OCZ RevoDrive X2 Review: Killer SSD Performance

What's this, yet another SSD product tap-dancing its way through the HotHardware lab?  It's hard to believe that a product category has so much R&D being poured into it, spurring new releases at such a fevered pitch. The investment in the relatively fledgling storage technology makes perfect sense to us, but the average mainstream consumer probably raises their head to notice only the bigger, more prominent buzz-worthy products hitting the market as of late. There is almost too much in the product category to absorb actually. That being the case, we'd offer folks should tune their storage radar sharply on the product we have on the test bench today. The OCZ RevoDrive X2 is the second coming of OCZ's first gen RevoDrive.  This time around the product appears to have bragging rights in terms of performance levels, but at a price point decidedly more aligned with traditional SATA-based SSD solutions, versus other PCI Express SSD cards on the market.
When we looked at the first gen RevoDrive back in August, the thin slab of Flash NAND memory and dual SandForce SSD controllers impressed us and served up performance well ahead of traditional SATA SSDs with a price premium in the 30% range (about $3.07 per GB) versus SATA SSDs.  With the RevoDrive X2 OCZ is double-stacking their product now with four total SandForce 1200 series SSD controllers and double the number of NAND Flash for, you guessed it, up to twice the performance and capacity.  The good news is pricing is actually still going the way of the consumer too...

OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB  4X SandForce 1200 Specifications & Features

Max Read: up to 740MB/s Max Write: up to 720MB/s Sustained Write: up to 600MB/s Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 120,000 IOPS Seek Time: 0.1ms Interface:  PCIe x4 Power Consumption:  Idle 3W, Active 8W Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C

Storage Temp: -45°C ~ +85°C Shock Resistant up to 1500G RAID Support via Silicon Image 3124 Included 3.5" Desktop adapter bracket Available in 100GB - 960GB (1TB) Capacities Compatible with XP, Vista, 7, and Linux (32 and 64-bit) MTBF: 2 million hours 3-Year Warranty

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OCZ's RevoDrive X2 will be available at the following capacities and price points:

RevoDrive X2 100G @ $419.99
ReveDrive X2 160G @ $519.99
RevoDrive X2 240G @ $619.99
RevoDrive X2 360G @ $1099.99
RevoDrive X2 480G @ $1379.99
RevoDrive X2 720G @ $2399.99
RevoDrive X2 960G @ $3139.99

We'll be looking at the 240GB variant of the RevoDrive X2 on the forthcoming pages here, which weighs in at the $2.58 per GB mark with its $619 MSRP.  At that price, the RevoDrive X2 is actually at parity with competitive standard 256GB SATA SSDs on the market.  In the 160GB weight class, the RevoDrive X2 requests roughly a $100 premium over the average SandForce or Intel-based SATA SSD on the market.  However, as you'll see on the pages ahead, the RevoDrive X2 by OCZ is anything but average. Those max read and write of up to 740 and 720MB/sec above probably tipped you off though, so let's get down to what makes the RevoDrive X2 tick and then we'll, well, make it tick real good.