14 DAY TRIAL // Back in March, this year, at the CeBIT 2009 computer show in Hanover, Germany, OCZ Technology showcased an interesting product, dubbed OCZ Z-Drive, an MLC-based Solid State Drive that had been designed on a PCI-Express interface. Since then, the Flash memory vendor has continued to work on the development of the product, making it more suitable for use in high-end computer systems. On that note, the San Jose, California-based company has recently redesigned the Z-Drive, providing it with a more polished design, compared with its early incarnations.
OCZ's revamped Z-Drive now boasts an improved exterior design, which makes it look fit to be integrated in some of the upcoming, high-end computer systems. Still boasting the same PCI-Express x4 interface, the redesigned drive looks a bit more polished and ready to provide computer enthusiasts with the necessary performance to run applications at impressive load speeds and boot times.
As far as the drive's technical specifications are concerned, users will still be able to take advantage of its high-end speeds. Available in capacities of 250GB, 500GB and 1TB, the OCZ Z-Drive has been featured with 256MB of local cache, coupled with an on-board RAID controller and the aforementioned PCI-Express interface.
As for performance, the 250GB model is said to be capable of delivering maximum read and write speeds of up to 774MB/s and 646MB/s, respectively, while the 500GB and 1TB models can deliver speeds of up to 878MB/s and 781MB/s for read and write, respectively. All models are specified with a sustained write speed of up to 600MB/s.
No word on pricing, at this time, but the drive is bound to land on the table of some hardware sites that will put it through its paces, providing us with details on its real-life performance.
