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Review: |
OCZ Technology was kind enough to send us their latest high
performance PCIe solid state drive for review; the MLC based RevoDrive X2 240GB.
The RevoDrive X2 series of drives are fairly unusual in that they are not
housed in either a 2.5 form factor case, or indeed a 3.5 inch housing. Instead
OCZ have built what can only be described as an extreme SSD solution. Instead
of using a slow SATA interface, the RevoDrive X2 is mounted on a x4 PCIe card.
This removes the shackles and allows the extreme performance that the RevoDrive
X2 can deliver.
The specifications of the OCZ RevoDrive certainly have the
“drool factor”.
There are 4 SandForce SF-1200 series SSD controllers onboard, each with its own
bank of 34nm MLC NAND, with capacities ranging from 100GB right up to 960GB.
- Read speeds at up to 740MB/s
- Write speeds at up to 720MB/s
- 4K random writes at up to 120,000 IOPS
- RevoDrive X2 can be used as a boot drive or as a storage
drive
The specifications of the OCZ RevoDrive X2 are certainly
very impressive, but can the RevoDrive X2 really deliver this level of
performance?
So let’s find out how this new SSD performs in our range of
benchmarks and real world tests in this review.
OCZ Technology company information
I’m sure most MyCE members will be familiar with the OCZ
Technology brand name. OCZ has been manufacturing high performance PC memory,
SSDs, and other PC related hardware for many years.
If you would like to find out more about OCZ Technology, you
can visit the OCZ Technology website.
Packaging
Box front
Box rear
Internal box
Inside
the outer box, you will find a more robust box, which contains the RevoDrive X2.
This box is a strong affair, made from quite thick cardboard.
Internal packing
Inside
the internal box we can also see the RevoDrive X2 PCIe x4, and the card is well
protected by foam packing.
What’s inside the box
Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what it
came shipped with.
The package contained the OCZ RevoDrive X2, a nice label to
place somewhere prominent on your PC case to make your friends drool, and
instruction booklet.
Now let’s take a look at the drive itself.
RevoDrive X2 240GB
As we have already seen, the RevoDrive X2 is housed on a
PCIe x4 card. What we have is basically four OCZ SandForce SF-1200 series based
SSDs, minus the SATA and power connectors. Each of the four SSDs have their own
SandForce SF-1200 series SSD controller, and their own bank of Intel branded 34nm
MLC NAND. In the case of our review sample which has a capacity of 240GB, each
bank of NAND is 64GB in capacity.
Each of these (internal) SSDs is connected to a Silicon
Image SiI 3124 RAID controller in a RAID 0 configuration (by default), and in
turn, the SiI 3124 is connected to a Pericom PI7C9X130 PCIe to PCI-X bridge.
The original RevoDrive came supplied with two SandForce SF-1200
series controllers, and two banks of 34nm MLC NAND. The RevoDrive X2, as we
have already stated has four SandForce SF 1200 series controllers and four
banks of 34nm MLC NAND. The extra two controllers and banks of NAND are fitted
by means of the daughter board which we can see in our above screen shot.
OCZ RevoDrive X2 Specifications
We found the specifications of the drive at OCZ Technologies
website.
Drive maintenance features
With the RevoDrive X2 using a RAID 0 configuration, there is
no TRIM support at present, so the RevoDrive X2 will have to rely on the
effectiveness of its own garbage collection algorithms. If this turns out to be
as good at the OCZ Vertex 2, then there is certainly no need to worry about the
lack of TRIM, as the Vertex 2 is very capable of maintaining its performance,
even without TRIM.
From the short time I have been using the RevoDrive X2;
there is certainly no evidence of performance dropping off due to the lack of
TRIM support.
Secure Erase
Despite what other sites have said about “Secure Erase and
the OCZ RevoDrive and RevoDrive X2”. The drive does support internal Secure
Erase, and it’s certainly possible and very easy to Secure Erase the RevoDrive X2.
Internal Secure Erase (SE) on an SSD that supports it, will
restore all NAND on the drive back to its clean (factory default) state.
You will require a special Linux distribution to secure
erase the RevoDrive X2 using a point and click GUI, but most Linux
distributions will secure erase the RevoDrive X2 via the terminal application
within Linux.
In either case, all that is required is a small USB flash
drive/stick or a blank CD to accommodate the “Live” Linux distribution. I can
certainly recommend the point and click GUI version. Don’t panic about the word
“Linux” being used here, it’s all very simple to use.
Praz over at OCZ has produced an excellent, easy to follow
guide for the GUI version. It’s a very worthwhile read.
You can find the article and everything you will need, here.
Now let's head to the next page, where we look at the
SandForce SF-1200 SSD controller.
The SandForce SSD controller
The SSD controllers used in the RevoDrive X2 are the
SandForce SF-1200 series, designated SF1222TA3-SBH on the RevoDrive X2, and as
we have said, there are four SandForce SF-1200 series SSD controllers on the
RevoDrive X2.
The SandForce SF-1200 series is a brand new SSD controller
and has brought a number of new technologies to SSD, some are designed to
increase performance, others designed to improve durability and increase the
lifespan of the SSD. Let’s take a brief look at a few of these technologies.
From the above screenshot we can see at least 2 unique
technologies that SandForce are using on this new SSD controller under a
technology they call DuraClass which we look at below.
DuraWrite
There are two fundamental things that cannot be ignored when
using flash memory for storage. That is, the flash memory type currently used
is NAND, which is (a) expensive and (b) has a limited amount of total write
cycles. I’m pretty sure that all SSD manufactures would love to only use SLC
(single level cell) NAND on their SSDs: it’s faster and has 10x the total write
cycles of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND. Unfortunately though, the cost of SLC is
enormous, and this is the main reason that SLC is generally reserved for
enterprise class SSDs.
The other fundamental is MLC NAND is less durable compared
to SLC NAND. SLC NAND is reckoned to have 100,000 total write cycles, whereas 34nm
MLC NAND has a typical 5,000 total write cycles. The curse of NAND is write
amplification: put simply, this means that the more data that has to be
written, the faster those write cycles are used up. SandForce has looked at
write amplification in great detail, and come up with a new technology called
DuraWrite. The SandForce SSD controller is smart enough and fast enough to
compress data on the fly, and then write a compressed version of the data to
the NAND itself. By doing this, some writes can be 20 times smaller than they
would be if they remained uncompressed. This also has an added bonus, if you
have to write less of the data to NAND, then the write process also becomes
much faster.
So, as well as lowering write amplification you also
increase performance, which is very clever, allowing the much cheaper MLC NAND
to be used in an enterprise class environment. Of course, not all data can be
compressed in this fashion, ZIP and RAR files for example are already heavily compressed
so won’t benefit much by this process, but overall DuraWrite works extremely
well as we will see later on in this article.
RAISE
Another new technology found in the SandForce SF1200 is
RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements).
As I mentioned earlier, our OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD review
sample has a user capacity of 240GB. The actual amount of NAND that the drive
has is 256GB of MLC NAND. So what is the other 16GB used for?
At some point during an SSD’s life a NAND cell or block of
NAND cells will fail, which is why all SSDs do not make the full amount of
onboard NAND available to the user for storage. All SSDs have a pool of
reserved NAND to map into use if a cell or block of cells fails. This can be as
low as 1GB or 2GB of NAND in reserve. RAISE sets aside a good deal more than
this in its pool of reserved NAND. In the case of the OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB,
the amount of reserved NAND is approximately 16GB. By keeping so much NAND in
reserve, this should ensure the SSD can last for the expected minimum lifespan
of 5 years.
As a result of this large pool of reserved NAND, drive
failure is much less likely to happen due to just simply running out of NAND
that has no more write cycles available.
Once again, as an added bonus of reserving so much NAND, the
wear levelling and garbage collection algorithms can be enhanced, thus ensuring
there are always fresh NAND blocks to write to.
Now let’s head to the next page where we will look at our
test PC and testing procedures...
Test machine
For this review we will be using a computer with the
following configuration:
Hardware:
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 (Intel P55 chipset)
- Processor: Intel Core i5 750
- RAM: 4GB GEIL Ultra Line DDR3 2133MHz (dual channel)
- GFX: Sapphire Vapor X HD 5770 (1024 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
- Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC889 HD audio controller
- Hard disk OS: 100GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD
- Hard disk storage: 1X 500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3, and 1X 1TB
Samsung Spinpoint F1. - Case: Antec 900
- PSU: Enermax Liberty 620W
- Display: Samsung Syncmaster 245B 24” widescreen LCD (HDCP
compliant) - Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD was installed into the second PCIe
x16 socket on our review PC, and all tests were carried out the RevoDrive X2 connected
to this socket.
Test applications
To test the performance of the OCZ RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD, we
will be using the following test applications in this review.
- HD Tune Pro
- ATTO
- Iometer
- AS SSD
Benchmark - CrystalDiskMark
- MyCE Reality Suite
Test procedures
We will start off our testing procedures explanation by
stating that we did not run many basic benchmarks on the OCZ RevoDrive X2 series
drive. You may ask why we have run so few benchmarks?
SSD technology has moved so fast in the last couple of years,
that basic benchmarks alone are now of very limited use, and don't really tell
us much about performance and how the drive will behave in the real world. We
have therefore decided to show some basic benchmarks of the OCZ RevoDrive X2 drive,
and will complement this with advanced benchmarks using IOMeter and AS SSD
benchmark. We will also show how the OCZ RevoDrive X2 performs in the real
world with our MyCE Reality Suite test.
Test drives
- 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD (firmware 1.5)
- 120GB OCZ Apex SSD
- 500GB Samsung SpinPoint F3 (HD502HJ)
- 64GB Traxdata Ultra S Plus SSD
- Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB
- OCZ Agility 120GB (firmware 1.5)
- Intel X25-M 80GB (series G1)
- OCZ Vertex 2 100GB
- Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD (only used in some
tests, as it arrived too late for all tests) - OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB PCIe SSD
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD came supplied with firmware version
1.20
Reviewers note
We were only able to test with the WD Velociraptor HDD for a
very short time, in fact, only enough time to run the IOMeter tests.
Drive preparation for running the tests
All the drives used in this review were in a "used
state" with the exception of the OCZ RevoDrive X2 and the Intel X25-M.
To simulate a "used state" on the OCZ RevoDrive X2, we completely
filled the drive with files then deleted all the files, repeating this
procedure five times. The Intel X25-M was stuck with a sequential writing speed
of only 36MB/s, and with no TRIM support and little point of carrying out tests
on a drive in this state, a secure erase was performed to recover the
performance before testing began.
- Both our spinning HDD drives were defragged before the
start of each test. - All SSD and HDD drives had their partitions aligned to the
Windows 7 x64 defaults.
Where we use graphs in this article to display results, we
will use the following colours to make it easier, for our readers to see the
drive which we are reviewing.
OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB PCIe SSD
Comparison SSD
Comparison HDD
Now let's head to the next page, where we look at some
basic benchmarks...
Reading Benchmarks
HD Tune Pro
We present the graph below for comparison with other recently
tested drives.
From our limited number of test samples, we can clearly see the OCZ RevoDrive X2 series SSD is very fast;
in fact it’s the fastest reading drive in this test by a long way.
ATTO disk benchmark
ATTO has become a standard tool for measuring the data
throughput of SSD drives. It measures the performance of reading and writing,
using different file sizes and block sizes.
The reading speed results on the OCZ RevoDrive X2 are
extreme, topping out at over 823MB/s, writing speeds are extremely impressive
topping out at 698MB/s. ATTO writes its test data in a format that can be
compressed by DuraWrite, so you are seeing reading and writing in a best case
scenario, but certainly shows what these four SandForce SSD controllers are
capable of doing.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Crystal Disk Mark is quite a handy benchmarking application,
as it focuses on the file sizes that can cause a problem on a system drive.
While ATTO shows the SandForce controller in its best light,
Crystal Disk Mark uses test data that isn’t so easily compressed by DuraWrite,
therefore read and write speeds are not quite so high, but extremely impressive
in any case.
AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD benchmark is a new benchmarking tool, specifically
designed to test SSD drives. The application tests sequential reading and
writing performance, 4K random reading and writing performance.
AS SSD benchmark also tests 4K threaded performance. This is
very exciting, as this test is the first available test that I am aware of,
that simulates how a PC operating system actually works. A modern PC and OS,
such as Windows Vista does not just run a single thread at a time, it runs many
threads. The AS SSD benchmark "4K 64Thrd" tests run 64 threads
simultaneously throughout the test. If this result is good, then you can be
pretty sure the drive will perform extremely well as a system drive.
After the tests complete, AS SSD benchmark derives a total
score for the drive being tested. This is based on all aspects of the test
results, and gives an indication of how the drive is performing overall.
Now let’s look at the result from the OCZ RevoDrive X2 in
the form of a screenshot. All our other comparison drives results are presented
in the form of a graph.
Given that AS SSD benchmark writes a lot of compressed data
in its tests, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 is still at the top of the tree by a long
way. Threaded performance is particularly strong, which I’m finding is a key
factor in real world performance.
Summary:
The sequential reading speeds on the OCZ RevoDrive X2 series
SSD are excellent and this is the fastest drive we have ever tested here at
MyCE.com. Sequential writing speeds were also the highest we have ever
encountered here at MyCE.com, and the same applies to the 4k random write.
Let's head to the next page for our IOMeter test
results.....
I/O Performance
There is little point of having an SSD that has blazing
sustained reading and writing speeds, if the drive can't handle reading and
writing of small random files. If you intend to use your new SSD drive to store
and run your operating system, then the drive must be able to cope with the
many small random files that Windows will write to the drive continually. So we
feel it is very important to test how many of these random files that a drive
can handle in one second. I believe that anything over 1000 I/O’s per second
would be enough for most users running a consumer grade mainstream PC, and
should provide a smooth running system. But obviously, the more I/Os that a
drive can handle, the faster the drive will feel and leave more headroom for
those huge multitasking sessions that users sometimes engage in.
The things that we will look at are the total I/O per second
and total MB/s.
Partition alignment and sector boundaries
Windows 7 will automatically align a partition during
partition creation, Windows XP won’t. It is imperative that an SSD’s partition
is aligned. Windows XP is also restricted to sector boundaries, while Windows 7
will use 4k boundaries if it can. The SandForce SSD controller is 4k boundary
aware, and will use these boundaries when it can. Of course it will also remap
LBAs for compatibility with the sector boundaries so the drive can be used with
Windows XP.
IOMeter allows us to set the sector boundaries for
conducting the tests, and we have therefore set the sector boundaries at 4K,
which means the IOMeter tests are valid for Windows 7 and Windows Vista users.
XP users will not be able to obtain such results.
We will provide a screenshot of the tests on the review
drive for those of you who like to see the actual test result. All the
comparison drive results are represented in the form of graphs.
If any of you would like to see a screenshot from any
IOMeter test on a particular drive, please feel free to request one, and I’ll
post the screenshot in the forum thread.
IOMeter 4K random (outstanding I/Os = 4, 32, 128) write test.
Our first test involves creating continual 4KB random files
on the target drive with IOMeter. We use a 4KB file size, as it is believed
that Windows will create and modify many of this size of file constantly in the
background during a typical Windows session. We will also be using different
queue depths to test how the RevoDrive X2 scales with higher workloads.
Queue depth 4
Queue depth 32
Queue depth 128
IOPS
MB/s
With 4x SandForce SF-1200 controllers at its disposal, you
would expect the RevoDrive X2 to be fast and it is, in fact, extremely fast.
116,138 IOPS is insanely quick.
IOMeter 4K random (outstanding I/Os = 4, 32, 128) Read test.
If there are many 4k files created, then that must also mean
that many 4k files need to be read. This test measures 4k reading performance,
with queue depths of 4, 32, and 128 to test the performance with a higher
workload.
Queue depth 4
Queue depth 32
Queue depth 128
IOPS
MB/s
Once again the RevoDrive X2 is miles in front.
IOMeter 512KB (outstanding I/Os = 4) write test.
Sequential writing performance is also very important; in
this test sequential writing performance is tested.
IOPS
MB/s
Once again the OCZ RevoDrive X2 is extremely impressive, and
is by far the fastest SSD in our tests.
IOMeter 512KB (outstanding I/Os = 4) read test.
This test measures 512k sequential reading performance.
IOPS
MB/s
While all the SSDs in this test have done very well, none of
them can match the sequential reading performance of the RevoDrive X2.
IOMeter Workstation 1 simulation (outstanding I/Os = 64).
When running applications you will find that there is a
mixture of small random files, and larger sequential files being created and
read. Not only that, it isn’t just one file at a time. In this test we measure
a simulated workstation pattern, with a queue depth of 64 (threaded).
IOPS
MB/s
You would have expected the OCZ RevoDrive X2, with its four
SandForce SF-1200 controllers, to do well in the workstation simulation. It
certainly didn’t disappoint in this department, with 526.76 MB/s.
Summary
While IOMeter test patterns are quite easily compressed by
the SandForce controller, there is no getting away from the fact that the
RevoDrive X2 has an enormous amount of grunt. The performance of the RevoDrive X2
is absolutely astonishing.
On the next page we will check out application and games
loading performance....
These tests are very simple tests, but very important to
some users of SSDs.
We simply started an application or game, and measured the
time taken for the application or game to fully load and start.
Application loading times
Adobe Fireworks CS3
The OCZ Vertex 2 made short work of loading Fireworks CS3,
and back in May when I reviewed the Vertex 2, I could never imagine any SSD
loading Fireworks CS3 any faster than a shade over 4.5 seconds. The RevoDrive X2
has smashed the already impressive load time of the Vertex 2, and loads
Fireworks CS3 in under 2 seconds.
Corel PaintShop Pro 12
Again, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 smashes the previous record, and
is more than twice as fast as its nearest competitor when loading Corel PaintShop
Pro.
Games loading times
FAR CRY 2
Far Cry 2 is a game that doesn’t really load that much more
quickly with a fast SSD. However, the RevoDrive X2 has managed to shave a
couple of seconds off the previous fastest loading time.
F.E.A.R. 2
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is yet again the winner, and once again
managing to shave a couple of seconds off the previous record.
Summary
For those who say that RAID 0 doesn’t make a lot of
difference to the loading times of games and applications, these results tend
to prove otherwise. The RevoDrive X2 is basically 4 SSDs in a RAID 0
configuration, and in some cases it's more than twice as fast as even the
fastest single SATA SSD.
Now let's head to the next page for some real world tests....
It has become clear recently that simply conducting endless
benchmarks on SSDs is pointless. Real users may run a few benchmarks when they
first fit their SSD, but most users just want a drive that performs well in the
real world. They want their drive to work "out of the box" and run fast
and smoothly.
Most of the latest solid state drives can deliver very fast
sustained reading and writing speeds, but these alone tell you very little
about how the drive will perform in the real world.
If you intend to use your SSD as your primary system drive,
with an operating system and applications installed and running from the drive,
real world performance becomes much more important than just fast sequential
read and write speeds.
Real world copy
tests
We will now conduct a few real world copy tests. These tests
simulate what real people do with their drives. We will be conducting writing
tests, using two large single files and a multiple file copy of various file
sizes.
We should point out that this is not a scientific way of
measuring performance. These timings were taken with a stop watch; I have,
however, used the fastest reading drive that I have access to (OCZ Vertex 2
100GB) but even this drive will be to slow to really load the RevoDrive X2 with
large sequential files.
We will once again be comparing the obtained results with
our comparison drive’s results. We will present the results in the form of
graphs.
Multiple file copy writing test
For this test we copied the Nero Burning Rom install folder
from our review PC to the D: drive (OCZ Technology Vertex 2 100GB) and then
copied the contents to the OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD and our other comparison drives.
Our test copy contained 1,772 files of various sizes with a
combined capacity of 307MB.
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 was the fastest drive when writing our
small file set.
Single large file writing test (7.95GB)
For this test we used a single DVD-9 ISO file which had been
copied to the D: drive of our review PC (OCZ Vertex 2 100GB). The file was then
copied to the OCZ RevoDrive X2 series 240GB SSD and our comparison drives.
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is the fastest drive, but it's being
held back by the reading speed of our drive serving the large sequential file.
Write a folder of JPG picture files.
For this test we copied a folder of JPG picture files from
our OCZ Vertex 2 SSD to the OCZ RevoDrive X2, and our other comparison drives.
The folder contained 3714 JPG pictures, with a total capacity of 5.16GB.
Again the RevoDrive X2 is the fastest drive, but it's once
again being held back by the speed of our reading drive.
Write a folder of MP3 audio files.
For this test we copied a folder of MP3 audio files from our
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD to the OCZ RevoDrive X2 and our other comparison drives. The
folder contained 851 MP3 audio files, with a total capacity of 3.85GB.
With the MP3 files being smaller in size, the reading drive
does much better, and we begin to see that the RevoDrive X2 is extremely fast.
Summary
If we use the MP3 audio files write test as an example, then
is shows how fast the OCZ RevoDrive X2 is at writing files.
Windows start-up and closedown
For these tests, we simply used a stop watch and tested the
amount of time taken for a full installation of Windows 7 to boot to the
desktop, and then timed how long it took for Windows 7 to close down by the normal
start menu method.
The timing was started once the BIOS had initialised and
reached the “loading OS message”.
Windows 7 boot time
Windows 7 closedown
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is marginally the fastest drive to boot
and then close down the PC, with the Vertex 2, Intel, and two Indilinx-based drives
being close on the RevoDrive X2's heels.
Installing applications
Installing applications is possibly something you don't do
that often. But should you replace your system disk, then you will most likely
have to re-install your applications. The majority of the SSDs I have tested up
until now were quite slow at installing applications, most likely because their
I/O performance was quite limited.
For these tests, we picked some popular applications and
copied the entire contents of the CD or DVD media to an OCZ Vertex 2 100GB SSD.
We did this to make sure that the reading speed of our CD/DVD reader would not
hamper the performance of the target drive.
We then installed these applications onto our comparison hard
disk drives, which were all running mirror image installations of our Windows 7
Home Premium 64bit installation, and timed the amount of time taken to install
the application with a stopwatch on each of the drives.
MS Office 2007 Professional (full install)
MS Office is another of those applications that makes you
cringe at the thought of re-installing it.
Let's find out how our drives coped with the MS Office 2007
full install.
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 has won by a comfortable margin.
Adobe Fireworks CS3
Adobe Fireworks CS3 is another popular package. Let's find
out how our drives coped with installing this application.
Most drives will struggle with this installation, but once
again, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 took the task in its stride, in fact the Vertex 2, Intel,
and the two Indilinx based drives also coped very well with the Fireworks CS3
install.
Single drive copy tests
These tests are to simulate a single drive in a PC or
laptop. In other words, we will copy a series of files from one folder on the tested
drive to another folder on the same drive. This means the drive is simultaneously
reading and writing during the tests. We also want to make this a realistic
test. So we have used a folder or MP3 music files, and then repeated the test
with a folder of JPG picture files.
Single drive copy tests – 851 MP3 song files (3.85GB total)
Even though the MP3 files are already compressed, the
RevoDrive X2 makes a mockery of this test, with insane speed compared to our
comparison drives.
Single drive copy tests – 3714 JPEG picture files (5.16GB total)
There are no surprises here, and once again the OCZ RevoDrive
X2 is by miles, the fastest drive.
Summary
The RevoDrive X2 has extreme performance, and that is shown
quite clearly with the single drive copy tests, where even the very best single
SATA SSD will struggle when copying data from one folder to another.
Now let’s round of this article with our new MyCE Reality
Suite tests on the next page.....
MyCE Reality Suite (storage).
So what is the MyCE Reality storage test?
The MyCE Reality Suite of tests is made from real everyday
applications and real data, there are no simulated tests, and everything is in
the real world. The only thing that's synthetic is that everything is automated
to make the tests fair, no matter which drive the tests are run on.
Recorded user sessions, by means of a script, are used to
launch the applications, load data, edit data, and then finally write that data
back to the target drive.
Measurement system (revision 2)
The measuring system is part hardware and part software. The
hardware is proprietary and under an NDA, but what I can tell you is: The
measuring system can now accommodate SATA2, SATA3, USB3, PCIe, and DMI.
Testing method.
Once all the test data files were complete, they were then
copied to a single folder. I then fitted an old 80GB HDD into the PC and did a
clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium x64. The latest hardware drivers were
installed and Windows update was run to install any new updates that were
available up to 13/05/2010. At this point the applications that were to be used
in the tests were installed and updated with the latest patches.
The folder containing the application test data files was
then copied over to our fresh Windows 7 HDD. The drive was cleaned up and then
the four test scenarios were recorded, with the scenario playback data file
which will run each test scenario saved to the desktop. A drive snapshot was
then taken of the complete HDD and the drive snapshot image copied to a second
HDD for safe keeping.
The image is then simply restored to each of the drives on
test. In the case of SSDs, the partition is then realigned “on the fly” and for
SSDs that support TRIM, the free space is filled and then deleted to force TRIM.
All other HDDs and SSDs in the system are then disconnected to make sure the
complete test can only run on the drive we are testing.
A 20 minute settling time is allowed before the tests are run,
then each of the 4 tests is started and the results gathered. This process is then
repeated for all the drives we are testing.
The test scenarios are as follows.
- Graphics content
- Video editing
- Audio import and compression
- Application multitasking
Let’s begin the tests.
MyCE Reality Suite – Graphics content.
Using ACDSee Pro 3, 100 JPG pictures with an average size of
10MB are imported into the ACDSee library, and then 12 of these JPG files are
then selected for a batch process, of resize, compress the quality to 80%, and
finally write the edited pictures back to the drive. The test is approximately
78% read and 22% write.
Even though we are dealing with files that are already
compressed, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 is still substantially faster than any of the
other drives in this test.
MyCE Reality Suite – Video editing.
Using Vegas Pro, a 14GB HD MPEG2 video stream is loaded into
the editor, from which 2 segments are then cut and pasted into new segments. There
is a lot of disc caching going on in this test, and the test is approximately
55% read and 45% write.
All the SSDs do very well here, but none of the comparison
drives can match the performance of the OCZ RevoDrive X2. It’s more than twice
as fast as its nearest rival, and I can foresee that people who edit a lot of
video content are going to love the RevoDrive X2.
MyCE Reality Suite – Audio import and compression.
Using Sony Soundforge 10, a batch process is run consisting
of 30 24bit (192000hz sample rate) .wav files, and 100 16bit (44100hz sample
rate) .wav files which are imported and then converted to MP3 audio files with
a bit rate of 128kbps, and then the converted files are written back to the
drive. The test is approximately 72% read and 28% write.
No surprises here, with the OCZ RevoDrive X2 outperforming
all our comparison drives by a huge margin.
MyCE Reality Suite – Application multitasking.
For this we used several popular applications, Microsoft
Word 2007, Microsoft Access 2007, Microsoft Excel 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2007,
Adobe reader, Adobe Photoshop CS3, uTorrent, Windows media player, and Internet
Explorer 8.
This session runs for approximately 12 minutes. The test is
started by downloading a Linux distribution via uTorrent, Windows media player
is then opened and a 1080p video file is opened and played for the duration of
the test. Microsoft Outlook is opened and any new emails are received, read,
then replied too, a document in Adobe reader is opened and scrolled from start
to finish, 3 Microsoft Word documents with graphics content are opened, browsed
and some sections of the documents are copied and pasted into a forth document which
is then saved back to the drive. The same applies to Microsoft Access and
Excel. 100 MP3 files are imported into the Windows media library. Six JPG
images are loaded into Adobe Photoshop, some minor editing is done, and the
files then saved back to the drive.
Finally, Internet Explorer 8 is opened with 10 tabs, the
contents of the 10 tabs are refreshed, and browsed, while the other
applications are busy in the background.
I would describe the multitasking pattern as modest.
During this test there is approximately 85% reading and 15%
writing.
Reviewer’s note: I’m pretty sure this test doesn’t really
load the RevoDrive X2, and the drive is able to cope with a much heavier
workload than this test can supply.
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is strong in sequential, threaded, and
random performance, so it is no surprise to see the OCZ RevoDrive X2 is well out
in front.
Summary
I firmly believe that the MyCE Reality Suite gives a very
good overall picture of how a drive can perform in the real world, and in this
case, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 has astounding performance.
This concludes our review. To read the final thoughts and
conclusion, click the link below....
Final thoughts and the conclusion
Positive:
- Silky smooth operation as a system drive and completely
stable. - Astonishing reading and writing performance.
- Extreme 4K random I/O performance.
- Excellent video, audio, and graphic editing potential.
- Phenomenal multitasking potential.
- Lightning fast access times.
- Completely silent operation.
- Fast operating system start-up and shutdown times.
- Considering the performance and neatness, the RevoDrive X2
is good value. - Super fast application loading.
- Can be used a bootable system drive or as a storage drive.
- 3 years warranty.
- MTBF: 2,000,000 hours.
Negative:
- No TRIM support.
User experience
A modern operating system such as Windows 7 rarely does one
thing at time; as it processes hundreds of threads at once. Just take a look at
the processes and services that are running in task manager for an idea of how
much is going on, even with the PC idling at the desktop. When you start
running applications on top of this, the workload increases in line with the
amount and type of applications you are running. It’s also fair to say that
many of these processes are already loaded into system RAM, but many are also
loaded and unloaded into RAM from the system drive as and when they are
required.
The fact of the matter is this: If you are running a mainstream
or high-end modern PC with a powerful CPU and graphics card, and are still
running a traditional HDD as a system drive, regardless of how fast that HDD
is, it is still bogging the system down substantially. It has long since passed
the stage where one can meaningfully debate if an SSD is really faster than a
traditional HDD. The fact is they are, and not just by a little bit; they are
much faster, and the OCZ RevoDrive X2 takes this several stages further.
When I first started testing SSDs more than 2 years ago, it
was less clear then how much an SSD improved performance. A lot of things have
changed with SSDs over the last 2 years. The SSD controllers are much more
powerful and the NAND itself is getting smaller and faster. The RevoDrive X2 has
moved SSDs away from the slow SATA interface, to the very much faster PCIe bus,
and the gains in performance are there for everyone to see.
Video and audio editing with the RevoDrive X2 has brought
about an extraordinary boost in performance even over the very best single SATA
SSD. It’s amazing how much extra work you can get done with this drive used as an
editing drive.
Conclusion:
Let us summarise the most important positive and negative
points below:
The
main positive points:
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 series drives are very good; in fact,
extremely good. Reading and writing access times are lightning fast and
applications load in an instant, making the OCZ RevoDrive X2 series of drives
ideal as the operating system drive with all the user’s installed applications.
4K random IOPS performance is phenomenal, as is threaded and
sequential performance.
With DuraClass technology from the SandForce SF-1200 SSD
controllers, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 should remain at near peak performance during
the expected life cycle of the drive.
Noise levels from the drive are nil; there are no moving
parts so the drive is completely silent.
The RevoDrive X2 can be used as either a bootable system
drive, or as a storage drive. To select it as a system drive, it is simply a
matter of changing the boot order in the BIOS, and selecting the RevoDrive X2 as
your boot drive.
The
main negative points:
Price is still a stumbling block to purchasing an SSD drive,
and the cost of NAND memory isn't helping matters. At the moment, the OCZ RevoDrive
X2 is quite expensive, but then again, this type of extreme performance was
never going to come cheap.
There is no TRIM support at the moment, as the RAID 0
configuration used in the RevoDrive X2 will not allow the TRIM command to pass
to the drive. This is normal for RAID arrays, as at the moment no RAID array
will allow the TRIM command to pass to the SSD controller and be executed. That
really should not be a problem, and at worst you can image your install, Secure
Erase the RevoDrive X2 by using the link to the guide earlier in this article,
and then restore your image to the RevoDrive X2 again. This shouldn’t take no more
than about 10 minutes of your time.
While the RevoDrive X2 could be used on any PC with a spare
PCIe x4 slot, you will get the best from the RevoDrive X2 if your PC is
powerful enough to utilise all that performance. While I’m reluctant to
recommend a spec for a PC that is suitable to get the best out of the RevoDrive
X2, I would recommend at least a fast dual core CPU if you want to push the
RevoDrive X2 to anywhere near its limits of performance.
To sum up, this is what we
would say:
It is inevitable that the OCZ RevoDrive X2 will be directly
compared to purchasing 4 separate OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs, and then creating your own
RAID array. The price of 4 separate Vertex 2 SSDs will be cheaper than the
RevoDrive X2, but if you connect these 4 separate Vertex 2 to let’s say, Intel
ICH10R for example, then don’t expect to get anywhere near the performance of
the RevoDrive X2. ICH10R and all other RAID solutions that are integrated into
the motherboard will give you about 660MB/s max, whereas the RevoDrive X2 has
already shown it’s capable of over 800MB/s reading speeds.
You could purchase a high quality hardware RAID card and
obtain even higher performance than the RevoDrive X2 can deliver, such as the
LSI MRSAS9260-4I, but that will mean you have to add another £300 to the price
of your purchase. You must also consider that 4 separate SSDs will have to be
accommodated in your PC case, and let’s not forget that each of these 4
separate SSDs will also require a precious SATA port, and SATA power and data
cables.
Now, all of a sudden, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 not only looks
like very good bang for the buck, it is also a very neat solution, only
requiring a single x4/x8/x16 PCIe slot, with no untidy cables needed, or
motherboard SATA ports required.
Pricing, taken from Scan
computers (25/11/2010) Price in Euro, is from the current exchange rate.
|
Model |
User capacity |
Price |
Cost per GB |
|
OCZ RevoDrive X2 |
223.3GB |
£494.43 |
£2.21 |
The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is an extreme SSD solution, and there
really isn’t anything else around in this price range that can compete with the
RevoDrive X2. I really like the fact that OCZ are looking at other SSD
solutions other than SATA. This beast is already too fast for SATA 6Gbps, and
if OCZ wants to scale up performance, they can add more SandForce controllers,
use a more powerful RAID controller, then fit them all on a PCIe x8 card, or
even a PCIe x16 card. The sky is more or less the limit for the foreseeable
future, as far as PCIe SSDs are concerned.
“The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is a phenomenal SSD solution, and
its performance is astonishing”.
The performance and usability of the OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB
SSD drive was so good, that we decided to award the drive our MyCE.com “Editor’s
choice” award.
You may comment on this review below.
Thanks to:
|
|
EFD Software for |
|
|
Alex |
