OCZ Officially Launches the ARC 100 Series Solid State Drive

[Cristian_25H]

OCZ Storage Solutions - a Toshiba Group Company and leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced its new ARC 100 SATA III SSD Series developed to deliver exceptional performance at an enticing price point. The introduction of the ARC 100 Series addresses the needs of our customers and is priced competitively to make adoption of cutting-edge SSD technology easier than ever for value and mainstream users, and underscores OCZ's commitment to meet the entire gamut of market needs with the broadest solid state solutions portfolio in the industry.

"OCZ is known for delivering innovative enthusiast and high performance storage solutions but we also recognize that there is a large portion of the value-minded market that can also benefit from transitioning to SSDs," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Storage Solutions. "The new ARC Series represents an excellent value for consumers as it leverages the proven in-house controller and firmware platforms found in our award-winning Vertex and Vector Series SSDs to deliver exceptional performance, robust features and high reliability that everyday users demand."





ARC 100 SSDs feature next generation Toshiba A19 nm NAND flash, delivering a value-oriented option for users looking to upgrade their storage to a faster or higher capacity solution without the steeper price points commonly associated with high performance SSDs. Utilizing the proven Barefoot 3 M10 controller that emphasizes real-world performance, ARC 100 SSDs deliver excellent sustained and mixed-workload speeds for a more responsive and enjoyable computing experience, while delivering up to 490 MB/s sequential bandwidth, and up to 80,000 4K random write IOPS. With an emphasis on reliability and endurance, ARC 100 SSDs are rated to deliver 20 GB of host writes per day under a 3-year warranty period, and feature an advanced suite of flash management tools that analyze and dynamically adapt to increasing NAND vulnerabilities as flash cells wear, heightening data integrity and longevity over the long term.

All ARC 100 SSDs are engineered and tested to ensure superior quality, reliability, and compatibility and also come backed with OCZ's brand new "ShieldPlus Warranty," an industry-leading approach to service that eliminates all the hassle surrounding support and warranty claims consumers often have to deal with. With no original proof of purchase required, end-users simply provide their ARC serial number and a dedicated OCZ customer service representative will provide high-caliber troubleshooting and support. In the event that the product is determined to be defective, a brand-new ARC SSD of the same capacity will be advance shipped to the customer. When the replacement is received, end-users will find a pre-paid return label and need only to place their original drive in the box for a free return to OCZ. With the value added ShieldPlus Warranty there is no support hassle, no endless return loops, no shipping costs, and end-users will benefit from significantly reduced downtime to maximize their SSD experience and productivity. OCZ ShieldPlus is available in both North America and EMEA at time of launch, and additional supported regions will be announced in the future. With the security of the ARC's ShieldPlus Warranty, OCZ's valued customers will have the peace of mind that they not only have a quality solid state drive, but also the very best service and support should they ever require it.

The ARC 100 Series will be available through OCZ's global channel in the next few weeks in 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities, with a sub-7 mm height alloy housing to support today's thinner form factor notebooks.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Cristian_25H]

http://www.gdm.or.jp/review/2014/0813/81386/attachment/002_arc100_asssd_1024x576b

Interesting pricing... $240 for the 480 GB model. Still can't beat the MX100 but it's ... something .

 

[Hood]

That is a very interesting warranty - only 3 years, but with advance shipping and pre-paid postage, it doesn't get any better than this. It's unusual to get a premium warranty on a budget product, and it's a great way to compensate for OCZ's bad reliability reputation. Maybe it will be enough to repair that reputation, as long as the new drives don't have massive failure rates like so many other OCZ drives.

 

[RealNeil]

That is a very interesting warranty - only 3 years, but with advance shipping and pre-paid postage, it doesn't get any better than this. It's unusual to get a premium warranty on a budget product, and it's a great way to compensate for OCZ's bad reliability reputation. Maybe it will be enough to repair that reputation, as long as the new drives don't have massive failure rates like so many other OCZ drives.

I agree with you. It's as if they're trying to get their reputation back out of the abyss.
Since they're owned by Toshiba now, maybe better parts are going into their build.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

I remember having OCZ ram back in the DDR days. It was great stuff. I refuse to buy an SSD from them though. Too high a failure rate.

 

[ssdpro]

I remember having OCZ ram back in the DDR days. It was great stuff. I refuse to buy an SSD from them though. Too high a failure rate.

The failure rate stuff is just junk. No one knows the actual failure rate of old OCZ Tech or the OCZ under Toshiba except OCZ and Toshiba. It is perfectly fair to say the reputation has been tarnished by reports and the bankruptcy then acquisition, but trying to get specific about failure rates is dumb. I am just "some guy" and I have owned dozens of products from Samsung, OCZ, and Intel and had to RMA with each of them once. Because 3 of those products were Intel, it doesn't mean Intel has a 33 percent failure rate on their products any more than the one of 15 OCZ products means they have a 6 percent failure rate. No one knows the actual info except that company or a whistle blower who exposes. You can't make an analysis based on reports from "some guy".

I am still looking to Samsung and OCZ for my storage drives - I really think the Toshiba acquisition is going to make OCZ a strong contender with Samsung but it will take some time. I think the old OCZ was a victim of the NAND quality they were sold and the price at which they bought it. Samsung might have an edge in product reputation, but OCZ support and product performance is better and this new auto advanced RMA is a great idea.

 

[ironwolf]

http://www.gdm.or.jp/review/2014/0813/81386/attachment/002_arc100_asssd_1024x576b

Interesting pricing... $240 for the 480 GB model. Still can't beat the MX100 but it's ... something .

By interesting you mean not so great right? The other day the M550 512GB SSD was $220...

 

[Solid State Brain]

The failure rate stuff is just junk. No one knows the actual failure rate of old OCZ Tech or the OCZ under Toshiba except OCZ and Toshiba.

The guys from this french website do. OCZ consistently had the worst SSD failure rate over the past years. Their statistics are based on a minimum of 100 samples per model listed:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/843-7/ssd.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/862-7/ssd.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/881-7/ssd.html

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/893-7/ssd.html

Si on regarde les modèles avec un taux de retour supérieur à 5%, OCZ truste le classement :

- 52,07% OCZ Octane SATA 2 128 Go
- 45,26% OCZ Petrol 128 Go
- 44,76% OCZ Octane SATA 2 64 Go
- 40,57% OCZ Petrol 64 Go
- 10,23% OCZ Agility 4 256 Go
- 8,70% OCZ Octane SATA 3 256 Go
- 7,41% OCZ Agility 4 64 Go
- 6,85% OCZ Agility 4 128 Go
- 6,59% OCZ Agility 3 90 Go
- 5,56% OCZ Octane SATA 3 128 Go

At some point Octane and Petrol SSD models were close to a 50% failure rate.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/911-7/ssd.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-7/ssd.html

OCZ appeared to have improved a bit, but still seems the worst manufacturer, at least to these statistics. Maybe rates will have improved further in the 6-month period covered by the next article, which should be out next October. To be fair, it's not specified how many of these were actual failures, it could be that people have been so accustomed returning these SSDs due to past reputation that they keep doing that for software problems or no problem at all.