OCZ AMD Radeon R7 SSD Review (240GB)

With CPUs, graphics cards and memory, solid state drive were only a matter of time for a company such as AMD.  The AMD Radeon R7 SSD adds yet another AMD part to those who like to have matching components in their systems, but it also goes one step further. It takes advantage of a controller that has long been regarded as the best by enthusiasts.  The Barefoot controller, in fact, was talked about in forums  long before Indy’s acquisition by OCZ.   The benefit of AMD partnering with OCZ for this SSD is the fact that, with OCZ now being the property of Toshiba, the end product also includes what many consider to be the best NAND flash memory in the business.

 AMD Radeon R7 256GB SSD Angled

The AMD Radeon R7 SSD will be available shortly after the posting of this report and available in capacities of 120, 240 and 480GB.  Performance is listed as 550MB/s read for all capacities, along with 530MB/s write for the 240 and 480GB sizes, and 470MB/s for the 120GB capacity.  This high write performance for lower capacity drives seems to be becoming the norm these days and is very refreshing. IOPS are listed at 100K read and 90K write for the 480GB, 95K read and 90K write for the 240GB, and 85K read and 90K write for the 120 GB capacity.  The AMD Radeon R7 comes with a 4 year warranty, and if we were to place this in line with OCZ SSDs, it would fall between the vector 150 and Vertex 460.

AMD OCZ Comparison2

Other features of the AMD Radeon R7 include such things as 256-bit AES compliant encryption, SMART monitoring, rated endurance of 30GB a day for 4 years, an industry high 2.5 million hours MTBF, as well as a complete migration package to include a desktop adapter and  copy of Acronis HD cloning software that may be downloaded.

AMD Radeon 256GB SSD Exterior FrontAMD Radeon 256GB SSD Exterior BackAMD RADEON R7 BUILD

As with all OCZ SSDs, the exterior consstruction is of a heavy solid metal shell, this SSD being an ultrathin 7mm thick and having a very attractive design.  It can be disassembled through the removal of four screws on its base, however, one of the screws is covered with security tape, visible damage of which would void the drive warranty. MSRP is listed at $99 (120GB), $163 (240GB) and $298 (480GB) and availability should be a few weeks down the road.

AMD Radeon 256GB SSD FrontAMD Radeon 256GB SSD BackOnce the bottom plate is removed, we find a green printed circuit board (PCB) that contains the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, 16 pieces of Toshiba A19 19nm NAND flash memory, as well as a 256MB Micron DRAM cache chip on each side of the board.

  AMD Radeon 256GB SSD PCB Front

Each memory chip is 16GB on this SSD, for a RAW value of 256GB, however 7% is utilized for overprovisioning which brings it down to its advertised capacity of 240GB.  Once formatted, there is 223GB of available storage space at the users hands.

AMD Radeon 256GB SSD PCB Back

19 comments

  1. blank

    Go AMD! Good one Les! Looks like a very good SSD.

  2. blank

    Cheers Les – I’ve been looking forward to this review for a while – also linked it at http://www.gamingtribe.com/status/13194139584347/?v=d155c8c3963c661791f1a3fca3e5105d for the gaming community at GT

  3. blank
    Z Inter fan - Kuwait

    I’m willing to forget all my former bad experiences with them and try this drive or the Vector 150, the only thing that’s holding me back is their over-crowded pcb! not sure why OCZ/Toshiba pcb’s look like SAS/Data center drives!

    • blank

      And thats bad how ?
      Smaller pcb means lower cost.

      • blank
        Z Inter fan - Kuwait

        I’m not talking about the size, what worries me is the amount of capacitors/items that populate their drives.

      • blank

        Care to explain ?

      • blank
        Z Inter fan - Kuwait

        The more items you have.. the more could go wrong.
        Other manufacturers have far cleaner/less populated pcbs.

      • blank

        While i see your point, lots of SSDs have design like that and never caused trouble. Those are pretty dumb components and wont die easily. The controller is the main problem with ssds, when it comes to reliability.

      • blank
        Z Inter fan - Kuwait

        You’re right my friend.. It’s just that I’m questioning the purpose of these components and nothing more.

      • blank

        I wonder the same. For all its worth, they could get away with a much smaller PCB and only 2-4 packages aswell (by using 8 dies per package). That would save cost, which could translate to lower MSRP.

        Big guys are doing this for a while now (samsung and smi based drives to name a few).

      • blank
        Z Inter fan - Kuwait

        I’m with you in this, a cleaner/smaller pcb would most likley lead to better cost saving.

      • blank

        sounds like you don’t understand PCBs. It doesn’t matter if the components are “visible” or not. In fact there’s going to be more heat if more of the components are inside an IC rather than on the outside. If you really don’t want to see the components, you basically have to remove them all together, e.g. downgrade the card.

      • blank
        Z Inter fan - Kuwait

        Hello Eisa,
        That still does not change the fact that all other bigger, more established manufacturers are making far more cleaner pcbs.

      • blank

        Sorry, but this is a really stupid complaint. If they were electrolytic capacitors then at least we could talk about it, because those had limited life-expectancy if they are highly loaded. But these are solid capacitors. You should complain if they do not put enough capacitors into a product. Yes, that is a usual cost reduction method. These are basically noise filtering capacitors. Without them the product is cheaper but less reliable.

  4. blank

    PR article at best, does not stand out in any way, I’d still take sammy or crucial mx100 over this any day, bf controller is the best my ass.

  5. blank

    I used to frequent this site for reviews, but if you can’t even take a honest critique of the artile (PR stuff otherwise), don’t even bother. And thank for deleting my previous post, looks like it was too much to handle, right?

  6. blank

    I enjoyed your review but as of now, nearly two weeks later, they are not yet in stock with Amazon. “Order now and we’ll deliver when available.”

    Do you have any updates on availability?

    Jim

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *