OCZ Apex Series 120GB SATA II SSD

Name: OCZ Apex Series 120GB SATA II SSD - Page 2
Brand: OCZ

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, March 12, 2009, 10:01 AM EDT

Like the vast majority of SSDs currently on the market, OCZ's Apex Series drive uses a standard 2.5" form factor, with a rather unassuming enclosure devoid any features, save for a few decals and the drive's SATA power and data connectors.

OCZ Apex Series drives are available in 60GB, 120GB, and 250GB capacities; the drive you see here is the 120GB model. These are MLC (multi level cell) drives equipped with Samsung flash memory and JMicron controllers.

What makes the OCZ Apex Series different than OCZ's previous solid state drive offerings, however, is the Apex series' use of what OCZ calls an "internal RAID 0 configuration" Instead of relying on a single drive controller, the OCZ Apex series is equipped with two controllers and the dual storage arrays are linked internally in a pseudo-RAID 0 setup. Although we should note, this is all transparent to the OS--the OCZ Apex Series drives appear as a single volume to the operation system.

With the drive opened up, you can see the array of Samsung flash memory chips that actually store the data copied to the drive. In between the memory chips and the SATA power and data connectors, the pair of JMicron JMF602 controllers are visible. We should also point out that these JMicron controllers are the 'B' revision of the chips, which minimize the stutter reported with the earlier revision.

Tags: Hard Drive, SSD, OCZ, Storage, drive, Solid State Disk

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com