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Revodrive Hybrid

OCZ's RevoDrive 3; the other kind of hybrid

Subject: Storage | March 12, 2012 - 07:00 PM |
Tagged: Sandforce SF2281, revodrive hybrid, RevoDrive 3, PCIe SSD, ocz, hybrid ssd

If you are looking for the speed of an SSD but can't afford one big enough to hold your OS and programs there are two main ways to work around this.  The first is only available to Intel SandyBridge owners and that is Intel's SRT which allows you to use a mSATA SSD as a cache drive to speed up commonly used programs.  The second is to pick up a hybrid SATA drive like the Seagate Momentus XT line, which does essentially the same thing but is compatible with most systems and is self contained.  Techgage would like to remind you that there is a third choice, albeit perhaps more expensive than the other two; the OCZ RevoDrive 3 Hybrid PCIe SSD.  This drive sports 1TB of HDD space and 128GB of flash memory split between two SandForce 2281 controllers and at a cost of $330 gives you a lot more space than a $330 SSD.

TG official.jpg

"SSDs are expensive and often don't offer enough capacity to meet user needs. The recent SSD caching craze attempts to alleviate both these issues, but OCZ has done one better. Combining a RevoDrive 3 with a 1TB HDD the RevoDrive Hybrid offers a self-contained SSD caching solution that is guaranteed to work."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

 

Source: Techgage

OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid tries for the best of both worlds

Subject: Storage | January 12, 2012 - 01:24 PM |
Tagged: ocz, revodrive hybrid, PCIe SSD

Although Al polished off his review of the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid just before Christmas it is worth revisiting this unique hybrid of PCIe SSD and HDD.   Consisting of a PCIe SSD with 100GB of usable storage and a 1TB 5400RPM HDD which uses the SSD as a cache.  The Dataplex software which is needed for the RevoDrive to function properly has a small flaw; in order to function you need to be using the Hybrid drive as your boot drive.  That complaint is the exact opposite of Al's problem with the first generation of PCIe SSD which could not be used as a boot drive.  Read how the drive performed on RealWorldLabs test bench here.

RWL_revodrive_hybridb.jpg

"Aimed mostly towards professionals and enthusiasts the latest RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB PCI Express Storage Solution by OCZ combines the breathtaking read/write speeds of the RevoDrive3 PCI-E SandForce based SSD with the large capacity of a 1TB 2.5inch hard disk drive, all in one very convenient package."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

 

Source: RealWorldLabs

Podcast #181 - Hybrid Storage Roundup, the ASUS US36SD-XA1 notebook, News of the week and more!

Subject: Editorial | December 8, 2011 - 05:44 PM |
Tagged: revodrive hybrid, podcast, nvidia, notebook, Intel, hybrid, asus, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #181 - 12/08/2011

Join us this week as we talk about our Hybrid Storage Roundup, the ASUS US36SD-XA1 notebook, News of the week and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:03:02

Program Schedule:

  1. 0:00:40 Introduction
  2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  3. http://pcper.com/podcast
  4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  5. 0:02:05 Hybrid Storage Roundup: Seagate Momentus XT vs. OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid vs. Intel Z68
  6. 0:15:20 ASUS U36SD-XA1 Notebook Review: The Battery That Never Dies
  7. 0:21:00 Video Perspective: AMD A8-3850 vs Intel Core i3-2105 Gaming Comparison
  8. 0:24:20 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
  9. 0:25:12 ASRock Z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3 LGA 1155 Motherboard Review
  10. 0:27:15 Asus GeForce Direct CU II Series Reviews
  11. 0:28:16 Intel, Micron double single-chip flash capacity
  12. 0:33:46 Mobile madness minus benchmarks; new mobile GPUs from AMD & NVIDIA
  13. 0:40:39 Ivy Bridge should be here by the spring
  14. 0:46:05 Chrome passes Firefox and is now the 2nd most used browser
  15. 0:49:50 It's a bit early for 11.12, but how about Catalyst 11.11c?
  16. 0:51:15 Memorieeessssss lots of memoriesssss
  17. 0:55:06 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Jeremy: Twine ... so called physical computing; made easy
    1. Josh: Treat yourself for Christmas with a new vid card and game
    2. Allyn: Ready Player One - (Audiobook)
  18. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  19. http://pcper.com/podcast   
  20. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  21. Closing

Source:

Hybrid Storage Roundup: Seagate Momentus XT vs. OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid vs. Intel Z68

Author:
Date: December 5, 2011
Subject: Storage
Manufacturer: Various
Tagged: z68, Seagate, rst, revodrive hybrid, revodrive, readyboost, ocz, momentus XT, Intel

Introduction

Back in 2006, storage tech talk was intermittently buzzy with a few different innovations. One was wrapped around the pending release of Windows Vista, particularly two bullets on its feature list: ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive. In parallel with all of the Ready_____ talk, many tech pundits asked why it would be necessary to have the flash talk to Windows through special drivers. Why couldn't the flash memory just act like a larger RAM cache already present on?

samsung.jpg

A prototype ReadyBoost-enabled HDD by Samsung.

The answer, which nobody was aware of at that time, was that management of flash memory was a tricky thing to do successfully. It would not be until several years later that SSD's would (mostly) beat the issues of Long Term Performance and other issues that crop up when attempting to store randomly written data onto a device that can only be erased in relatively large blocks.

ReadyDrive required a special 'Hybrid' disk drive to be connected to and recognized by Windows Vista, containing both spinning platters and flash memory. Vista would then place frequently used small files on the flash. Since flash memory has negligible access times when compared to seek times of a HDD, the drive overall would boot significantly faster. Other tasks using those cached system files also saw a benefit. While ReadyDrive looked great on paper, there were very few devices ever released that could take advantage of it. Seagate was the earliest to release such a drive, and their Momentus 5400 PSD laptop drive did not see the light of day until Vista was nearly a full year old.

Continue reading our roundup of the best hybrid storage solutions on the market today!!

The OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid, a PCIe SSD with a HDD piggybacking a ride

Subject: Storage | November 10, 2011 - 01:18 PM |
Tagged: revodrive hybrid, PCIe SSD, ocz

If you have $500 and a free PCI-E x4 2.0 slot then OCZ has a rather unique product you could try out.  This new RevoDrive Hybrid is a 100GB PCIe SSD card with a low power 2.5" Toshiba 1TB HDD spinning at 5400RPM.  You could think of it as similar to an Agility 3 120GB, though in this case it is acting as a very large cache for a HDD using OCZ's proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture 2.0.  Performance-wise this odd looking beast surprised Hardware Canucks, beating the hybrid drive from Seagate as well as the Intel SRT that they tested against, but they caution prospective buyers about some sacrifices that had to be made by OCZ.  These drives are not quite plug and play, they require software to be installed in order to function properly and it turns out that the software is quite CPU intensive.  Read through the article and see if the sacrifices are worth the gains for your system.

HWC_OCZ_RevoDrive_Hybrid_ang.jpg

"Searches for affordable high capacity SSDs usually come up blank so several manufacturers have begun releasing hybrid solutions which combine the performance of an SSD with the storage space of the hard drive. OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid is the latest to take on this challenge by combining a 100GB SSD with a 2.5" 1TB HDD. This isn't exactly a match made in heaven but the benefits are tangible."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

 

Source: Hardware Canucks

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