Indilinx Everest Essentially Marvell Silicon with Custom Firmware: OCZ

[btarunr]

For those who thought with the Indilinx buyout and release of Everest and Kilimanjaro series NAND flash controllers, OCZ is on course of becoming a largely self-sufficient SSD industry player, here's a revelation. Its new Everest series silicon, used in recently-launched SSD families (such as Octane and Vertex 4), is essentially a re-badged Marvell controller (found on SSDs such as Crucial M4, Intel SSD 510), with custom firmware developed by OCZ. This discovery by Anandtech was confirmed by OCZ (Indilinx).

The Indilinx Everest (Octane and Petrol series) and Everest 2 (Vertex 4 series), are both re-badged Marvell chips with Indilinx firmware. Although it doesn't change anything, it perfectly explains how OCZ could come up with two "new" SSD controllers (Everest and Everest 2) almost instantly, after the Indilix acquisition. Everest 1 is essentially a higher-clocked Marvell 88SS9174, while Everest 2 could very well be a re-badged Marvell 88SS9187, according to the source.



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[Mussels]

thats... really odd, why even bother with the renaming?

 

[1c3d0g]

Well, the Marvell controller has a good track record. Maybe OCZ can optimize it even more. I'm just happy we have more choices than the same bland controllers with the same factory firmware.

 

[craigo]

I will pay attention to benchmarks between the ocz/indilinx and marvell branded controllers..
I hope this opens things up for firmware flash performance gains.

 

[Teiji]

So we should see more affordable choices for reliable SSD (instead of just the Crucial m4)? AWESOME! Hopefully, this will drive SSD prices down even further.