OCZ ARC 100 (240GB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on August 26, 2014 7:00 AM ESTFinal Words
The ARC 100 provides what I expected it to do, which is its strength and weakness. The Barefoot 3 platform does provide excellent performance consistency and it has proven to be reliable over the last two years, but the performance in lighter workloads is only mediocre. I am glad that OCZ pursues consistency, but the truth is that average client workloads are more about peak performance as IOs tend to happen in bursts. Think about application installing and launching for instance – they stress the drive a lot but only for a short period of time and afterwards the drive will mostly be idling until another similar request comes in. It is true that an average user will most likely not notice the difference between two modern SSDs, but I still would have liked to see the ARC 100 being more optimized for lighter client workloads.
Another shortcoming of the ARC 100 is its lack of support for lower power states and TCG Opal. With most of today's PCs being laptops, OCZ is missing the needs of a huge market. I am guessing that there are some limitations in the Barefoot 3 silicon itself that prohibit OCZ from implementing proper low power state support – or at least that is what I hope because otherwise there is no good explanation as to why the Barefoot 3 continues to use so much power at idle. OCZ's next generation controller will support both DevSleep and Opal encryption, but in the meantime I can only recommend Barefoot 3 based SSDs for desktops.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (8/25/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | ||
| OCZ ARC 100 | $75 | $120 | $240 | |
| OCZ Vector 150 | $85 | $140 | $280 | |
| OCZ Vertex 460 | $90 | $140 | $245 | |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $130 | $200 | $400 | |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $90 | $165 | $250 | |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $200 | $380 | |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $70 | $140 | $295 | |
| Crucial MX100 | $80 | $115 | $220 | |
| Plextor M6S | $80 | $135 | $280 | |
| Intel SSD 730 | - | $190 | $340 | |
| Intel SSD 530 | $90 | $140 | $250 | |
Pricing appears to be competitive, although beating the MX100 is very tough. At capacities of 120GB and 240GB the ARC 100 is effectively the same price as the MX100, but I would like to see the 480GB drop in price to be more competitive. The mainstream market is all about price, so the ARC 100 cannot be $20 more expensive than the MX100 if OCZ wants to compete. Then again, 480GB/512GB SSDs aren't the normal target for mainstream users, so it may not matter too much.
I have to say that the MX100 is still my recommendation for most people because the feature set and value are just amazing, but the ARC 100 is a compelling alternative for desktop users. The better performance consistency makes the ARC 100 more suitable for heavier workloads, so for a user with a heavy-ish IO workload and a tight budget the ARC 100 is a great option.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
54 Comments
View All Comments
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
The prices were accurate yesterday as the title of the table shows. Obviously everyone should use their own judgement when making a buying decision since prices fluctuate all the time.Prodromaki - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Ok mate. It seemed a little bit weird to me, because I read all the reviews/ssd recommendations here and the EVO 256 has been consistently priced @140$ in your tables for the past few months, so I went ahead and checked, hence the comment. It must have been an odd newegg one-day-fluctuation-thing yesterday then.KAlmquist - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
$165 is the current Newegg price for the desktop bundle. The extra $25 gets you an adaptor that lets you plug the SSD into a USB port, the Magician software that Kristian praises below, and some other miscellany.Prodromaki - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Btw if I offered to sell you the EVO 256 and the MX100 256 at 140$/130$ respectively, which one would you have chosen?P.S. Thanks for the swift reply.
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
I would go with the EVO because of Samsung's SSD Magician. Nothing in Magician is really necessary but some of the features can be handy and it is easier to use than many third party tools.As for the NewEgg pricing, there seems to be something wrong with the 250GB link because it is constantly changing (leads to NewEgg front page now). I saw this happening yesterday already, so not sure if there is a way to fix it.
Prodromaki - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
Ok, thanks for your time Kris, much appreciated.mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
The one thing I don't like about Magician is the fact that it can't do a secure erase
much of the time (always says the SSD is locked) - one must do a separate boot
and erase using a dedicated boot device, CD, USB, etc. By contrast, I've never
seen this happen with OCZ's Toolbox, it's always able to s/e an SSD.
Other than the above though, I happily use both brands of SSD (I have many
of each).
Ian.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
(re Toolbox, I did of course mean an OCZ SSD, not any SSD in general)dj christian - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
doesn't Magician do triming in the background and garbage collection?barleyguy - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
I trust my data a lot more to Samsung SSDs than OCZ ones. From that perspective it's worth the extra $10. Intel is maybe worth another $20, at least.I can earn another $10 or $30 in less time that it will take me to deal with a crash. And even if that never happens, peace of mind is worth something...