OCZ ARC 100 SSD Review (240GB) – Consistency in a Value SSD

POWER CONSUMPTION

For our power consumption testing, we have the drive connected to the system as a secondary drive. To record the wattage, we use an Amprobe AM-270 multimeter connected in line with the 5v power on our SATA power cable to the drive. The multimeter records the min/max amperage draw from the drive over our testing period. We also record the drive’s sequential and random read and write power draw using Anvil Storage Utilities. We then take the values recorded and calculate the wattage of the drive. Some of the results may seem high compared to a standard notebook HDD because as these are peak values under load. When we see average power draw, SSDs are still more power efficient because they only hit max power for a short period of time.

OCZ ARC 100 240GB Power Testing

There wasn’t much information on power consumption for the ARC 100 from OCZ. However, on the label it states power draw of up to 5v at 1A. From our testing we can see idle and 4K consumption is decent at a little over .6 watts and .94 watts respectively.  Sequential writes seem to be the power leech for this drive coming in at around 3.4 watts.

REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Steady-state performance is the current trend in the SSD market. Taking a look at OCZ’s recent releases such as the Vertex 460 and even their Vector 150, we see OCZ had taken note of it for quite a while. And concurrently, we see companies such as SanDisk with their Extreme Pro and Samsung with their 850 Pro starting to step into tweaking their drives for consistency as well.

OCZ Arc 100-8

In our testing it has performed very well. 4K speeds are very respectable, power consumption is decent, and in our PCMark 8 consistency test it has performed great considering its target market. With the OCZ ARC 100 coming in at $0.50/GB, isn’t the most affordable or fastest drive; it doesn’t come with any fancy accessories or software, but it is still does offer good performance at a decent price point.

FINAL THOUGHTS

OCZ ARC 100 SSD… The name of this drive itself seems to be a homophone for the word arch. It is almost as if its name is a metaphor. This drive is as an arch, or a bridge product. It is something that connects both performance and price to create value from it. And with that, the new OCZ ShieldPlus warranty is another reinforcement to the metaphor. OCZ as a whole is bridging out the consumer and connecting to them by offering a product and service they are looking for.

OCZ Arc 100-5

Since Toshiba’s taking in of OCZ, things seem to be getting better and better. If you are in the market for a value SSD, be sure to add this to your list of drives to compare!

Check Out The ARC 100 SSD Pricing at Amazon!

 

Review Overview

Build
Performance
Consistency
Features
SSD Warranty

Consistent Performance

Although the OCZ ARC 100's peak speeds do not saturate the SATA 6Gb/s bus, it achieves what it was designed for; it is an entry level SSD at a value price point.

User Rating: 4.66 ( 6 votes)

7 comments

  1. blank

    it makes me wants to consider them again.

    • blank

      Well, considering MX100 is both cheaper and faster and on top of that offers hardware encryption i really see no reason buying this. It needs to come down on price

      • blank

        Performance and features wise the SSD series is actually darn close to the Vertex 460 we recently tested and overall it is faster than the Crucial MX100 really. That MX100 will drop in performance fast once you start to really utilize that SSD, that’s not the case with this ARC 100 though.

        https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ocz_arc_240_gb_ssd_review,1.html

      • blank

        Yeah that kind of crazy consistency is not really applicable to the potential buyer, that buys value drives. Yeah, its nice to have great consistency, but then again, avarage user will never write that much and if you’re using trim aware OS, performance will always restore to its optimal state.

        So the way i see it; its 22€ more expensive and has 16GB less space (for 256GB class). Yeah i think pretty much everyone buying a value drive will go with cheaper “alternative”.

      • blank

        But not the cleverer ones, I believe/

  2. blank

    the mx100 looks cant be bought for under £74 in the Uk and this can be picked up for £65

  3. blank

    Great Review. Thanks. It helped me.

Leave a Reply

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