1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:08,480 but then I wouldn't have anywhere to put stuff. Okay, today we're going to be unboxing the OCZ Revo drive. This is a 2 00:00:05,839 --> 00:00:12,240 bootable PCI Express solid state drive. It offers unmatched performance. It is 3 00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:17,199 sandforce driven. It runs off PCI Express Gen 2 X4 and it has internal 4 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:20,560 RAID zero. So that's all the stuff off the front of the box, which is pretty 5 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:25,680 much all they needed to say about it. It's what they didn't say surprisingly 6 00:00:23,439 --> 00:00:30,640 is that this is actually the first PCI Expressbased SSD that brings the price 7 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:36,719 point down to something that would make it actually a reasonable replacement for 8 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:42,480 a SATA based SSD. So, the Revo drive uses an onboard RAID zero uh PCI Express 9 00:00:40,879 --> 00:00:45,920 just basically it's just a little RAID controller chip. I'll uh I'll show it to 10 00:00:44,399 --> 00:00:50,840 you once we've actually got this open and I can show you the drive itself. So, 11 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:57,520 all it's really doing is it's taking more flash chips and it's running them 12 00:00:54,399 --> 00:00:59,920 with two controllers and just running it 13 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:05,920 in RAID zero. And then instead of having to deal with the bottleneck of the SATA 14 00:01:02,719 --> 00:01:08,600 2 interface, OCZ hooks you up with a 15 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:12,000 little RAID controller and a PCI Express interface, and that's how you get all 16 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:16,080 that performance out of it. So, here I'll uh here, hold on. Let's see what's 17 00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:21,200 included with it first. Uh under here is nothing. comes in nice little package 18 00:01:18,479 --> 00:01:24,680 here. Okay, they got a little my SSD is faster than your hard drive, which is 19 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:29,200 true. In 99.99999% of cases, SSDs are much faster 20 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:37,119 than hard drives. Here's a quick installation guide. Locate a slot, put it in, how to 21 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:40,560 boot to the Revo Drive, okay, and installing Windows on your Revo Drive. 22 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:44,799 Fairly straightforward. So, the only extra steps you really need to do with a 23 00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:48,640 Revo drive are to configure it to be bootable, which is basically like 24 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:53,600 configuring any RAID controller to be bootable, and then you just need to 25 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:57,680 install the RAID controller driver when you're installing Windows, which is uh 26 00:01:55,920 --> 00:02:02,799 actually with Windows Vista and Windows 7, dead easy. So, pretty much anyone 27 00:02:00,799 --> 00:02:07,680 should be able to use one of these for their boot drive. This is a full height 28 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:13,760 card, okay? And I'm just going to show you all the main components here. So, 29 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:15,200 first of all, this is Oh, wow. Look at 30 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:20,160 that. They've actually got a wire soldered on here. So, I guess they made 31 00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:23,840 a last minute PCB revision. And looks like they actually had to do some custom 32 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:28,959 wiring. Now, something to be aware of is that this will not cause any long-term 33 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:34,080 effects because really a wire running on the outside of the PCB is exactly the 34 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:37,680 same as any other trace or wire running on the inside of the PCB. But I was just 35 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:43,200 I was a little bit surprised to see that. Very cool. Okay. So, here we have 36 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:48,400 You know what? This may actually be the uh I believe it's a silicon image uh 37 00:02:46,319 --> 00:02:55,560 RAID controller chip. Let me see if it actually says on their box. I hope it 38 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:58,000 does because I hate to uh I hate to not 39 00:02:55,560 --> 00:03:02,560 know. Oh well, not a whole lot I can do about it, but I believe this is actually 40 00:02:59,519 --> 00:03:05,840 a PCI RAID chip. I believe this chip is 41 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:09,519 actually a PCI Express to PCI bridge 42 00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:12,560 chip. And then these are two SanForce 43 00:03:09,519 --> 00:03:15,280 SSD controllers. So what happens is the 44 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:20,480 PCI Express interface here is converted into a PCI compatible signal, but you 45 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:25,920 still get all of that bandwidth. Okay, this this one is running RAID between 46 00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:31,200 the two sandforce controllers. So basically, you see this, okay, we've got 47 00:03:27,920 --> 00:03:33,440 eight here and then eight chips on the 48 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:38,080 back. So 16 chips. Those ones are running off this sandforce controller. 49 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:41,120 And then the other 16 chips on the PCB are running off the other SanForce 50 00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:45,200 controller. So that means that you get effectively double the total 51 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:49,599 performance, double the total bandwidth out of a Revo drive that you do out of a 52 00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:55,599 single Sandforce SSD. So basically, if you if you cut this up like this and 53 00:03:52,640 --> 00:04:00,319 then stuck a SATA 2 controller on there, then that that would be it. That would 54 00:03:57,360 --> 00:04:03,599 be one forcebased SSD. So OCZ with a little bit of extra cost, a little bit 55 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:08,640 of engineering knowhow, has turned it into something that you can just plug in 56 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:11,599 and you're running RAID zero with just 57 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:14,720 one thing. Pretty cool. It's not really that different from what they've done in 58 00:04:12,799 --> 00:04:17,919 the past with the Z drive. The biggest difference is that now it's affordable. 59 00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:23,560 Anyway, I wouldn't be really doing my job unless I told you what the performance numbers are like. So with 4K 60 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:30,639 random rights, they're promising up to 75,000 IOPS. And with uh sustained reads 61 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:36,160 and sustained rights up to 540 megabytes per second read and 480 megabytes per 62 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:40,639 second right peak and then 400 megabytes per second sustained right. So these are 63 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:44,880 huge performance numbers and I think we've had a pretty good look at the Revo 64 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:48,240 drive. And one thing that OCZ has figured out that it seems like a lot of 65 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:54,680 other companies don't is performance parts should have a black PCB. Thank you 66 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:54,680 for that.