WEBVTT 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 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:12.240 bootable PCI Express solid state drive. It offers unmatched performance. It is 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:17.199 sandforce driven. It runs off PCI Express Gen 2 X4 and it has internal 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 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:25.680 much all they needed to say about it. It's what they didn't say surprisingly 00:00:23.439 --> 00:00:30.640 is that this is actually the first PCI Expressbased SSD that brings the price 00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:36.719 point down to something that would make it actually a reasonable replacement for 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:42.480 a SATA based SSD. So, the Revo drive uses an onboard RAID zero uh PCI Express 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 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, 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 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:59.920 with two controllers and just running it 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:05.920 in RAID zero. And then instead of having to deal with the bottleneck of the SATA 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:08.600 2 interface, OCZ hooks you up with a 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:12.000 little RAID controller and a PCI Express interface, and that's how you get all 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 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:21.200 included with it first. Uh under here is nothing. comes in nice little package 00:01:18.479 --> 00:01:24.680 here. Okay, they got a little my SSD is faster than your hard drive, which is 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:29.200 true. In 99.99999% of cases, SSDs are much faster 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 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:40.560 boot to the Revo Drive, okay, and installing Windows on your Revo Drive. 00:01:38.880 --> 00:01:44.799 Fairly straightforward. So, the only extra steps you really need to do with a 00:01:42.320 --> 00:01:48.640 Revo drive are to configure it to be bootable, which is basically like 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:53.600 configuring any RAID controller to be bootable, and then you just need to 00:01:50.880 --> 00:01:57.680 install the RAID controller driver when you're installing Windows, which is uh 00:01:55.920 --> 00:02:02.799 actually with Windows Vista and Windows 7, dead easy. So, pretty much anyone 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 00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:13.760 card, okay? And I'm just going to show you all the main components here. So, 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:15.200 first of all, this is Oh, wow. Look at 00:02:13.760 --> 00:02:20.160 that. They've actually got a wire soldered on here. So, I guess they made 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:23.840 a last minute PCB revision. And looks like they actually had to do some custom 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:28.959 wiring. Now, something to be aware of is that this will not cause any long-term 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:34.080 effects because really a wire running on the outside of the PCB is exactly the 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 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:43.200 I was a little bit surprised to see that. Very cool. Okay. So, here we have 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 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:55.560 RAID controller chip. Let me see if it actually says on their box. I hope it 00:02:51.200 --> 00:02:58.000 does because I hate to uh I hate to not 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 00:02:59.519 --> 00:03:05.840 a PCI RAID chip. I believe this chip is 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:09.519 actually a PCI Express to PCI bridge 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:12.560 chip. And then these are two SanForce 00:03:09.519 --> 00:03:15.280 SSD controllers. So what happens is the 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:20.480 PCI Express interface here is converted into a PCI compatible signal, but you 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:25.920 still get all of that bandwidth. Okay, this this one is running RAID between 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:31.200 the two sandforce controllers. So basically, you see this, okay, we've got 00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:33.440 eight here and then eight chips on the 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:38.080 back. So 16 chips. Those ones are running off this sandforce controller. 00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:41.120 And then the other 16 chips on the PCB are running off the other SanForce 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:45.200 controller. So that means that you get effectively double the total 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:49.599 performance, double the total bandwidth out of a Revo drive that you do out of a 00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:55.599 single Sandforce SSD. So basically, if you if you cut this up like this and 00:03:52.640 --> 00:04:00.319 then stuck a SATA 2 controller on there, then that that would be it. That would 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:03.599 be one forcebased SSD. So OCZ with a little bit of extra cost, a little bit 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:08.640 of engineering knowhow, has turned it into something that you can just plug in 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:11.599 and you're running RAID zero with just 00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:14.720 one thing. Pretty cool. It's not really that different from what they've done in 00:04:12.799 --> 00:04:17.919 the past with the Z drive. The biggest difference is that now it's affordable. 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 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:30.639 random rights, they're promising up to 75,000 IOPS. And with uh sustained reads 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:36.160 and sustained rights up to 540 megabytes per second read and 480 megabytes per 00:04:33.440 --> 00:04:40.639 second right peak and then 400 megabytes per second sustained right. So these are 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:44.880 huge performance numbers and I think we've had a pretty good look at the Revo 00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:48.240 drive. And one thing that OCZ has figured out that it seems like a lot of 00:04:46.400 --> 00:04:54.680 other companies don't is performance parts should have a black PCB. Thank you 00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:54.680 for that.