OCZ IBIS HSDL Solid State Drive Preview

by Dave Altavilla — Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 12:00 AM EDT

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Performance Summary and Conclusion

Performance Summary:
From a raw performance perspective, the OCZ IBIS drive impressed us on many levels. Often times it kept pace and occasionally beat the considerably more expensive Fusion-io ioXtreme 80GB PCI Express SSD card. This one watermark spoke volumes to us actually. We witnessed the OCZ IBIS offering, on average, 600+MB/sec read throughput and 350MB/sec write throughput (or higher), depending on the test we ran. Our IOMeter testing showed the OCZ drive to offer significantly fewer IOPS throughput than the ioXtreme over the access patterns we tested, but then again at a level of performance we have yet to see from the likes of something built with off-the-shelf industry standard components. Finally, in our PCMark Vantage HDD testing, the IBIS drive punched out almost 2X the performance of one of the fastest single SSDs on the market (OS start-up scores) and occasionally challenged the ioXtreme card (Windows Media Center), all the while offering a bootable storage solution, which is something the ioXtreme still cannot offer currently.

In terms of write performance, you'd be hard pressed to find a faster solution on the market in the IBIS drive's price range. In terms of read throughput the same can be said, perhaps with the exception of the Fusion-io ioXtreme 80GB SSD and again the ioXtreme comes at a significant premium with its own set of caveats. To say we were surprised to see this sort of result from the OCZ IBIS SSD, with its varied assortment of PCI Express and PCI-X bridges and switches at play, would be an understatement. We were actually pleasantly surprised at how robust the solution was, across multiple test conditions. We should also note that the SandForce controllers employed on each of the IBIS SSD subsections also offered the traditional garbage collection and drive clean-up algorithms that we've come to know and love with SandForce-based SSDs. So, in short, while it was still a pre-production unit that we tested, OCZ impressed us with their new IBIS SSD.

OCZ tells us that the IBIS will be coming to market in volume within the next couple of months. The product we tested was in fact a prototype, so we'll have to reserve offering our standard HotHardware product rating, at least until it's released in its final retail-ready form. From here, the IBIS should only get more stable and polished from a build quality standpoint. We're looking forward to seeing OCZ execute and deliver on this product. Could the IBIS garner enough industry support that others follow suit or will the product remain a niche solution with a prerequisite that only speed freaks, workstation and video production professionals need apply? We can only speculate on that question but in the mean time, there appears to be more breakout SSD performance to be had and its waiting in the wings, near ready for prime time.