VR-Zone

PCI-Express SSD drives are not new in the market, with the technology being implemented in several portable devices and companies offering various PCI-E SSD drives for home and professional applications. One of the first to offer a commercial PCI-E SSD drive in the form of a PC card was OCZ, several years ago. The company today offers several similar devices, two of which we have here today; the RevoDrive X2, successor of the first PCI-E based SSD drives and designed for enthusiasts and the RevoDrive 3 X2, an improved version of the same device for workstation/professional use. Are 2.5” SATA SSD drives not fast enough for you? Then read on…

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Even though SSDs are a relatively new technology and market penetration is not yet extensive, demand from performance-crazed enthusiasts has led several of the major manufacturers to release products designed for maximum performance regardless of their high cost. Today we will examine OCZ’s currently fastest 2.5” SSD offering, the Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB drive. As the name suggests, this disk has been designed and tuned to deliver the best possible IOPS performance which current controllers and flash memory technologies allow. How well it can perform in both synthetic benchmarks and real-world applications? We will find out in this review.

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The SSD market is continuously growing, yet high capacity devices will most likely not be affordable by the bulk of consumers for several years to come. Even after the Thailand catastrophe which increased mechanical drive prices by as much as 300%, high capacity SSDs were far too expensive to be competitive. Many manufacturers are working on solutions to improve hard disk drive performance without having to use a large capacity SSD; Intel introduced the SRT (Smart Response Technology) n their Z68 chipset, Seagate designed hybrid mechanical drives with a small SSD cache installed and OCZ introduced various solutions, the most popular being a hybrid PCI-E 1TB drive. OCZ however also introduced another very interesting product, an SSD baptized “Synapse”, which has been designed to be used as a plug & play caching solution. OCZ promises SSD speeds while using virtually any mechanical HDD of up to 2TB capacity as a primary system disk. Sounds too good to be true? We will find out in this review.

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With Intel's Ivy Bridge based Ultrabooks and a fair few other Ivy Bridge notebooks and desktops expected to offer Thunderbolt connectivity – the first time for computers no from Apple – it looks like several companies are getting interested in the still relatively new, high-speed interface. OCZ has shown off its upcoming external SSD with Thunderbolt interface at CES, as well as its new Indilinx Everest 2 SSD controller.

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OCZ is yet another company which started off as a computer RAM manufacturer and later diversified into other areas of the market. Nowadays OCZ is a renowned manufacturer of computer RAM, power supply units, solid state disk drives and more. OCZ however is one of the very few companies which offer mSATA SSD drives for high end notebooks and embedded systems. Today we are going to have a look at the Nocti 60GB SSD, a mSATA device designed mostly for high end notebooks and desktop systems, the motherboards of which come with an available mSATA slot.

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Being in the retail SSD market isn't a money maker and OCZ has been trying to work its way into the OEM market space for some time. Now the company has announced a new mSATA SSD under its Deneva 2 brand that the company is targeting towards Ultrabooks for some Intel Smart Response caching action.

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It has been over half a decade since OCZ has begun marketing performance power supplies. The company turned into a major player in the PSU market after they acquired PC Power & Cooling, a company which specialized on the field.  OCZ currently markets three series: The premium ZX series, the modular ZT series and the value range ZS series. A few weeks ago we had a look at the ZT 550, a high performance modular power supply designed to please hardcore enthusiasts and modders. Today we are going to put to the test the 650W version of a ZS series power supply and see what the value range of OCZ’s power supplies can offer.

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Today OCZ announced the release of the new PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III Power Supply Series. Although the mainstream character of the series might not draw the attention of enthusiasts, this is the very first modular design coming from PC Power & Cooling, which is interesting all by itself.

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If you still think SSDs are too expensive, then OCZ might have a solution for you come early next year, as the company is planning to offer SSDs with TLC (three bits per cell) NAND flash. This means that less flash memory is needed to make an SSD of the same capacity as when MLC NAND flash is being used, much in the same way as MLC is cheaper than SLC. The company also has some new Indilinx SSD controllers coming which will further help keeping costs down.

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OCZ might have started off as a memory modules manufacturer but the company diversified into several other segments of the computer components market, such as CPU coolers, SSD drives and power supply units. OCZ has been marketing performance power supplies for over half a decade; however they turned into a major player after they acquired PC Power & Cooling, a company which specialized on the field.  The company currently markets three series: The premium ZX series, the ZT series which are fully modular units aiming towards enthusiasts but are more sensibly priced than the premium ZX series and the value range ZS series. Today we are hosting the first power supply review of an OCZ product in VR-Zone and the product is no other than a ZT 550W power supply. 

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Besides OCZ's mSATA SSDs, we haven't seen anything based on Indilinx controllers since OCZ bought Indilinx back in March, well, that was until today when OCZ announced its new Octane series of SSDs based on the new Indilinx Everest controller. The new SSD controller not only offers SATA 6Gbps support and of course added performance, but it's also Indilinx first SSD controller that supports 2Xnm flash memory.

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If OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid is outside of your budget, then its new Synapse series of SSDs might appeal to you as the new range of drives have been designed specifically for SSD caching. The good news is that you don't need chipset level support to take advantage of the SSD caching feature either, as OCZ has integrated software from Dataplex that handles the caching part.

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If recent developments are anything to go by, the next SSD battlefield is mSATA and OCZ is getting ready to join Intel, Sandisk, Kingston and several other companies with a couple of new products line that might prove to be popular in the upgrade market and possibly even with notebook manufacturers. OCZ new Nocti and Strata series of mSATA SSDs should arrive later this month and we're looking at a pair of very different solutions here.

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It's hard not to call OCZ an innovative company as they keep coming up with new ways of either connecting your SSD or take advantage of SSD technology somehow in your PC. The latest addition to the RevoDrive series of PCI Express based SSDs is the RevoDrive Hybrid and if you've been around for a while, you might remember that once upon a time ISA cards with a hard drive strapped to them weren't so uncommon and the RevoDrive Hybrid somewhat harkens back to those days.

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Enter the Agility 3 - the low-cost offshoot of OCZ's Vertex 3. With the same SandForce controller but slower NAND flash, is the Agility 3 a good deal for those seeking an economical 6Gbps SSD?

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