Legit Storage Reviews

OCZ RevoDrive 120GB PCI-Express SSD Review

Manufacturer: OCZ Technology
Product: OCZSSDPX-1RVD0120
Date: Wed, Jul 28, 2010 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Joe Evans -
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OCZ RevoDrive - Real World Testing

One of the most common operations performed on a PC is moving/copying files. Using a free application called Teracopy, we copied large numbers of two file types from one folder to another on the same drive. Teracopy allows us to objectively measure the time of transfer and using the same drive prevents other devices from tainting the outcome and requires the drive to perform both sustained read and writes simultaneously. The first was a 2.11GB collection of mostly JPG files (with a few .MOV files thrown in) of variable size which were taken at CES in January of 2010.

OCZ REVODRIVE PHOTO COPY

The second was a collection of MP3 files of various sizes that totaled 4.65GB collectively. These file types were chosen due to their wide use and mixture of file sizes and compression levels.

OCZ REVODRIVE MP3 COPY

Install Results: While the RevoDrive and Micron SSDs performed relatively equally on the .JPG files, the Intel was noticeably slower which is not surprising if you had a look at some of the synthetic benchmarks. On the .MP3 files, the RevoDrive clearly outpaced the others.

OCZ REVODRIVE FILE COPY CHART

We also timed the installation of a few rather lengthy applications/suites as app installs is something everyone does and waiting for completion can be a drag. We used Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, Microsoft Office 2010 Professional and Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage as our test subjects with all install settings at default. Both were installed from an installer located on the target drive itself as installing from another drive, especially an optical drive, would cause a bottle-neck that would corrupt the results. The timing for these had to be done via stopwatch so there should be about a half second +/- error margin. Again, with the source and target drives being the same, concurrent read/write activity is required.

OCZ REVODRIVE DREAMWEAVER

OCZ REVODRIVE APP INSTALL CHART

Install Results: Although all of the times were relatively close, the pattern was the same for all of the installations with the RevoDrive leading the way and the Intel bringing up the rear.

Last but not least, everyone's favorite is the Windows start up/shutdown time check.

OCZ REVODRIVE WIN 7

This test was also performed with a manual timing via stopwatch and should also carry the same half second +/- margin of error. The methodology employed was to force the BIOS to allow user selection of startup drive after load and begin timing from the time the enter button was pressed until the Windows desktop appeared on the screen. All of the instances of Windows were identical and freshly installed with only the ATI video driver manually installed.

OCZ REVODRIVE WIN 7 CHART

Install Results: The start up and shutdown times were nearly identical and statistically congruent which I would expect from most all of the latest generation of SSDs. A few seconds difference on Windows start is not a good reason to choose drive A or B. With a well-used instance of Windows, the difference may be more pronounced due to the extraneous programs loading at boot but good OS management by delaying or eliminating these from start up will again render most SSDs as equals in this area.

Time to wrap this with a look at the total capacity, a few thoughts on TRIM and our final thoughts.

Next Page - Capacity, Final Thoughts & Conclusions


Review Index
Page 1 - OCZ RevoDrive - Introduction
Page 2 - OCZ RevoDrive - Closer Look
Page 3 - OCZ RevoDrive - Drivers, RAID & Boot
Page 4 - OCZ RevoDrive - Test System
Page 5 - ATTO & AS-SSD Synthetic Benches
Page 6 - HD Tach & CrystalDiskMark Synthetic Benches
Page 7 - PCMark Vantage Synthetic Benchmark
Page 8 - OCZ RevoDrive - Real World Testing
Page 9 - Capacity, Final Thoughts & Conclusions