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steve1977 · 2012-10-24, 02:31

I am about to buy a PCI-E SSD drive. I did quite a bit of web search, but didn't find a good comparison between the different options out there? Below are the 4 drives, I have on my shortlist. Would love to get your thoughts what would be the best choice among them. Also, any other option of PCI-E SSD drive, which I am missing on my list? Thanks in advance!!!

1) OCZ RevoDrive
2) OCZ RevoDrive X2
3) OCZ RevoDrive3 X2
4) OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid

ssweet · 2012-10-24, 04:25

Just a couple questions, so I can try to give a more informed opinion. Do you have SATA III (6 Gb/s) on your mobo, and how many total SATA ports do you have?

If you have SATA III, I wouldn't go with the RevoDrive. It uses more power and has an older controller than the newer (SATA III) Vertex 4, while both offer similar performance.

If you have at least one spare SATA port, I wouldn't go with the hybrid. You can get a large storage drive pretty cheap (prices are coming back down). This allows the flexibility of backing up an image of your boot drive in case you ever need to replace it or reformat and reinstall.

If you need the absolute fastest access and boot times possible, the RevoDrive 3 and 3 X2 appear to be the fastest drives available. I'm not sure if you'll notice the additional speed over a SATA III SSD, but they do promise incredible I/O and sustained throughput. However, if power consumption is a concern, they do use significantly more than a SATA SSD. The RevoDrive 3 X2 uses roughly the same power as (2) WD 1TB Black or (3) 1TB Green mechanical hard drives.

steve1977 · 2012-10-24, 15:44

This is actually for my server. While I technically have a free SATA III port, I would very much prefer to use it for data storage, while adding a boot drive through PCI-E. The options above appear pretty fast and good.

Is the Hybrid any better than a "normal" disk? What makes it a hybrid? If I am going anyway with a PCI-E solution, the hybrid and Revodrive3 come about the same price, so question is whether there is a real speed advamtage or the hybrid may already be much faster than my "normal" disks?

steve1977 · 2012-10-26, 14:05

Any thoughts on the hybrid? I am about to pull the trigger for the Revodrive3 X2. Last chances to arguments pro or con vis-a-vis the hybrid!

TugboatBill · 2012-10-26, 16:49

I run the Revodrive3 X2 in my home system and my workstation at work. They do make the system faster, but how much depends on how disk intensive the programs you run are. Boot times are actually a bit slower, as the revodrive has to go through a initialization process.

ssweet · 2012-10-29, 06:49

I think if you are just using this as a boot drive, and don't need a huge capacity, the RevoDrive 3 X2 is your best bet, and should be incredibly fast.

The hybrid is just a RevoDrive and a normal spinning hard disk slapped together with some sort of embedded algorithm to determine the most accessed files and keep that on the SSD part, while everything else goes on the HDD part. If you are going to use the RevoDrive as a boot disk, and keep everything else on separate drives, you are determining what you want to access quickly. Selecting a flash only RevoDrive ensures that the data kept on it will be accessed quickly.

Hope that explains the differences with the hybrid.

steve1977 · 2012-10-30, 11:14

(2012-10-26, 16:49)TugboatBill Wrote: I run the Revodrive3 X2 in my home system and my workstation at work. They do make the system faster, but how much depends on how disk intensive the programs you run are. Boot times are actually a bit slower, as the revodrive has to go through a initialization process.

Thanks all of you for your replies. I ended up buying the Revodrive3 X2. Above post captures it all. Lightning fast drive and true joy, BUT really slow boot-up time. Overall, happy and a good purchase!