OCZ Puts SSD-HDD Hybrid Onto a Single Addon Card

[btarunr]

While not the very first of its kind, Intel Smart Response technology took the enthusiast community by storm, offering a middle-ground between small but fast SSDs, and large but slow HDDs. By caching on the SSD, Smart Response is able to give system responsiveness a significant boost. Before that, HDD major Seagate put a tiny SSD component onto its Momentus XT hard drive, to chop access times a little. Now OCZ inverted the concept, and strapped an HDD onto its SSD to make it more capacious, on its new RevoDrive Hybrid.

Here, the major component is a SSD RAID 0 on a stick, which pools data onto an HDD. RevoDrive is a PCI-Express x4 SSD card, which uses a number of SandForce SF-1200 driven SSD sub-units in RAID 0 that's abstract to the host machine. The card is normally available in capacities as low as 60 GB, or as high as 480 GB. On RevoDrive Hybrid, OCZ installed a 2.5-inch hard drive with capacities as high as 1 TB, with the SSD component very much intact. The device promises to give you RevoDrive-like speeds, and humongous capacities, by streaming low-access data onto the HDD.



OCZ is using the Nvelo Dataplex technology to handle the SSD caching. The host machine sees the capacity of the HDD, while the card silently juggles data based on its access, between the on die SSD RAID 0 subunits and the hard drive. OCZ claims that the device can very much offer transfer rates of 575 MB/s read, and 500 MB/s write. While OCZ didn't finalize which HDD it will use, it is very pleased with the performance of this storage model, and could even use a 5400 RPM HDD in there.

The OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid will be available in two variants, the first one has 60 GB SSD component with 500 GB HDD, and the second one has 120 GB SSD component with 1 TB HDD.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Delta6326]

I'm scared to see the price tag

 

[btarunr]

I'm scared to see the price tag

It will be between that of the 60, 120 GB RevoDrive, and the higher-capacity RevoDrives. The HDD will add just a $50~$100 premium, but there's also the hybrid technology. So I'd say they'll be priced more toward the non-Hybrid low-capacity RevoDrives.

 

[n-ster]

Great idea IMO, I'd like to see Real-World performance of this

 

[buggalugs]

It would be good for mini PCs and notebooks, no need for drive bays...

 

[Mindweaver]

This seems a little redumbnant... Don't get me wrong.. I like the speeds... but why not figure out how to make just SSD's cheaper... Not add another way for the drive to fail... This will just add heat and noise to the system..

 

[Th3pwn3r]

This seems a little redumbnant... Don't get me wrong.. I like the speeds... but why not figure out how to make just SSD's cheaper... Not add another way for the drive to fail... This will just add heat and noise to the system..

Eh, finding the middle ground is never easy.

 

[Mindweaver]

Eh, finding the middle ground is never easy.

let me fix that for you.. "3h, finding the middl3 ground is n3v3r 3asy."

 

[buggalugs]

but why not figure out how to make just SSD's cheaper...

Most of the cost is in the raw nand chips, making silicone wafers is highly technical and expensive, and done mostly by machines. Its not easy to find a cheaper way to do it.

It costs tens of millions to build a new fab so its gonna take time.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Or people can just buy a Z68 chipset mobo, a cheap SSD and make use of 'Intel Smart Response Technology' and save on having another expansion card taking up the space in their case.

 

[Mindweaver]

Most of the cost is in the raw nand chips, making silicone wafers is highly technical and expensive, and done mostly by machines. Its not easy to find a cheaper way to do it.

It costs tens of millions to build a new fab so its gonna take time.

You are missing the point all together... I understand that it's expensive, but why spend more money on old tech... I don't see it doing well.. Maybe a novelty.. Spend the money on making those highly technical and expensive silicone wafers bigger!!... I think we are capped at 300 mm. And there is always a cheaper way...

 

[xBruce88x]

i'm surprised they didn't use a WD VelociRaptor 600GB SATA 6Gbps. I think it would do better at keeping up with the SSD

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

intels Z68'ssd cacheing system will net you 100-180 Mb/s read/write speed this will do 500+ each way as my ssd does, so i think they will do well, im never going back to os on hd,it kills me to use my htpc which has no ssd and is mind bogglingly annoyingly slow at times.

i do like the fact that it seems they have gone from pciex4(full sizexX16 to x1 as i dont like to use a full size pciex slot now as i could have stuck a gfx card in there and i only started with 3 x full size pciex slots

 

[techtard]

OCZ Revodrive : Now twice as likely to fail!

 

[MN12BIRD]

They would have been smarter to put whatever flash and SF2 controller they use into a standard Hard Drive. I'm sure they already had to "team up" with Seagate or whoever's HDD that's mounted on there. I mean why not have an OCZ/Seagate standard sized 3.5" SATA Hard Drive. Like those 2.5" Hybrid drives only bigger and better! I'm sure they could fit 1, or 2x 500GB Platters (1TB) into a standard 3.5" Drive size and still have enough room for Flash memory and a controller or two. Does PCI-e really offer more usable bandwidth than SATA III 6.0 Gbps can? Yeah the Z68 Intel chipset has that cool SSD/HDD hybrid thingy going on I was really hoping the new AMD 900 series chipsets would have something similar.

This is a fine idea sure. But mounting a Hard Drive on a PCI-e card looks kinda... I dunno, ghetto?