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FRONTPAGE OCZ Revodrive X2 SSD Review

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confusion

I added to the confusion ...great review though splat...some of what you pointed out helped convince me to go ahead and buy one
 
I owned a RevoDrive x2 100GB for a week. Subsequently, spent a whole week on the OCZ Forums learning about it. I've now returned it and exchanged it for a Vertex 3. Why?

1. Standalone, the Revo is the fastest consumer SSD available now. But the Vertex 3 is not far behind. If you have 2 Vertex 3's in a Raid 0 config it'd blow away the Revo in speed and performance.

2. The Revo is actually 4 nands in Raid 0. I don't think you can Raid two or more Revos.

3. The Revo eventually is only capable of SATA 2 (you can see this if you look up the drive properties in the Device Manager) unlike the Vertex 3 which is true SATA 3.

4. The Vertex 3 is the newest gen SSD while the Revo is one gen behind.

5. 2 x V3-120GB is cheaper than a Revo-240GB (not important but relevant).

I have benched both drives and wouldn't mind attaching the screenshots here if anyone is interested.
 
Im curious about #3 considering the benchmarks show it easily surpassing the 300mb thoeretical throughput of sata2...
 
Im curious about #3 considering the benchmarks show it easily surpassing the 300mb thoeretical throughput of sata2...

Got this off OCZ Forum.

RevoSATA2-OC.jpg

In fact, 2 Vertex 2s in Raid0 would easily surpass normal SATA2 throughput. The Revo is actually 4 nands in Raid0.


Edit: My bad. The above pic is for the Revo 120 and not the Revo x2. I didn't take a screenshot of my x2 but it showed the same details as the above pic.
 
What's the relevence though? Its in the pcie slot and shows more throughput than sata2 allows...:shrug:

Also, vert2 in r0 use two sata ports having 300mb theoretical each port.

I agree with your points more or less but just not sure I understand the point of #3 considering its pcie not sata and shows performance better than possible on sata2 anyway.
 
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Technically speaking, you've got a bag over my head. I'm simply technically deficient. I wouldn't know how to argue my case that though this is a PCI-E product it is actually based on SATA2 specs. My main point though is that the x2 is soon becoming old technology. Waiting for the next gen Revos to appear which, I think, will be soon.
 
yeah i'm not sure i agree with this logic too. PCI-E 2.0 at 4x has a bandwidth of 2000 MB/s iirc, which is much higher than the 300MB/s of SATA2 and 600MB/s of SATA3.

edit: so if the revodrive x2 does have sata2 host link speed. then its 4 drives at 300MB/s, so 1200MB/s raid0 theoretical, right?
 
I found that more PCIe speed meant better benchmark results from a Revo-120gb as well.
I suspect it's internal clock is based off the PCIe bus. Also while the extra bandwidth of higher PCIe may not be needed, raising the PCIe clock does reduce latency.
 
Thank you guys for correcting me. My mistake (or ignorance) was that I linked the PCI-e to SATA which are actually 2 different things. The PCI-e has a bandwidth of 2000 MB/s while SATA is only 300 MB/s. So the question whether the Revo is SATA 2 or 3 is irrelevant as it is on PCI-e. It would have to take more than 6 mini-drives on the Revo to saturate the PCI-e bandwidth. I hope I make sense now.

See, if I had not made a fool of myself I would have never learnt. :p
 
Hope you guys don't mind my asking 1 more question. I got this pic from OCZ's advert of the RevoDrive x2 on its site.

revospecsnew2.jpg


It says "4 x SATA". Does it mean the Revo is limited to SATA speeds, ie. 4 x 300 MB/s (assuming SATA 2) = 1200 MB/s? If this is correct wouldn't it be the same as Raiding 4 Vertex 2s?

Please help a noob. Thank you.
 
that seems to be what it means. but you can see from the tests that it doesn't hit 1200 MB/s, and ocz doesn't claim that it can. I think its also safe to assume that this one pcie card uses up less space and less power than 4 vertex2s.
 
Thanks splat. Forgive me if I'm being a bore.

I have a Vertex2 and Atto puts its Read/Write figures over 200MB/s easily. So, theoretically, if I raided 4 V2s I could reach Read/Write figures over 800MB/s, putting it on par with the Revo x2?

Just trying to understand so I know what I need to do for my next rig. Thanks again. :chair:
 
I think you are gettign THEORETICAL and actual speeds confused. Pipe is big enough for 1200MB, since its 4 sata2 drives on PCIe, but the revo doesnt push those speeds, nor would the V2. Just its actual throughput.

I also get the feeling you are just wowed by the bling factor these drives provide. Im going to ask, what do you feel you NEED such fast speeds for? Do you manipulate large files frequently? I dont know if the risk would be any greater for failure on 4 vertex's vs 1 Revox2 either and with either you really need to have a good backup solution as the risk, at least with the 4x physical drives, Im guessing would be greater for failure (though thats just a guess and rankly Im not sure if thats true).

Honestly 99% of people are VERY pleased with a SINGLE ssd. Im certain you would fall in to that group.
 
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Hi EarthDog. Thank you for your reply.

You are absolutely right that I don't need the speed. I just got interested in OCing recently (thanks to Trents) and I'm already dreaming about my next rig. Though it won't be a full fledged bench rig I'm trying to learn how to get it as fast as I possibly can within a budget.

So all this is education for me until the next gen CPUs (like BD and next gen i7) arrive. The ppl on OCForums are really great and so I tend to linger around here a lot and ask stupid questions.:eek:
 
i'd say if you were to get 4 vertex2's in raid0 you'd end up with speeds similar to the revodrive x2, but i wouldn't expect them to be the exact same. Similar to putting two graphics cards in crossfire or sli, it doesn't straight up double the speed. It would certianly be an interesting test tho. I'm sure there are statistics on scaling when putting multiple HDDs in raid0 somewhere on the net if you search hard enough.
 
i'd say if you were to get 4 vertex2's in raid0 you'd end up with speeds similar to the revodrive x2, but i wouldn't expect them to be the exact same. Similar to putting two graphics cards in crossfire or sli, it doesn't straight up double the speed. It would certianly be an interesting test tho. I'm sure there are statistics on scaling when putting multiple HDDs in raid0 somewhere on the net if you search hard enough.
But the Revodrive X2 is also four Vertex 2 drives in RAID 0.
 
Is there less overhead since its all on one card? More? No difference than when plugged in to a mobo? Better controller on revox2 vs controllers on mobo?
 
i'd say if you were to get 4 vertex2's in raid0 you'd end up with speeds similar to the revodrive x2, but i wouldn't expect them to be the exact same.

Actually, I am thinking of stringing together 2 or more Vertex 3's. I already have one V3 and I intend to add to it when funds, and my wife, permit. This won't hurt as much as fleshing out an obscene sum in one go for the next gen Revo. Hopefully, when I have collected 4 V3's it will be just as fast, if not faster, than the new Revo. The best part is that I will be able to give 1 to my son when he marches off to university and 1 to my wife (or maybe I'll just leave her with her spinners) after I'm done playing. :)
 
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