OCZ CES 2016: NVMe RevoDrive 400, Trion And Vector SSD Refresh

2016 is already shaping up to be the year of NVM Express enabled PCIe 3.0 solid-state drives. SATA Express was over before it began thanks to PCI Express x4 drives being able to offer twice the bandwidth, and SSDs such as the RevoDrive 400 are able to put all that bandwidth to good use.

This year at CES OCZ was showing off its entire range of storage solutions, starting with the Trion 100, Trion 150, Vector 180, and the upcoming PCIe x4 based RevoDrive 400. All SSDs utilize Toshiba NAND flash and controllers save the Vector 180, which retains use of OCZ’s own Barefoot 3 controller. Both Trions are entry model TLC drives that offer 90,000 IOPS reads and 64,000 IOPS writes with 530-550MB/s sequential performance ratings that are typical for SATA 3.0 SSDs. The Vector 180 naturally ups the performance and endurance ratings thanks to its A19nm MLC flash along with increasing the warranty from three to five years.

Of course the showpiece was definitely OCZ’s RevoDrive 400, which will be a NVM Express M.2 form-factor SSD. Enthusiasts that don’t have an M.2 slot capable of achieving PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds should fear not, as OCZ’s RevoDrive 400 ships slotted into a PCI Express adapter card that can fit into any x4 or larger slot on the motherboard. The ability to plug the RevoDrive into any M.2 slot opens up a wide range of options for the drive beyond just desktops, including anything from ultraportable laptops to compact PCs like the NUC.

Sequential performance was advertised up to 2,400MB/s reads and 1,500MB/s writes, while random I/O performance is a blistering 210,000 read and 140,000 write IOPS. The RevoDrive 400 will range from 120GB up to 1TB, so naturally expect top performance figures apply to the larger capacity models. This puts it within performance range of Intel’s enterprise 750 Series, but of course those don’t come in an optional M.2 gumstick form-factor. We have no word yet on a launch date or pricing, though warranty will of course be five years.

NVM Express will be an important differentiation in future SSDs, but the CliffNotes version is that NVMe is a new protocol intended specifically for SSDs to replace the aging AHCI command set. It will increase performance and reduce CPU overhead when issuing commands to the SSD which is particularly helpful if say, writing gigabytes at a time to an SSD! That said, for maximum performance the motherboard or laptop UEFI will need to support NVMe. NVMe itself is only supported on PCIe capable devices such as M.2, U.2 and PCI Express slots. NVMe drives like the RevoDrive 400 are ushering in a new age of solid-state storage, but it also means SATA-based SSDs are going to be left out in the cold.