Since quite a few years OCZ is covering ground in the enterprise SSD market. In this regard the entry-level market gets supplied with their Deneva 2 series, where there are several different models. The main differences can be found with the different types of flash memory. Today we're having a closer look at the 200 Gigabyte Deneva R eMLC drive, which features high endurance. Should you run, lets say a storage appliance where performance is critical and which has to cope with huge amounts of host writes, then it won't hurt to have a closer look at this drive. The Deneva 2 becomes especially interesting if you have to realize a cost effective solution.
The OCZ Deneva 2 series of SSD's offers quite a few
different models. In this case we're having a closer look at the Deneva 2 R eMLC
Series drive with 200 Gigabyte. On the following paragraphs and pages we will
give you a heads-up on specs, expected endurance and Performance.
The core of this SSD is the LSI SandForce SF-2582 controller and it's available
with either 100 Gigabyte, 200 Gigabyte or 400 Gigabyte usable disk space. In
case of the 200 Gigabyte drive we're reviewing here OCZ is using 56 Gigabyte for
overprovisioning purposes, which is roughly 22 percent of the entire capacity.
This might sound like a lot but considering this is an enterprise drive it makes
sense. Lets make quick example what overprovisioning is about. I'm quite sure
you all know the little game, where you have 15 stones numbered from one to 15
and the 16th stone doesn't exist. These sixteen stones are arranged in a four by
four matrix and the goal is usually to arrange the numbers in a consecutive
order. Since you have only one stone you can move you will have to move quite a
few other stones too to get things the right way. Imagine now you had four or
even more empty slots, this would make the problem much easier and quicker to
solve. Translated to an SSD this means that overprovisioning helps keeping
performance high and write amplification factor low and especially the latter
has quite an impact on endurance.
Another key feature of this particular drive comes with the NAND flash that is
being used. In this case it's not standard consumer-grade MLC NAND this drive
ships with. OCZ equips the Deneva 2 R with eMLC memory which offers much higher
P/E cycle count. The "e" in front of MLC stands for enterprise, which should
give a hit too, that this drive is not only about performance but also about
endurance. Comparing P/E cycle counts of MLC and eMLC shows, that MLC features
between 3'000 and 5'000 whereas eMLC offers 20'000 to 30'000 P/E cycles. Worst
case it's four times and best case it's ten times as much. In other words this
drive has been made to cope with write intense workloads in server environments.
OCZ doesn't provide the P/E cycle count of the NAND flash cells directly, but
they do provide an amount of data written when it comes to endurance. In case of
the 100 Gigabyte drive this is 19 PBW, with the 200 Gigabyte it's already 38 PBW
and with the 400 Gigabyte model you get 76 PBW. The fact that the value is going
up by a factor of two is a result of the amount of memory being doubled. In this
case there are twice as many NAND Flash memory cells available which also means
there are twice as many P/E cycles available.
| Usable Capacities |
100GB - 400GB |
| NAND Components |
Synchronous-Mode Enterprise Multi-Level Cell eMLC |
| Interface |
Serial ATA 6Gbps |
| Form Factor |
2.5 inch |
| NAND Controller |
SandForce 2582 |
| Weight |
83g |
| |
| |
100GB |
200GB |
400GB |
| Max Read |
up to 550 MB/s |
up to 550 MB/s |
up to 530 MB/s |
| Max Write |
up to 520 MB/s |
up to 530 MB/s |
up to 510 MB/s |
| Random Read IOPS 4K |
up to 26'000 |
up to 57'000 |
up to 59'000 |
| Random Write IOPS 4K |
up to 84'000 |
up to 81'000 |
up to 49'000 |
| Write Endurance |
up to 19 PB |
up to 38 PB |
up to 76 PB |
| Overprovisioning |
28 GB |
56 GB |
112 GB |
| |
| Power Consumption |
Idle: 1.3 Watt |
Active: 2.85 Watt |
| Operating Temp |
0°C - 55°C |
| Storage Temp |
-45°C - 85°C |
| Certifications |
RoHS, CE, FCC, KCC, C-Tick, BSMI VCCI |
| |
| MTBF |
2 Million hours |
| Power Fail Protection |
Data Write Assurance Technology (capacitance power back-up to ensure
data hardening) |
| Data Fail Recovery |
Recovers data from up to one NAND flash block |
| Data Path Protection |
ECC: Up to 55 bits correctable per 512-byte sector |
| Data Reliability |
Read Unrecoverable Bit Error Rate (UBER) 10e-17 |
| Data Encryption |
128 bit AES compliant |
| Product Health Monitoring |
Self-Monitoring, SMART with enterprise attributes |
| |
| Service Support |
3 Year Warranty, Dedicated FAE/FSE support (includes PM/engineer
support through validation cycle) |
[pagebreak]
1 Thread Throughput
1T Throughput (KB/s) |
| |
4k |
8k |
16k |
32k |
64k |
128k |
256k |
512k |
| Seq write |
512'032 |
509'580 |
514'317 |
518'462 |
519'523 |
520'309 |
448'835 |
518'101 |
| Seq read |
362'669 |
362'607 |
387'806 |
419'282 |
406'300 |
444'887 |
473'491 |
480'756 |
| Rand write |
158'635 |
249'412 |
338'821 |
415'852 |
468'225 |
497'007 |
514'680 |
521'551 |
| Rand read |
42'331 |
68'938 |
119'700 |
194'335 |
213'139 |
343'849 |
365'291 |
405'399 |
[pagebreak]
1 Thread IOPS
1T IOPS |
| |
4k |
8k |
16k |
32k |
64k |
128k |
256k |
512k |
| Seq write |
128'098 |
64'840 |
32'682 |
16'414 |
8'226 |
4'109 |
1'776 |
1'025 |
| Seq read |
90'662 |
45'336 |
24'383 |
13'143 |
6'625 |
3'491 |
1'834 |
954 |
| Rand write |
39'700 |
31'117 |
21'174 |
12'999 |
7'311 |
3'888 |
2'010 |
1'021 |
| Rand read |
10'551 |
9'546 |
8'150 |
6'367 |
4'470 |
2'648 |
1'396 |
811 |
[pagebreak]
32 Threads Throughput
32T Throughput (KB/s) |
| |
4k |
8k |
16k |
32k |
64k |
128k |
256k |
512k |
| Seq write |
518'761 |
536'436 |
541'322 |
535'213 |
539'066 |
524'970 |
533'969 |
525'981 |
| Seq read |
436'653 |
465'298 |
494'649 |
515'692 |
529'335 |
540'669 |
540'973 |
541'727 |
| Rand write |
283'409 |
398'259 |
449'072 |
492'997 |
525'768 |
529'243 |
540'794 |
556'490 |
| Rand read |
226'958 |
285'912 |
407'714 |
490'785 |
523'356 |
536'257 |
539'603 |
540'644 |
[pagebreak]
32 Threads IOPS
32T IOPS |
| |
4k |
8k |
16k |
32k |
64k |
128k |
256k |
512k |
| Seq write |
129'338 |
66'022 |
33'307 |
17'114 |
8'440 |
4'128 |
2'057 |
1'041 |
| Seq read |
111'397 |
58'151 |
30'993 |
16'130 |
8'270 |
4'228 |
2'113 |
1'059 |
| Rand write |
74'389 |
50'086 |
28'758 |
15'445 |
8'154 |
4'192 |
2'119 |
1'052 |
| Rand read |
55'090 |
36'702 |
26'019 |
15'265 |
8'162 |
4'208 |
2'109 |
1'056 |
[pagebreak]
Conclusion
With the
Deneva 2 R 200 Gigabyte eMCL SSD, OCZ has an enterprise SATA SSD in its
portfolio which features a highly attractive price. Compared to other enterprise
SATA drives with eMLC memory, this OCZ SSD is really cheap and the drive also
doesn't lack performance. Regarding sequential throughput rates, we see 540
Megabyte per second in case of maximum read as well as write performance.
Nevertheless it was rather interesting to see that their was a little dent
regarding 1 thread sequential write performance with a block size of 256
Kilobyte. But still, the overall performance is solid and competitive.
Once we have a closer look at random throughput rates, we see that the Deneva 2
R 200 Gigabyte hits 74'000 IOPS regarding random write and 55'000 IOPS when it
comes to random read. These values are not in its own league but they're still
high enough to speed up a storage appliance that lacks 4K random performance.
Despite the fact, that this is a drive equipped with eMLC NAND Flash OCZ only
asks 310 Euro for it and they still offer three year warranty with dedicated
FAE/FSE support through product manager or engineer. Usually prices for eMLC
drives start with 200 Gigabyte start at 600 Euro. Depending on service levels
prices can vary greatly.
Should you be looking for an enterprise grade SSD, that features eMLC NAND flash
memory and should the mentioned PBW values suite your needs, then it definitely
won't hurt to have a closer look at the Deneva 2 R 200 GB eMLC SSD. Because of
it's highly competitive price, this drive could under some circumstances even be
recommended to consumers with a need for an SSD that offers high reliability.
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