OCZ Demos 1 TB RAID0 Solid-State Drive with Unbelievable Transfer Speeds

[malware]

Who would of guessed that exactly OCZ will be able to achieve the unachieveble. At CeBIT the famous overclocking memory and peripherals maker has demoed Z Drive, a PCI-Express x8 connection storage device that boasts four 256 GB (MLC-equipped) solid-state drives in RAID 0 setup. In total we get 1 TB space and 256 MB of data cache. Put this into a system with a Core i7 965 EE CPU and an ASUS P6T motherboard, get some external power for the drives, and you'll easily reach transfer speeds at up to 712 MB/s read, 500 MB/s write as well as almost zero access time, a dream come true. Now the bad news, the Z Drive is obviously going to cost a lot, about $1500 to be more precise.



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[Disparia]

Don't know if it's "unachievable" if it's been done before... but very nice anyway!

Time to start saving!

 

[phanbuey]

nice find. I don't forsee myself giving up a pci-e 8x slot just yet

 

[HolyCow02]

wow... that's crazy.

 

[AlCabone]

My prediction is that in 3 years we will be able to get this kinda performance for under $100... in 2.5" form factor.

 

[lemonadesoda]

LOL. Look at the first picture. A grey enclosure. Now look at the second picture in the locked glass cabinet. Grey wasnt cool enough, so they hand painted it black. It is probably an EMPTY CASE too!

I'd be interested to hear more about this fragmentation issue that is degrading performance of SSD over time... and whether this affects RAID SSD even more so.

Micron showed a video of something like this, some time ago. The video showed the director of engineering demostrating their new PCI express RAID SSD. The guy is so high/laid back it is somewhat surreal.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GBPreUPXk

 

[thebeephaha]

I want that.

Like now.

Hurry up dammit.

 

[iStink]

My prediction is that in 3 years we will be able to get this kinda performance for under $100... in 2.5" form factor.

Noted. I will rub it in your face if you are wrong.

 

[WarEagleAU]

That is remarkable and for the price of a mid range pc. I would have though the price would have been higher but its not totally unreasonable.

 

[ShadowFold]

Man, if SSD's were reliable and cheap like HDD's then I might go for one of these but the price per gb is stupid right now. I only need a 200gb main drive..

 

[renozi]

I'll buy it when the price drops to under $500!

 

[WhiteLotus]

Has this been done before, I mean a hard drive using the PCI-e slot instead of a sata port?

 

[Disparia]

Has this been done before, I mean a hard drive using the PCI-e slot instead of a sata port?

http://www.fusionio.com/

 

[WhiteLotus]

http://www.fusionio.com/

ah thanks! never knew...

 

[xkche]

Yes, is like ioDrive.... you can´t boot from this drive...

 

[my_name_is_earl]

An extra space heater, woot!

 

[D4S4]

perverts only

 

[shoes]

An extra space heater, woot!

Actually, it probably won't get very hot at all.

It was pretty clear that storage companies were going to have to move to an entirely different interface if they wanted to be free of throughput restrictions. The 6gbps SATA should serve most SSD devices well, but it is still just a temporary fix. Fusionio's drive is pretty slick, but if OCZ can offer this kind of performance then they should be able to strongarm the competition with lower prices.

 

[Mussels]

devices like this are going to be big in the server world. a webhost for example could run a shitload of websites off this, at insane speeds. game servers are another good example of something that could run well here.

 

[paulrules]

Yes, is like ioDrive.... you can´t boot from this drive...

And that's the only reason why I never will get this unless motherboard manufacturers support booting from the PCI Express slot. (Which probably will not be until these become more widespread)

 

[nlancaster]

If this is a raid array of drives card running thru PCIe you may be able to boot from this device. The FusionIO is not a raid array, it is basically a supped up ram disk. I for one am very interested in this product. 1TB SSD for $1500 is a pretty good price.

Edit: $1500 for 1TB SSD is a DAMN good price!! cheapest 256GB SSD on Newegg is $449 and it isnt even in stock.

 

[Valdez]

Man, if SSD's were reliable and cheap like HDD's then I might go for one of these but the price per gb is stupid right now. I only need a 200gb main drive..

You can buy a 64-128gb ssd for OS and often used apps, and use hdd-s for storage.

 

[btarunr]

PCI-E x8 wasn't needed. For max. transfer rates of ~700 MB/s, PCI-E 1.1 x4 would have been sufficient (1000 MB/s per direction). Making it PCI-E x8 only reduces compatibility.

 

[Mussels]

PCI-E x8 wasn't needed. For max. transfer rates of ~700 MB/s, PCI-E 1.1 x4 would have been sufficient (1000 MB/s per direction). Making it PCI-E x8 only reduces compatibility.

power and size constraints could have got in the way.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

Actually a reasonable price, I cannot afford one, but I know enough to see that this is actually pretty cool!