14 DAY TRIAL // Though the most common type of SSD is the one that employs the same interface and form factor as hard disk drives, there are also those enterprise models that plug straight into the PCI interface, and OCZ has just demonstrated its latest such model, the RevoDrive X2.
As consumers must know, solid state drives are faster, quieter and more reliable that hard drives, through their very nature.
Also, when it comes to the actual transfer speeds, the controller is the one that, more or less, determines how fast reading and writing tasks are accomplished.
The SandForce controller is one of the most popular ones, as it lets even SATA II units work at over 280 MB/s when reading and more than 270 MB/s when writing.
In the case of PCI Express SSDs, however, the performance limit is far higher, and OCZ was eager to illustrate this with the RevoDrive series.
In fact, the newest such model, the RevoDrive X2, was demonstrated at IDF (Intel Developer Forum) in San Francisco, according to HotHardware.
This model boasts MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips and, unlike its predecessor, utilizes four SandForce controllers instead of two.
These four are configured in a sort of 4-way RAID configuration and two of them are set in via a sort of daughterboard.
As such, according to the description displayed alongside it, the RevoDrive can reach 120,000 IOPS for 4K random writes.
The maximum read and write speeds are of 740 MB/s and 730 MB/s, respectively, rates enabled by the PCI Express X4 connection, the same one that the original ReviDrive used.
It is unclear exactly which SandForce controller is implemented, but the SF-1200 is a distinct possibility, given that this is the one that many SSD makers have adopted so far.
Unfortunately, albeit predictably, the storage solutions developer did not offer any sort of information on pricing and availability.