OCZ Unleashes the Colossus, 3.5-Inch 1TB SSD

OCZ Technology, one of the world's leading vendors of high-performance memory and Flash-based storage solutions, has just announced the debut of its new Colossus 3.5-Inch SSD line, featuring up to 1TB of storage capacity. Designed on the performance-driven Flash technology, the new Colossus offers an alternative to traditional hard disk drives, in a 3.5-inch form factor, combining both SSD speed and HDD capacity in a new solution.

“The new Colossus Series is designed to boost desktop and workstation performance and is for high power users that put a premium on speed, reliability and maximum storage capacity,” said Eugene Chang, VP of Product Management at the OCZ Technology Group. “The Colossus core-architecture is also available to enterprise clients with locked BOMs (build of materials) and customized firmware to match their unique applications.”

According to the San Jose, California-based vendor, the Colossus manages to deliver both high-end performance and capacity, by integrating an internal RAID 0 architecture, which allows the drive to provide the optimum performance for a range of tasks or applications. Available in capacities ranging from 120GB to 1TB, the drive is touted as being capable to achieve maximum read and write speeds of 260MB/s and 260MB/s, respectively. The sustained write performance is rated at 220MB/s, while the maximum IOPS (for a 4K file size - random write) is specified at 14,000.

According to OCZ, the drive will be available in a range of capacities, including 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. Thanks to the adoption of its 3.5-inch enclosure, the drive can be used as a drop-in replacement for existing rack systems. Although no pricing details have yet been announced, OCZ claims that its Colossus has been built using multi-level cell (MLC) flash, which should ultimately lower the total cost of the drive. However, we are still talking about a large-capacity SSD, so you shouldn't expect something in the same range as a traditional 3.5-inch HDD.