Computex 2011: OCZ's RevoDrive 3 & RevoDrive 3 X2, Now With TRIM
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 31, 2011 9:59 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
- SSDs
- SandForce
- OCZ
- SF-2000
- RevoDrive 3
- Computex 2011
There's a new PCIe SSD in town: the RevoDrive 3. Armed with two SF-2281 controllers and anywhere from 128 - 256GB of NAND (120/240GB capacities), the RevoDrive 3 is similar to its predecessors in that the two controllers are RAIDed on card. Here's where things start to change though.
In the past OCZ used a PCI-X RAID controller to keep costs down, but that's now gone. OCZ won't disclose the name of the controller vendor but a quick look at the card shows that it's native PCIe. The RevoDrive 3 itself is a PCIe 2.0 x4 card, however OCZ wouldn't confirm whether or not the controller was running at 2.0 or 1.0 speeds - just that the interface wasn't a bottleneck.
The other big improvement is that OCZ made some modifications to both the SandForce and on-board RAID controller firmware to allow everything from SMART data to TRIM to be passed through to the system host. In the past RevoDrive users were stuck with a PCIe card that couldn't be TRIMed, but with the 3 you get full TRIM support. Formatting the drive under Windows 7 or deleting files off of will result in those LBAs being TRIMed by the SF controllers.
OCZ is promising up to 900MB/s reads and 700MB/s writes (highly compressible of course). Random writes are spec'd at up to 120,000 for 4KB transfers. OCZ expects the 240GB capacity to sell for $599.
In addition to the standard RevoDrive there's an X2 version with twice the controllers:
With four controllers the RevoDrive 3 X2 is good for up to 1.5GB/s reads and 1.2GB/s writes. OCZ is quoting up to 200,000 4KB random write IOPS. Again all of these figures are using highly compressible data. Just like the base RevoDrive 3, TRIM/SMART reporting are now supported on the x2.
Capacities start at 240GB ($699) and go all the way up to 960GB.
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Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
599$ for 240GB isn't that bad. Any idea on the price of 120GB version?H8ff0000 - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
If it follows suit with what they usually do, probably a bit more than half. $349-379?shabby - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
Don't be silly, the 120gb will cost $299.5Bolas - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
I've been waiting for this for a long time. Right product, right price.Bootable PCIe drive with RAID support and the current generation of SandForce controller.
Hope it's compatible with my Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 motherboard!
If so, it should be a great improvement over my Intel x25m G2 160GB SSD, currently the limiting factor in my computer's performance.
george1924 - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
What's the deal with linux on these things? It SHOULD just show up as any other HDD/SSD, but does it? I thought that some of the first ones confused Linux too much to boot from it.erple2 - Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - link
I don't think so. The standard HDD/SSD shows up under Linux since they're powered by the SATA interface, not a PCIe interface. The nature of the driver structure under Linux kind of makes that somewhat impossible.Unless the drive shows up as a "PCIe controller that has a SATA controller built in" type of an arrangement, and does the appropriate translations in hardware.
Olternaut - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
I'm definitely getting the 240GB x2 version.Gonna combine this with an OCZ vertex 3 with whatever capacity I can afford and possibly another high capacity HD as part of my new uber build!
dac7nco - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
This is seriously overdue... how did OCZ of all people manage to pass TRIM commands through a RAID controller?!GullLars - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
Custom firmware. Considering it's RAID-0 and likely a HBA, it's probably a bit easier than more complex RAID sollutions.xakor - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
Some people just crap money...