Technology & Positioning
The Orico O7000 uses the famous Maxiotech MAP1602 controller, which we've seen on drives like the Lexar NM790. The big difference is that the NAND flash is 232-layer QLC from YMTC and not TLC. Usually this means "low performance," but thanks to the MAP1602 controller, things are looking quite good, and you have to take the pricing into account, too. The O7000 is designed for scenarios where you want a "good enough" drive at an excellent price. Recently Kingston released their NV3, which targets the same market, you can find our review here. As expected for a value drive, there is no DRAM cache, but the MAP1602 controller will use up to 40 MB of the system's memory for the mapping stables—it's really 40 MB, not 64 MB.

Synthetic Performance
Synthetic performance results of the Orico O7000 are quite solid, and you wouldn't be able to tell immediately that this is a QLC-based drive, which is good. While the official rating is for "up to 7 GB/s write and 6.6 GB/s read," this is for high queue depths, which you really won't encounter in daily use. In our testing, with a more realistic queue depth you're still getting around 5 GB/s, which is in-line with high-end Gen 4 SSDs. Random IO is a bit lower, but still sits in the middle of the test group—faster than any other QLC SSD we've tested.

Real-Life Performance
Controller vendors have been optimizing their controllers for typical synthetic reviewer workloads on an empty drive. That's why it's important to also include real-life testing. We're even running those tests with the drives filled to 85% capacity, not empty. This approach puts additional pressure on the various algorithms and the SLC cache, just like in real-life. Here the Orico O7000 does much better than what I expected from a QLC-based SSD, reaching performance levels that are comparable to famous drives like the Samsung 980 Pro, WD Black SN850—and these are TLC with DRAM. While the results vary between tests, overall, the O7000 can beat most of the TLC drives in our test group, and it's around 20% faster than older QLC drives like Crucial P1 or Corsair MP400. Looks like QLC has come a long way, and it really shouldn't be dismissed so quickly.

SLC Cache / Sustained Performance
The biggest weakness of QLC is its low write speeds when the SLC cache is exhausted, and the Orico O7000 is no exception. Thanks to an SLC cache size of 464 GB (or 90% in SLC mode), the drive can absorb nearly all bursts of write activity. Once the SLC cache is exhausted, transfer rates are terrible though and reach merely 160 MB/s. Filling the whole 2 TB capacity completed at a disappointing 167 MB/s, the second-slowest result in our tests. If you plan on writing a lot of data (100+ GB) in a short time, definitely consider other drives. For the vast majority of users, like your parents, that focus on Internet browsing, Office productivity and video playback, this will be a total non-issue.

Power Consumption / Heat
We've seen fantastic power consumption results from the MAP1602A+TLC combo, and the QLC version is not far behind. The drive's energy usage is very well-behaved, and it makes do with 1-3 W during typical usage, topping out at 4.5 W. When considering MB/s per watt, the O7000 is in the top five, better than most competing drives. In our idle testing, the drive couldn't reach its lower power state in a laptop scenario, which means other drives can give you a bit better battery life, for desktop it doesn't matter. Thanks to the low power consumption, the heat output is very manageable, too. Orico's included heatsink works well enough for virtually all scenarios. If you're a power user, do consider a more powerful heatsink though.

Pricing & Alternatives
The Orico O7000 currently sells for $115, which is highly competitive pricing. At that price point it offers fantastic price/performance that's hard to beat. Strong competition comes from other MAP1602+QLC drives like the Lexar NQ790, and of course MAP1602+TLC, like the Lexar NM790. Considering that the Lexar NM790 currently sells for $135, I'd be tempted to spend that extra money for the performance increase, especially when the SLC cache is exhausted. Another good alternative is the WD SN770, which goes for $120 right now—slightly faster, TLC. The recently released Kingston NV3 has been coming down in price steadily, and is $125 at the moment, still too much, but I am quite certain that they can get much closer to $100, once they are willing to ramp the sales. No doubt, QLC NAND is cheaper than TLC NAND, so it seems plausible that Orico has some headroom, too. While the current pricing is certainly attractive, it's still a little bit high to make a big splash. Once they can reach $110 and below, it would become my first choice for a lightly used computer, to upgrade the storage at good pricing, while not compromising too much on performance.