issues you have a typo:
I headed into the Silicon Image BIOS, asked to recreate the array, specified the entire 233GB
clarkn0va - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
What are the lengths of these 2 cards? I'd really like to put one in a case that only takes half-length cards.LightningCrashTSI - Wednesday, July 14, 2010 - link
FTA:"The OCZ RevoDrive will offer lower CPU utilization than an on-board software based RAID solution thanks to its Silicon Image RAID controller,"The Silicon Image RAID controller is a software-based RAID controller as well.
Conradical314 - Thursday, August 12, 2010 - link
The important question is, which Firefly episode?Was at first very disappointed to hear about this drive, but thanks to your review I see it would only have made a small effect on actual usage, so I don't need to regret recently getting OCZ Vertex II 120GB too much.