Conclusion

Announcement: Despite the circumstance that the rating of a product is based on as many objective facts as possible there are factors which can have an influence on a rating after publication. Every autor may perceive data differently over time whereas one possible reason for example is a deeper background knowledge or understanding of certain processes. Certain unforseen market conditions as well as changes have the potential to render a descision made at a certain point in time obsolete.

The RevoDrive 3 X2 with 480 Gigabyte is a sheer unbelievably fast PCI-Express SSD. Basically, 1.5 Gigabyte per second of sequential throughput simply is overkill for a desktop system. But we still haven't mentioned the best thing: in our benchmark parcours the drive topped out at an absolutely staggering 160'000 IOPS regarding random reads and as near as makes no difference 190'000 IOPS concerning random writes. This allows a user experience one can't put into words. You'd really have to sit in front of a PC with a Revo 3 installed to make yourself a picture of the performance this drive offers. In general one can surely say that there is no enthusiasts PC which needs this much performance. It is very true that every day usage doesn't demand 150'000 IOPS. The worst case in could be that the drive would be facing a few thousand IOPS and this will take only a split second.

It is a pity that Microsofts Windows OS doesn't support SCSI unmap. OCZ is working on this issue with Microsoft to get things done as quickly as possible. For this purpose OCZ provides Microsoft with as much input as possible and OCZ are really concerned that this implementation becomes available for customers. Fortunately the SF-2281 controllers on which the Revo 3 is based, are very resistive against perfromance degradation over time, at least if you plan on putting compressible data into the NAND flash. One might not even notice that a few percent of the performance goes away over time. The reason is simple: the drive offers so much performance that you'll only need a fraction of what it offers in every day use. On the other hand, if you plan on putting a lot of incompressible data on a Revo 3 then there might be SSDs that are more suitable.

Our recommending and finally concluding remark is, that if you should be looking for a SSD that offers more IOPS then you might ever need, then the RevoDrvie 3 X2 definitely is the right choice. On the consumer market there simply isn't anything that's faster.

If we look at the RevoDrive 3 X2 from an enduser perspecitve who highly appreciates the support of TRIM and therefore wants to get the maximum of performance out of his drive even six months after he has bought it we'd have to give the RevoDrive 3 X2 four out of five stars. On the other hand it is a matter of fact that OCZ did everything right and their even supporting Microsoft with their know-how. In this context we decided to reward OCZs pioneering spirit and effort with our highest rating: five out of five stars.

All the four models can be bought at Brack Electronics AG:

• CHF 699.- OCZ RevoDrive 3 240 GByte PCI-Express SSD
• CHF 1'549.- OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480 GByte PCI-Express SSD
• CHF 3'119.- OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 960 GByte PCI-Express SSD