Firmware Update for OCZ Octane SSDs Promises Significant Performance Boost

Posted 01/26/2012 at 6:37am | by Pulkit Chandna

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OCZ acquired solid-state drive (SSD) controller manufacturer Indilinx in March, 2011 for around $32 million. Much later that year, it announced a new range of Sata 6Gb/s SSDs based on the Indilinx Everest controller. Although these new Octane SSDs have received mostly positive reviews, they are not the best that money can buy when it comes to performance. This is especially true where random write performance is concerned. Now, though, there is something that you can do about it, thanks to the release of a “new enhanced IOPS firmware (v1.13).”

The firmware update brings serious improvements in random write IOPS performance, with smaller capacity drives benefiting the most. The new firmware is said to increase random write performance in 128GB and 256GB Octane drives to more than double their original specifications.

“For all Octane SATA 6Gb/s models, the improved IOPS made possible by this new firmware allow for greater transactional performance, especially during small file and random access speeds in everyday computing applications,” the company said in a press release. “The new enhanced IOPS firmware will begin shipping in the next batch of drives to resellers, and the upgrade file will be made available to existing customers via the company's website.”

Existing customers can download the new firmware (v1.13) from the vendor’s website. However, before you excitedly proceed to flashing this update, please take note of the fact that this a “destructive flash,” meaning that it will completely wipe off all data from your SSD. So don’t forget to back up your data before you go ahead with this.

Image Credit: OCZ