OCZ supercharges SSDs with Z-Drive: 1TB capacity and 800MB/s read speed
by Tarinder Sandhu
on 4 March 2009, 18:02
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OCZ Hard Drives,
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Other memory manufacturers are content to show DDR3-2,000MHz RAM and call it a day, but not OCZ.
The graphics-card-like box in the middle may look like a GeForce GTX 295 but is, in fact, a 1TB SSD drive made up of four 256GB drives in an RAID0 formation, helped by a hardware-based controller in the white box.
Dubbed Z-Drive and connected to the system via a PCIe x16 slot - run at x8 electrically - the SSD is a prototype of things to come. We know it won't be productised anytime soon, well not in this configuration, but it shows what can be done with a little experimentation.
RAIDing SSDs isn't anything new, because OCZ's current Apex does that in a standard 2.5in form factor, but take four faster-performing drives, such as the Vertex and Summit, and the results are impressive from a pure speed point of view.
Reading at around 700MB/s and writing at 500MB/s, the goliath isn't much faster than a well-tuned, multi-drive (mechanical) setup, but it's just cool.
Stick it in a much smaller form factor, reduce cost, and it may well become compelling hardware for the well-heeled enthusiast. Until then, it's a science experiment that draws the crowds.