OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB PCIe SSD Review – Performance, Capacity And Value Finally

OCZ REVODRIVE 3 MOTHERBOARD PERFORMANCE

In examining the Revo 3 (which it is when separated from the daughter board), we need to understand that performance may differ from that of the retail 120GB Revo 3 available for consumer purchase.  To start, this drive is over provisioned to 28% whereas the commercially available drive is over provisioned at 7%.  This explains why the advertised drive is listed at 120GB, whereas, this only shows 100GB as being available before formatting.

Performance may also differ as we are well aware that the bios is different (wait for it) as well as the hybrids firmware. We also don’t need to repeat testing as we will be for the Hybrid tests as there is no ‘caching’ in this scenario.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of raw (0/1 Fill/compressible) or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Many new SandForce Driven SSD owners who cant wait to test the performance of their SSD often grab this program and run a quick test, not realizing that they are testing with incompressible data rather than compressible data used in testing by manufacturers.  Our test with CDM will be with ‘ofill’ or easily compressible data whereas we will rely on AS SSD for incompressible data testing below.

blankAS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.64

Up until recently, ATTO was the only benchmark created specifically for SSD testing and it uses incompressible data.  AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the worst case scenario in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data and many enthusiasts like to AS SSD for their needs.

blankWe can see that the performance highs of 774MB/s and 610MB/s are not quite as high as the RevoDrive 3 or RevoDrive 3 Hybrid but still great scores.  Also, a quick look at the sequential performance results of AS SSD confirms the use of asynchronous NAND flash memory in the SSD as synchronous would have provided much better results in testing incompressible data.  Stay tuned for PCMark Vantage results of the ‘Cache’ SSD which will  displayed and discussed later in our report.

19 comments

  1. blank

    Great review, as always! You always provide useful insights and detailed analysis.

  2. blank

    It’s a nice concept, but I’d like to see it implemented in a bit more down-to-earth way: SSD with half the capacity, and a single-platter HDD (all to reduce material costs and energy consumption) would be perfect for me. It doesn’t always have to be the super-duper fastest and largest drive 😉

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    Benevolent Spectator

    Can you clarify the TRIM support issue? I thought Windows 7 supports TRIM if it is enabled correctly.

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    Are you sure the memory is IMFT?? According to the IMFT website (link below), 100% of the IMFT NAND output is consumed by Intel and Micron.

    https://www.imftech.com/company/faqs.html#customers

    • blank

      That is not correct. We have documented two separate ocasions where IMFT NAND flash memory was utilized in SSDs and the name of the flash made to reflect that of the company, the previous being SuperTalent.

    • blank

      That is not correct. We have documented two separate ocasions where IMFT NAND flash memory was utilized in SSDs and the name of the flash made to reflect that of the company, the previous being SuperTalent.Type your reply…

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    So, does it work on Linux and how well? That might be a much more important issue than Windows support – these SSDs are the best thing of the last decade for speeding up databases and other server operations!
    Team up with Phoronix if you are lacking Linux expertise 😉

  6. blank

    Great review, no complaints there. My spelling/grammar side was going crazy with your “their / there / they’re” misspellings, though! Might want to look up when to use each correctly.

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    You have a valid point as we do not utilize Linux at all but will look into it. No promises…

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    Christopher Harquail

    Great article, very in depth. Thanks. You may made me re-consider my 2nd SSD purchase.

    FYI, page 5, first paragraph, 100MB/typo/100GB.

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    can you dual boot ie linux/win7

  10. blank

    On a new install, how do we download revo hybrid drivers and store to a folder without windows yet loaded?

  11. blank

    I liked your review and would very much like to employ this in my system. I have a z800 I tried to install this card but it would not function. I could see it but could not access the drive. My 135gb sas drives were stripped and very fast but I needed more drive space but didn’t want to take a hair cut on speed. Any suggestions on how I might get this to function? I tried ocz, that was disappointing as they were of no assistance. thanks

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