Introduction, Packaging and Specifications

Today Allyn looks at the next iteration of the OCZ RevoDrive – the x2! This new card opens up two more channels of throughput over the RevoDrive, demonstrating how well the SI RAID solution can scale with quad-Sandforce units behind it.


Introduction:
  
Last week OCZ introduced the RevoDrive x2 – the successor to it’s not-so-old RevoDrive. The x2 adds a daughter card with two additional Sandforce controllers, bringing the total to 4, meaning it now uses all of the available channels of the on-board SI RAID controller! Back when the RevoDrive was released, I asked / begged for them to consider a 4-channel variant. At the time they said they were considering it. I can only imagine the RevoDrive took off quickly enough for such a rapid turnaround on the next iteration of this excellent SSD package.


Packaging:

We may as well compare the packaging of all solutions:

 OCZ RevoDrive x2 240GB PCIe SSD - bigger and faster! - Storage 32

The RevoDrive x2 comes packaged much like the RevoDrive did, but now there’s an added bonus – a sticker!


Specifications:
  • Capacity: 120GB / 240GB
  • Flash type: MLC
  • Interface: PCIe 4x (Gen. 1)
  • Max read: 740 MB/sec (up from 540)
  • Max write: 720 MB/sec (up from 480)
  • Sustained write: 600MB/sec (up from 400)
  • 4KB random write (aligned): 120,000 IOPS (up from 75,000)
  • Seek time: 0.1 ms
  • Power consumption: Idle 3W / Active 8W
  • BOOTABLE (!)
Other PCIe SSD solutions out there are not bootable (most notable the Fusion-IO line of SSD’s).  Since the RevoDrive builds on a simple RAID controller, it sees the same benefits, such as a low footprint driver that can be executed by the Windows installation environment, enabling windows to be installed directly on the RevoDrive itself!.

Read on to find out how this x2 model truly scales against it’s older brother!

 
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