OCZ RevoDrive 50GB PCIe SSD Review
2. A closer look
Below you see the retail box of the RevoDrive
In addition to the 50GB (part number OCZSSDPX-1RVD0050) drive you get the drivers and a manual:
OCZ has shipped the drive into appropriate and secure packaging:
The RevoDrive uses two SandForce SF-1200 controllers in RAID-0 on a PCIe x4 card.
Compared to a pair of SF-1200 based SSDs in RAID-0 connected to a motherboard’s RAID controller, the Revodrive will not offer you any different performance, although the CPU utilization of Revodrive's onboard Silicon Image RAID controller could be lower and of course, a standard RAID setup would cost more and would also add some extra steps to installation.
The Sandforce SF-1222 controllers have been installed in many SSD solutions, it features the , DuraClass technology for reliability, endurance and performance.
DuraWrite technology promises to extend the life of the SSD over conventional controllers, by optimizing writes to the flash memory and delivering a write amplification below 1, without complex DRAM caching requirements.
The SF-1200 has also built in AES-128 bit encryption controllable by a configurable user password.
A Silicon Image RAID controller and a Pericom PI7C9X130 PCI Express bridge chip are found on the PCB. The PI7C9X130 chip is obviously responsible for the PCIe 4x link.
The 50GB RevoDrive we have in our labs has 60GB FLASH NAND on there the PCB spread out over 16 ICs, 8 ICs on each side. As you see in the picture below, there is free space left for more NAND chips on the PCB of the specific model. The same PCB can accommodate more NAND chips and offer higher capacities:
The card has a x4 PCIe lane design but it still can be installed into a x16 slot. Below you see the funky activity LEDs of the installed card: