OCZ’s New SSD Abandons SATA
Posted 04/26/09 at 05:18:30 AM by Justin Kerr
Comments
Print
Email
SSD prices have been improving steadily over the past year, but they are still priced out of reach for the average user in any type of practical capacity. That being said, our readers are Maximum right? So for those of you who have been considering SSD’s, you might want to hold out just a bit longer.
The newest entrant into the category comes from OCZ who is preparing to launch their new solid state drive, and the specs are pretty impressive. The new “Z-Drive” will bypass SATA bottlenecks by hooking directly onto a spare PCIe slot. The architecture of the drive has also clearly been tuned for performance with the four Vertex controllers being configured in a four-way RAID 0.
On paper this drive is capable of read speeds up to 510MB/sec, and write speeds to match idling out around 480MB/sec. Of course we won’t be able to verify these speeds until we get one in the lab, but if true, it could be one of the fastest consumer drives to date. The initial launch will see three different capacities made available, 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. Pricing hasn’t been released just yet, but as with any new cutting edge SSD, expect it to cost more than most PCs.
I'm sticking with my
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 2:38am
I'm sticking with my prediction. This time next year SSD's will be alot closer to being the norm and alot more competitive with HDD's in Price and Capacity. I believe that the Economy is going to rebound sometime in the next nine months, this and the fact that competition amongst manufacturers and companies starting to realize production numbers after factory expansions will drive prices down. Right now the only reason the prices are so high is the high cost of manufacturing and limited supply of NAND Flash Memory Chips. As manufacturing costs get lower and yields higher the costs of manufacture and subsequent sales will drop significantly. We have already witnessed such drops in price with SSD's. It's going to get cheaper and the prices will start dropping very fast.
I could be wrong and an astroid will hit the earth and kill all life long before the sun consumes all of it's Hydrogen and expands to eat up the earth as it consumes Helium.
Kinda looks like a video card...
Submitted by bingojubes on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 12:58pm
finally, something i can use that will take up that expansion slot!
-
Submitted by burntjuggalas on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 7:35am
Submitted by Bigfoot on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 11:27pm
Available in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities
256MB Onboard Cache
Onboard RAID Controller
PCI-Express 2.0 interface (x4)
245mm x 124mm x 22mm
Weight ~ 500g
Operating Temp: +5ºC ~ +55ºC
Storage Temp: -20ºC ~ +80ºC
MTBF 900,000 hours
2 year warranty
OS Compatibility: Windows XP 32/64, Vista 32/64, Windows 7 32/64, Mac OS X 10 and Above250GB Max Performance
Read: Up to 450 MB/s
Write: Up to 300MB/s
Sustained Write: Up to 200MB/s500GB Max Performance
Read: Up to 510 MB/s
Write: Up to 480MB/s
Sustained Write: Up to 200MB/s1TB Max Performance
Read: Up to 500 MB/s
Write: Up to 470MB/s
Sustained Write: Up to 200MB/sPart Numbers
250GB - OCZSSDPCIE-1ZDRV250G
500GB- OCZSSDPCIE-1ZDRV500G
1TB
- OCZSSDPCIE-1ZDRV1T
Submitted by kiaghi7 on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 6:44pm
It makes me happy on so many levels... some of them aren't even of a sexual nature! :D
The only thing that makes me happier is thinking that it's a first generation product, capacity will rapidly increase, performance will as well, and price will come down considerably by the time this is a "mainstream" product. If anything this will eventually benefit everyone in the long term because it causes external and internal competition for high speed storage media options.
Submitted by DOOMHAMMA on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 4:04pm
I can't wait for the day when this stuff becomes accessible to every day consumers. Me want!
Submitted by jvc08 on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 3:07pm
HOW MUCH!!!??? can someone please tell me how much this thing is going to cost?
maybe they should make a 64gb or 128gb version if it is 2 expensive?
250GB = roughly
Submitted by TheMurph on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 7:28pm
250GB = roughly $1,000-$1,200. 1TB = roughly $3,000
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 11:52pm
I think that $600 dollars would be more reasonable for a 1TB OCZ SSC. Will they do it for $600? I think it's going to happen sometime with in the next 12 months. So a 1TB high end SSD drive by next April. I believe that there will be enough competition that will pretty much insist on the prices dropping.
Submitted by TheMurph on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 12:48pm
Are you kidding me? You can't even pick up a single 250GB Vertex SSD for that much, let alone four of them RAIDed together in a nifty little enclosure.
SSD prices will come down someday -- just like how the Earth will someday be destroyed by the sun. As to when that will happen, well, same deal.
Submitted by devin3627 on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 1:14am
You've got to be kidding me. it's "still" new and it's going to take longer, like 2 years. when videogame consoles and many portable devices mainstream shipped with NAND SSD. i am for digital downloads, blu-ray is going obsolete. no more scratched discs and slow loading screens!
Submitted by Arkhon on Thu, 05/07/2009 - 9:57pm
No thank you, I like a physical copy of my games, without DRM or the like. I like the ability to loan my game disk to my friend once I'm done with it. I like the ability to buy used games at a lower price. I like the ability to actually have removable media. Blu-ray isn't going to be obsolete for a while.
Creative thinking
Submitted by quickone on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 3:03pm
PCIe, now that is some out of the box thinking. 1Tb? Anyone ever read A Modest Proposal on how to make money? Or one could sell a kidney, you have two...
Now if only MPC could figure out how to allow firefox to check spelling in the comment section...
Submitted by mikemckay on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 1:17pm
If only there was a SSD that was CHEAP and FAST.......if someone sold a ssd that was 32 gigs and capable of those speeds id buy
Submitted by emepror on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 12:29pm
built in raid controler if i remeber so it will boot from a PCI-E slot no matter what
Bizarre!
Submitted by benvoliothefirst on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 8:38am
Holy CRAP.
Now THAT'S an interesting idea. Way to think outside the box. Having said that, however... don't think I can afford to part with my car in order to have enough cash to get something like this.
But is it bootable?
Submitted by MAXPCreader07 on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 5:10am
But is it bootable?
Submitted by jvc08 on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 3:01pm
i want to know that too!!!
Depends on your bios. Does
Submitted by roninnder on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 8:06am
Depends on your bios. Does it support booting from a PCIe device? Mine does not.
Submitted by jvc08 on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 3:02pm
i have a msi x58 platinum, anyone know if it can?
PCIe
Submitted by the_crowbar on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 4:58am
"hooking directly onto a spare PCIe slot." You should probably specify that this connects to a PCIe 1x slot. At least I assume it does, judging from the picture. When I hear spare PCIe slot I think 16x, and usually forget that 1x even exists. Anyway, cool article; looks interesting.
Looks more like PCIe 4x
Submitted by BAMT on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 6:02am
Therefore, you won't be able to use this in a PCIe x1 slot. Why 4x? Because on PCIe x1 card, the data side of the slot insert is actually smaller than the power side. (If my terms are wrong, then "the left side is larger than the right" should help.)
Intel C2Q 6600 Kentsfield 2.4 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB cache | 3GB DDR3 1333MHz Corsair + OCZ RAM (DC) | NVidia 8600GT, 256MB DDR3 memory, 620MHz | 3x 250GB Samsung HD250HJ
Submitted by roninnder on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 5:07am
Any PCIe device that can plug into a 1x slot can plug into any of the others, including a 16x slot. The difference in size makes no difference functionally, although a 16x card will obviously not fit into a 1x slot.
So there's no need to specify, since in this case any PCIe slot will do.
Submitted by anonuser on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 9:11am
I believe what he meant is that the picture above is a PCI-e 4x device. Not a 1x, thus not 1x compatible.
+1 Interesting
Submitted by n0ctis on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 4:52am
+1 Interesting
Submitted by Torcflaed on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 4:12pm
another company is making a simular drive for servers and it is not bootable.
however even if this drive is not bootable you can always have a regular SATA drive with a boot directory that redirects the boot process to the SSD drive it would add a few seconds to the boot time but once the redirect is done the rest of the boot would be Fast!!
but in the end wether it is bootable or not may be in the OS, you hear me Microsoft? get off your butt and make a system patch to boot off these things!!!!
Must Read Articles
Feature
Review
Feature
Feature
Feature
Most Popular Articles
This Month's Issue
FEATURE Build a Crazy-Fast $647 PCFEATURE Six Single-Band 802.11n Routers ReviewedHOW TOTweak BitTorrent and FirefoxFEATUREClose Look at ClarkdaleWHITE PAPERLCD Panel Technology
Technology News
Computer Cooling Fans
Computer Cases
PC Game Controllers
PC Games
Computer Hardware
Headphones
MP3 Players
Stream Video
Computer Mouse
Monitors
Motherboards
NAS Storage
Networking
Laptop Computers
DVD Burner
Digital Cameras
Portable Storage
Computer Accessories
Smartphone
Antivirus Software
Sound Cards
Speakers
Computer Systems
Thumb Drives
Video Cameras
Video Card Reviews
Water Cooling
Gadgets
- Keyboards
© 2010 Future US, Inc. All rights reserved.
