OCZ Revodrive Hybrid

Wucked · 13 Oct 2011 at 12:58

Does anyone here have one?

I have a games machine at home that I use mechanical drives only with atm.. I've never dabbled much with SSD's because despite all the performance promises, I just cant justify the cost. So I've taken the view that yes, my stuff loads a few seconds slower than yours, but once it does it runs just as quickly.

I still hold to this view to a certain extent, but I have to say that I like the idea of SSD caching, it seems to give the best of both worlds. SSD like performance combined with a large amount of back-end storage. Its still pretty expensive, but certainly ALLOT cheaper that purchasing 1TB of SSD storage. And it would help me to remove a traditional performance bottleneck without sacrificing capacity.

So anyway, I've read a few reviews and they've been fairly positive. But I'm hoping to get some opinions, perhaps from someone that already owns one, or is maybe thinking of getting one...? Or even if you think its a bad idea, and that pure SSD is the way-to-go?

TY
Wuck

Howling · 14 Oct 2011 at 13:15

In principal, they're not a bad idea. The trouble is the caching algorith (how they predict what files to cache) they use sucks ass so it actually ends up being a huge waste of money.
Imho just grab an SSD.

ecat · 14 Oct 2011 at 13:21

Howling said:
In principal, they're not a bad idea. The trouble is the caching algorith (how they predict what files to cache) they use sucks ass so it actually ends up being a huge waste of money.
Imho just grab an SSD.

Interesting. Tell me more about the Dataplex caching SW used by OCZ? Seriously, caching is everything wrt this product and with 100GB of SSD cache space available I'd be interested to hear your predictions.

Wucked · 14 Oct 2011 at 14:23

Howling makes a good point, that hybrid drives are only as strong as the algorithms they use. And I'm still unsure why OCZ are only using a 5400rmp mech drive. But its hard to argue with the benchmark results people are getting in their reviews.

So.. Wait a day or so while your most used programs / boot sequence is cached, and then you've got better performance than a SATA SSD but with 1TB capacity to back it up? Oh, and all for the same price as a 240GB SATA SSD? Honestly I'm struggling to see a downside here.

But I am a bit cautious, because £400 is still allot of money to spend just on storage. For that kind of money I could afford to get 4TB+ mech storage and RAID it. I wouldn't get the same performance, but with RAID5 it would be a deal safer and better value for money in terms of capacity.

ecat · 14 Oct 2011 at 15:15

Reviews? Where?
I didn't know they were out... Off to read

Wucked · 14 Oct 2011 at 15:26

Yep, pretty good reviews across the board so far. And OCUK has it listed now as well, still only pre-order though. I'm hoping they'll get some stock in next week, because I'm seriously tempted.

ecat · 14 Oct 2011 at 16:50

Found 2 reviews

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-revodrive-hybrid-review/1
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...ie-100gb-ssd-1tb-hdd-review-introduction.html

Must be the boot drive else the caching doesn't work.

Not clear if the Hybid as a boot drive can be split into 2 cached partitions, though I cannot think of a reason for this not to work <shrug>

Shame no one has yet tried swapping the HD for a proper 7200 with separate power connector, there are adaptors hehe.

All in all it does look very (very, very?) good. Even the write speed, unless you spend your day copying 1,000s of 4k files around, is impressive, it looks to be writing to flash and probably updating the HD in background? I guess a 100GB cache facilitates such luxuries.

If only they had a driver for XP

Wucked · 14 Oct 2011 at 17:25

Actually I think I found the down side to all of this, its OCZ themselves.

I've been reading some user reviews of their other products, and it seems that they are typically fast but very unreliable. And that OCZ's RMA and general support is very poor. Many people have purchased their products only to loose the money they invested, usually because the drive fails within a few minutes, days, weeks, months (pot luck, apparently) and they get no response from OCZ support.

I love fast shiny stuff, and this hybrid drive seems to have promise, but this really puts me off. So I think I'm going to wait for some user reviews to arrive before I commit.

I can see why OCUK have had the vertex 3 up on special offer now, its gaining a bad reputation, quick get rid of it before everyone realises lol. I just hope not to many people got burned on it.

ecat · 15 Oct 2011 at 00:01

Just reading a few more reviews...

Here is a nice one with a few interesting bits of info, eg
The Dataflex software is licensed to your PC!
What happens if you replace the HDD on the hybrid with a Crucial M4? -Muhahahahaha

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews...eview-performance-capacity-and-value-finally/

Another ...

If we try to test the Hybrid as a secondary drive, the software will use the primary drive instead of using the Hybrid’s own hard drive.

O.O Does this mean you can use the SSD part of the Hybrid to cache a separate, greater than 1TB drive or RAID array ?

http://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/zardon/ocz-revodrive-hybrid-1tb-hddssd-review/3/

Bluntwrapped · 18 Oct 2011 at 19:12

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/...value-finally/

"Things that might be improved upon would naturally include creating a BIOS that would allow the swapping of hard drives on the card itself and maybe even a higher caliber hard drive. Truth be told, I did unsuccessfully attach a Crucial M4 just to see what might result as I couldn’t help but think that it was a question worth exploring."

Lithium · 19 Oct 2011 at 09:40

I have a Hybrid drive in my Macbook. It's only 4GB of SSD onboard but it makes a huge difference to the general feel of the laptop.

Wakes from sleep very quick, gets to work instantly, all my commonly used apps open instantly. It's given my laptop a big boost.

Momentus XT I think it's called.

Wucked · 19 Oct 2011 at 11:42

The momentus XT got allot of good reviews, and its nice to hear from someone that uses it that it works really well. I'm hoping this OCZ model will be even better. But I think its worth waiting until its been in use for a while so that any bugs can be worked out with the firmware / hardware.