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 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.
