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FRONTPAGE OCZ Revodrive X2 SSD Review

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theres more at play than simply putting 4 drives in raid0. at least thats what my intuition tells me. which is why i'm sticking to "its similar but different" until someone comes along with numbers to prove otherwise.
 
Got these 2 RAID examples from the OCZ Forum. Couldn't find any with 4 drives. These figures already blow away the current Revo x2. In AS SSD benches my Revo x2 never passed 180MB/s in Seq Write.

Raid3-2.jpg

Raid4-2.jpg
 
I guess those cheap internal raid controller in revodrive can't beat intel SB ICH10R when it comes to efficiency and latency.
 
4k writes are brutal in R0... wonder whats going on there...thats what i pulled down with a single v2 iirc....

anyway, nice scaling.
 
so those are vertex3s on sata3 (600MBps). so in our theory, 2x V3 would be 1200MBps, which should be the same as 4x V2, which is the same as 1 Revodrive X2. Also note that jumping from 2 drives to 4 drives doesn't double the performance so there is some added overhead or latency.

I agree the controller has a lot to do with it which is why the Revodrive X2 is much faster than the Revodrive1, and why raiding 4x V2 won't be exactly the same as 1x Revodrive X2.
 
I agree the controller has a lot to do with it which is why the Revodrive X2 is much faster than the Revodrive1, and why raiding 4x V2 won't be exactly the same as 1x Revodrive X2.
The Revodrive and the Revodrive X2 have the same controller. They both use a SiI3124, a 4 port SATA2 PCI-X RAID controller. The only difference is that on the Revodrive the RAID0 consisits of two SF-1222 controllers while on the Revodrive X2 the RAID0 consists of four SF-1222 controller.
 
Drive sounds like a lot of fun. Looks very nice.

Since its 4 drives in a Raid0 is there trim issues with it or is that taken care by the OCZ's bios settings?
 
I think probably the Sandforce controllers are sata, there's four of them.
Then the OCZ chip(s?) are a PCIe 4x sata RAID controller that lumps it all together and shoves it out the PCIe bus.
 
Drive sounds like a lot of fun. Looks very nice.

Since its 4 drives in a Raid0 is there trim issues with it or is that taken care by the OCZ's bios settings?
Im not certain, but as in other OCZ drives, there is no TRIM in raid at this time. it would have GC which works just fine in my experience with both the x2 and Vertex in R0. Again, not sure though.
 
Mr Alpha...:
Drive sounds like a lot of fun. Looks very nice.

Since its 4 drives in a Raid0 is there trim issues with it or is that taken care by the OCZ's bios settings?
I think probably the Sandforce controllers are sata, there's four of them.
Then the OCZ chip(s?) are a PCIe 4x sata RAID controller that lumps it all together and shoves it out the PCIe bus.
The setup of the Revodrive X2 is this: Four normal SandForce SF-1222 controllers. Two one the main PCB with the associated flash and two on the daughterboard.

These are connected via SATA2, with the normal SATA2 bandwidth, to a Silicone Image 3142 PCI-X RAID controller. Does the fact that the whole thing is on a PCB and not going through SATA cables matter? I suppose the latency might be slightly lower but if it makes a difference I do not know.

The Silicone Image RAID controller has 1GB/s of bandwidth going over PCI-X and is connected to a Pericom PCI-X to PCIe 1.0 bridge. This give you 1GB/s of PCIe bandwidth in both directions.

All in all, from a functional standpoint, it is not all that different from any other RAID setup with SSDs. All the same TRIM issues apply.

Comparing performance to a onboard RAID I suspect the differences come down to how the Silicone Image RAID controller compares with the ICH10R or whatever other controller you are comparing with. An interesting limit is the 1GB/s of bandwidth. Four SandForce controllers should be able to saturate that. That may be why overclocking the PCIe bus improves performance.
 
Also note that jumping from 2 drives to 4 drives doesn't double the performance so there is some added overhead or latency.

Yeah, this sort of dampened my enthusiasm for my proposed 4 x V3 RAID0 setup. But the 4 x V3 Atto scores still look good. However, it appears that a 2 x V3 RAID0 still beats the current Revo x2 and maybe here is where the sweetspot is.

Since its 4 drives in a Raid0 is there trim issues with it or is that taken care by the OCZ's bios settings?

Revo, or any SSD RAID setup, do not have TRIM. They still have GC though. Supposedly, TRIM is not as important as GC because TRIM basically acts as a marker while GC actually does the work of cleaning the drive.

@Mr Alpha: Thank you for the lesson. I think I'm like you that I think a Revo is only a polished RAID setup. I do not believe it is worth the premium it commands.
 
comparison

here is my Revodrive x2 240gb ,P67 , 2600K and my Kingston SSD V series 30gb x4 raid 0 (on onboard Intel raid controller) X58 ,I7 920 ... both systems have Windows 7 and very few programs installed...the Kingston drives are "low end" as you know... so I don't what the data like the lower write times tells you (other than they are low end) so I will offer these up as discussion fodder!...haha

vertex 3 240gb x2 (when you can get 2) $1060.00 , x4 $2120.00
vertex 3 120gb x2 (when you can get 2) $ 640.00
ouch...be awhile before the vertex 3 is a "gb for the buck" winner ,

105pciebus.png

Revodrivex2.jpg

KingstonSSDVseries30gbx4.png
 
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Thank you for doing the review splat. I was parting out for a new build and included a RevoDrive in the budget. Reading the review has helped me determine what parts I need to look at. (In terms of a motherboard, that won't give hassle, well a hassle that does not take an engineer to fix anyway.)

I never considered there was inherent issues with PCI-e booting issues. I just wanted to get a speedy drive, be it pricey... Loading drivers are not much of an issue. It working right is. (Adding the OCZ compatibility link was golden and some other insights.)


The review has helped me. I am retooling the build. Hoping I can do the RevoDrive and not have to overshoot my budget with a board that does work with the drive. With what I expect out of this particular build.
 
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