120 GB SSD: Vertex3 or RevoDrive3

Hello I'm looking at both these options, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with the RevoDrive3?

it will be used as a boot drive and program drive with maybe one or two games on that I play allot, then with all my other data on a HDD and massive Steam profile on another HDD.

also does anyone know If on my Asus Crosshair V, I would be able to fit 3 Graphics cards in Sli/Crossfire and the Revodrive.

also I know there has been issues with the firmware on OCZ drives however those should be dealt with and I know there warenty system is very good if not.

I will be looking to order later today if I am going for the RevoDrive.

From looking a picture of your mobo, you could only fit 3 graphics cards with the revo drive if they (at least the lower one) is single slot. You can achieve this onmost cards bu going the water cooling route, or you will need lower power cards. Or two high end gpus and then you could fit the revo drive and a sound card in the board. Your CPU will also be bottlenecking your GPU's unless you are running at >2560

Firmware problems are on the SSD's, not the revo drives, so that shouldnt matter.
Its pretty blisteringly fast for home use, is it really worth it for you, rather than simply raid 0'ing a couple of normal drives, like the agility/vertex 3?

Game loading wont change at all for you, due to games being on seperate drive, so it might be worth at looking at raiding a few drives for that as well, although this still makes negligible difference to it.

Thanks for the response

I think I will consider the RevoDrive and possibly order later today.

it makes sense what you said about the graphics cards, and thinking about it I'd like the ability to have 3 graphics cards if needed, but 1) me putting 2 graphics cards in is more likely 2) If I was going to be extreme enough for 3 then I should also look into water cooling.

My processor will be upgraded to bulldozer upon release which will hopefully give me the power required *Fingers Crossed*

what I am mainly looking for is fast boot times and program loading for my daily applications, but I don't use specialist or particularily intensive software.

If I went for a RAID of normal SATA drives would it be best for me to get a RAID card and would the loading of that effect boot times?

normal drive raiding will only affect sequential reading majorly, so wont really help with boot times *that* much. On a vertex 1 60gb my windows load time from when it finishes post etc and starts loading windows, to when its responsive after me typing my password in, is 17 seconds, and thats with a load os stuff like steam, drivers, monitoring software, afterburner etc loading up too. A Revo drive is very nice, but not really worth the cost, since couldnt you get two normal SSD's andraid 0 them for cheaper, and then youd still get the performance but save monies.

Obv, a RevoDrive is damn nice to have, but it will only be making the difference between like 7 seconds and 6 seconds, which isnt going to add up to much, where as going SSD (eliminating seek times and increasing read speeds) from HDD is the difference between minutes and <20 seconds. This can be applied to most applications you have on the SSD. Everything on my laptop bar AutoCAD loads basically instantly, on my main pc even more so. On the workstation that is sat next to me (collegues PC) with its multi raid array and 32gb RAM and dual xeons etc, is a damn slight slower in loading stuff than my dual core laptop with 4gb ram and a vertex 2e is. as long as im not working in 3D, it runs autocad faster too, although I cant open as many/detailed drawings before it slows to a crawl due to running out of ram.

Edit: I was meaning mechanical raid for the storage drive, with the money you save from not going with a revo drive. Id recommend RAID 1 or RAID 5 if you can afford the additional drives, RAID 1 will give you most of the performance (in read speeds) that RAID 0 does, you just lose space. RAID 5 is good for a small number of drives and adds benefits to both read and write speeds, with parity data

The problems with the current SSDs are to do with the current SF 2281 controller, which is exactly what these have and should just be as likely to have errors. At £300 though it may well be more practical to buy a 120gb vertex 3 for your games and a 60gb vertex 3 as your OS/Programs. over all you should have a better computing experience.

Regarding your gfx problem though, you could have 2x double slot gfx cards and one single for physx and then the revo. but that may just be worth doing for ATI as the main cards.

Ch3m1c4L said:

Edit: I was meaning mechanical raid for the storage drive, with the money you save from not going with a revo drive. Id recommend RAID 1 or RAID 5 if you can afford the additional drives, RAID 1 will give you most of the performance (in read speeds) that RAID 0 does, you just lose space. RAID 5 is good for a small number of drives and adds benefits to both read and write speeds, with parity data

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Hi, Sorry RAID1 is generally slower than a single drive in my experience, not just in benchmarks but in the actual feel of the drives. It seems as it is purely for redundancy and it seems that righting the same data to two drives actually increases latency. This may be different with other raid controllers but none that I have used. It is noted that many people believe it increases performance so maybe some raid controllers do, do this.

TheMorningStar said:

Hi, Sorry RAID1 is generally slower than a single drive in my experience, not just in benchmarks but in the actual feel of the drives. It seems as it is purely for redundancy and it seems that righting the same data to two drives actually increases latency. This may be different with other raid controllers but none that I have used. It is noted that many people believe it increases performance so maybe some raid controllers do, do this.

Click to expand...

I've only used it on one machine (server I built for a small business) and it is faster in reads, maybe not latency, but transfers are certainly faster than a single drive. Other than that I have only read about it, and that informed me that write speeds will at best be that of a single drive, at worst, a lot less depending on drives and cpu usage (pre quad core days really). Read speeds can be as good as RAID 0, but this is largely dependent on the controller, havent tried it on onboard stuffs, but id imagine its "worse" anymore, as the onboards are getting better and better

The revo 3 will not boot as fast as a sata3 if that is what your after. Once loaded is where it shines.

Sorry I said normal drives I ment, HDD shape SSDs , would the raid performance be a significant gain and would I need to have an aditional RAID adapter to take full advantage?

the thing is probably only need 120gb for my OS and all my programs, my Steam profile needs like 500+ GB of space as there are sooo many games and will continue to be more, so there is no chance of putting that on an SSD anytime soon.

Seems as if I wont be going for the Revo3 even though I kind of want to, a single vertex 3 will probably suit me best, I just like going that little bit over the top

get 2 vertex 3's then it wont be night and day difference, but there will be a difference

i heard that for random access (booting system, loading graphic models), m4 is better than almost all the sf-2281 ssds