OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCIe SSD Full Review – Revo Drives Toshiba Flash

Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts

Conclusion:

PROS:

• Class leading throughput and IOPS
• Good boot compatibility with the use of AHCI (vs. NVMe)

CONS:

• Low Queue Depth response time and IOPS remains limited by SandForce controllers
• Lack of NVMe support translates to greater CPU penalty per IO
• 240GB model is excessively costly given the specs list it at half the performance
• Possible performance issues for Windows 7 users (see below)

Windows 7 inconsistencies:

While performing some tests under Windows 7 with the currently available 2.0.0.4774 driver, we noted some inconsistencies – namely reduced performance, but only in some benchmarks. Upon deeper investigation, we discovered that OCZ made significant changes to the new 2.x driver in order to implement native TRIM support. Windows 8.1 handles this differently than Windows 7, and given many of the optimizations were likely based around Windows 8.1, some of those changes might not have been optimal for performance under Windows 7.

To demonstrate this, here is an ATTO run under Windows 8.1:

…and now an ATTO run under Windows 7 with the same driver:

OCZ suggested that the addition of a small filter driver to assist with legacy (Win 7) TRIM support might have been the cause, but we saw no difference when retesting with TRIM disabled at the driver. Most usage scenarios and benchmarks did not see this performance delta, but it is possible that some applications that perform modifications within an in-place file (i.e. VM's) might also see the performance hit noted above. My suggestion: If you're dead set on a new RevoDrive, you may also consider an upgrade to Windows 8.1 to avoid these sorts of these legacy complications.

Pricing and Availability:

MSRP's are as follows:

RevoDrive 350:

• 240GB – $530    ($2.21/GB) 
• 480GB – $830    ($1.73/GB)
• 960GB – $1,300 ($1.35/GB)

Cost/GB looks to be a bit of a steeper slope than we typically see. For the RevoDrive 350, going for the larger model will pay much larger dividends in cost/GB. The top capacity looks to be the only one that will beat the expected $1.50/GB of the upcoming Intel P3500 Series, which looks to be extremely stiff competition looming over the horizon given its 18 channels and native NVMe support. For those curious, here's a brief snapshot of how the rest of the non-NVMe pack stacks up with P3700 series results tossed in:

Warranty:

The RevoDrive 350 carries a 3 year warranty rated at 50GB/day client workloads.

Final Thoughts:

We all kind of expected OCZ to revise the RevoDrive series with Toshiba flash, and they did not disappoint. This was not just a drop in swap, as OCZ made additional improvements, pushing sequential throughput to 2GB/sec and sending IOPS figures higher than we've seen from any prior Revo series product. The decision to stick with AHCI communications over PCIe may be seen as a disadvantage to some, but considering NVMe is not yet fully supported by current generation BIOS, those wishing to boot from their fire breathing PCIe SSD may be better off sticking with the RevoDrive 350 for the time being.