PCIe SSD Faceoff: Samsung XP941 (128GB & 256GB) and OCZ RevoDrive 350 (480GB) Tested
by Kristian Vättö on September 5, 2014 3:00 PM ESTFinal Words
Since we are dealing with two fairly different drives, I will split the conclusion into two by beginning with the XP941. The XP941 is still the fastest client SSD and while the 256GB model does not provide the same performance as the 512GB one, it is still faster than any SATA 6Gbps SSD by a hefty margin. The 128GB XP941 is a different story, though. It is not really faster than the 128GB 850 Pro because at such small capacity the performance is mostly NAND limited, except for large sequential read transfers where the SATA 6Gbps interface is the bottleneck.
The good news is that RamCity has lowered its pricing since May. The XP941 still carries a premium over SATA SSDs, but it is now more competitive in price at less than a dollar per gigabyte. For US-based customers, finding the XP941 in stock can be a bit difficult; Newegg has both the 128GB and 256GB models listed, but they're on backorder; meanwhile the 512GB model is in stock at Amazon, but only at a highly inflated price of $750.
| Price Comparison (9/4/2014) | |||||||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | ||||||
| Samsung SSD XP941 | $127 | $252 | $486 | - | |||||
| Plextor M6e | $120 | $220 | $420 | - | |||||
| OCZ RevoDrive 350 | - | $517 | $810 | $1,260 | |||||
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $130 | $200 | $400 | $700 | |||||
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $180 | $350 | $570 | |||||
The RevoDrive is a totally different case. The performance is only better in some corner cases where the drive is fed with high queue depth or large transfer data, and in most typical scenarios it is outperformed by SATA 6Gbps SSDs. In the end, the RevoDrive 350 is nothing more than a pre-built 4-drive RAID array, so it is only faster in cases where RAID in general is a benefit (e.g. heavily parallel IO workloads).
Not only is the RevoDrive relatively slow, it is also super expensive. For the price of the 240GB RevoDrive 350, you could get four 128GB 850 Pros with twice the total capacity and higher performance since the 850 Pro is faster than any single SandForce drive. The same goes for higher capacity RevoDrives too -- it is simply way more affordable to buy a bunch of SATA SSDs and build your own RAID array. Even if you do not know how to create a RAID array, I am sure you can find someone to do it for $50, in which case you would still save money and get a faster RAID array with better drives.
All in all, for those who are in the market for a PCIe SSD, the XP941 is the only serious option. It is the fastest client SSD on the market and as long as your motherboard includes boot support for it, it is the best client drive that money can buy at the moment. I am very excited to get my hands on the SM951 (and other native PCIe SSDs) because the XP941 is already great, but when you add PCIe 3.0, NVMe, and V-NAND to the mix it will be one hell of a drive.
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thel33ter - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link
Excellent review as always.Personally I see the performance as being slightly disappointing, but it's just a matter of time till performance akin to the Intel P3700 is going to be within reach of the average consumer.
Probably a silly question, but would it be possible to RAID two PCIe drives?
vLsL2VnDmWjoTByaVLxb - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link
It is odd that Intel RST is kept from years ago when there are scores and scores of fixes to the drivers since the release you are using. This may dramatically impact test results.I get the desire for bench and legacy scoring, but at a certain point you have to let go of legacy when serious improvements have been made to reliability, errata, bugs, etc, from previous drivers. Not to mention nobody should be using the drivers from this review.
Kristian Vättö - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link
We are in the process of upgrading to a new testbed with the latest drivers, but we stumbled into some incompatibilities that have delayed the transition.Remember that storage drivers are not as important as e.g. GPU drivers where one version can have dramatic improvements to one game. After all, the RST drivers are the same for all drives, so driver improvements should affect all drives pretty much equally.
joannecdinkins - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link
just as Larry answered I didnt even know that people able to get paid $6104 in a few weeks on the internet .go to this site>>>>> paygazette.ℭＯＭ
coburn_c - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link
512GB occupying a desktop pcie slot is still criminal. Works well for mobile devices but we need to get these prices down and these capacities up in the desktop space.Kristian Vättö - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link
Quite a few of the newer boards already come with M.2 slots, so if you are shopping for a new system you might as well choose a board that has a proper PCIe x4 M.2 slot.Galatian - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link
But that limits your choice to essentially Intel Z97 or X99 chipset and from my research on Z97 this actually only leaves the ASRock Extreme6 and 9 as well as the mITX ASUS Maximus Impact VII.KarlKaiser - Friday, September 5, 2014 - link
Thanks for this article. It is obvious the storage industry is about to change but what I miss as an end-user is helpful comparisons from journalists like yourself that might help me to figure out what to buy now/soon. Keep it up!For example, for another $100 more than the 512GB Samsung XP941, soon we'll get the 400GB Intel DC P3500, which is on paper twice as fast at W/R 2500/1700 MB/s, if a somewhat smaller capacity.
Kristian Vättö - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link
The P3500 is something I'll definitely be reviewing (for both, enterprise and client since there's been a ton of interest), but unfortunately we don't have any samples.DMCalloway - Saturday, September 6, 2014 - link
I agree. The Intel DC P series is the one to watch right now.