OCZ has released its next generation PCI Express SSD called RevoDrive, targeting consumers who don’t mind paying extra for extreme performance and functionality. The new RevoDrive 3 comes with up to four SandForce-2281 circuits working in a form of RAID, supports TRIM and speeds up to 1.5 GB/s, 230,000 IOPS together with other functions normally just found with business drives.

RevoDrive 3 will be the line SSD OCZ will use to target the most fastidious retila users. RevoDrive 3 use several controller circuits to reach higher levels of performance, like RAID-0 but in OCZ’ own way with its own SAS controller. We will be seeing two series, one will be RevoDrive 3 with two SF-2281 in RAID, while RevoDrive 3 X2 sports four controllers.

Model RevoDrive 3 RevoDrive 3 X2
Sequential write
925 MB/s 1,25 GB/s
Sequential read
1 GB/s 1,5 GB/s
Random read (4K) 130 000 IOS 230 000 IPS
Capacity 240, 480 GB 240, 480, 960 GB
Controller circuits
2 x SF-2281 4 x SF2281

The physical difference is that RevoDrive 3 has a circuit board with two controllers and NAND memory, while X2 has two circuits boards, with two controllers on each.

The big news with RevoDrive 3 is VCA, Virtualized Controller Architecture, that uses an in-house SAS RAID circuit that splits data and sends different parallel I/O to the different controllers. This makes it possible to get the same performance as RAID, while maintaining the TRIM support.

RevoDrive_3

RevoDrive 3

RevoDrive_3_X2

RevoDrive 3 X2

Sadly TRIM doesn’t work in Windows 7, due to a limitation in the operating system that can’t send the TRIM command to a SCSI/SAS controller and this is a problem that only Microsoft can solve. There will be a fix for this wit the next generation Windows Server, but when the TRIM command will work on RevoDrive 3 with Windows 7 is uncertain. The TRIM command should work with Linux-based operating systems as long as they can send it to a SCSI/SAS controller.

We hope to see more of RevoDrive 3 X2 in the near future.

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