OCZ's Octane: Initial Performance Results
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 22, 2011 12:00 PM ESTLast month OCZ finally unveiled the fruits of its Indilinx acquisition: the OCZ Octane SSD. Based on the Indilinx Everest platform, the Octane was to be OCZ's more affordable high-performance SSD. The drive will be available in two versions: 3Gbps (async NAND), and 6Gbps (sync NAND). Capacities start at 128GB and go all the way up to 1TB.
The drive was originally supposed to be available in the channel starting on November 1st. OCZ delayed the launch in order to get some additional testing under its belts. Given the not too distant memories of the infamous SF-2281 BSOD issue, the additional validation time is definitely appreciated.
We just got our review sample yesterday and we won't be able to share the complete review with you all until tomorrow morning. To tide you over however I convinced OCZ to let me share one benchmark graph with you:
In our Heavy 2011 suite the 512GB Octane does very well, hot on the heels of the SF-2281 based Vertex 3. It's actually beyond impressive that OCZ was able to ressurect Indilinx's seemingy dead controller project and turn it into something that can at least (on the surface) hang with the big boys. I have a lot more testing ahead of me before I can really characterize the drive's performance, but this is a very good start.
OCZ is touting incompressible performance as a major advantage of the Octane over its Vertex 3/Agility 3 drives. The controller is more traditional in the sense that it doesn't do any real time data deduplication/compression. The drive's performance is data agnostic, similar to drives from Intel, Crucial, Samsung, etc...
Inside the chassis we get a look at the drive's Indilinx controller and 512MB (2 x 256MB) DRAM cache. Our 512GB sample features sixteen 32GB Intel 25nm NAND packages, each with four die per package.
Check back tomorrow morning for the review!
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MrSpadge - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
And how could they possibly do that, given the small samples size they're limited to? Look for and report any issues they encounter? Hammer the drive with different usual and unusual loads? Guess what the're doing already ;)MrS
icrf - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
I thought SandForce only had BSOD problems. Intel never crashed, but some came back to an 8MB drive and no way of recovering the data. Personally? I'd rather crash.I have both manufacturers (160 GB Intel 320, 60 GB Vertex 2, 120 GB Vertex 3) and the two SF drives did BSOD on me, I just opted to not sleep my machine. The Intel drive hasn't had any problems, but it does concern me a bit that it's a known possibility. I should really update the firmware on the whole batch, as all issues are reported as patched. I like to wait and see what else broke, as some were reporting the 8 MB problem post-patch.
Cisephys - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
Will the full review include a wider range of sizes?I have to say I'm having an increasingly hard time finding use in SSD reviews when they don't include a larger range of sizes within the same product line. At least a couple, to get an idea of scaling. While you can certainly get an idea of relative performance between different controllers and manufacturers' products by just comparing the results of all the beastliest ones, there's no way I'm spending nearly $900 on a drive. I'm far more interested in the 128 GB version, maaaaybe 256 if I'm feeling saucy. Both will most likely be slower than the 512, and I'm sure different controllers scale differently or better than others. Meaning the winner at 512 may fall behind at 256 or 128. But those sizes never get reviewed.
It's my understanding that the manufacturers usually only provide their biggest/fastest for review samples to put their best foot forward, but it's getting increasingly frustrating not being able to do an apples-to-apples comparison for the under-the-stratosphere things I'm looking at. Here's hoping that starts to change.
Roland00Address - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
which sizes are you testing, and which one will be synchronous vs asynchronousDenithor - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
Let's face it, most of us don't want to spend $500-1000 on a huge SSD when a 120-128GB model will give us the speed if not the capacity. But it's difficult to get an idea of how well these baseline models will perform when all you review is the huge versions with their channels fully populated...Beenthere - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
I don't care how fast the Octane SSDs are unless they are bulletproof reliable.Rick83 - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - link
Well, in that case, you'll have to wait a year or so, and see what's what.Reliability can only be tested over the long term. Early adopters shouldn't expect it.
Dreamwalker - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
Can we expect also the review of Corsair's Preformance Pro with the Marvell controler? Senn a review over at tssdr, looks prety decent, wonder how it compares to Octane.If you look for quick (instant ;) program startup, which block size maters the most?
Movieman420 - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
The Octane vs Marvell's new fw...i.e. Corsair Performance Pro. First thing I noticed is that the new marvell retains a lot more of it's performance in the smaller sizes. Octane perf. goes waaay down hill once you get below 512GB. i.e. a 128 Perf Pro will stomp a 128gb Octane. Guess we'll find out soon.iwod - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - link
M4 has been doing really well, and i am one of the few who has been pushing it to different market before it has even gotten attention. ( In case you are wondering, Crucial is absolutely poor at distribution with places other then US and UK, and some part of Europe )I have been hesitating to use Sandforce, i knew it was fast, but one thing i was concern about it being too clever, doing too much complex things to speed up the data.
It is great to see Indilinx is on broad with this traditional controller idea. Hopefully this will bring some healthy competition.
But on the other hand we are only 10+% from Maxing out SATA 3, we need SATA 12Gbps, or some other form of Interconnect. May be Internal Thunderblot which should be great fit,.