Conclusion

The OCZ RevoDrive 80 GB solid state drive is not your typical 2.5" solid state drive. Designed exclusively for desktop or workstation PCs, it runs off a PCI Express x4 slot. In fact, it looks more like a PCI Express graphics card than a "drive".

Looks aside, the OCZ RevoDrive functions like a solid state drive. It is even bootable, although motherboard support is somewhat limited at the moment. That means you need to do a little homework and find out if your motherboard supports the RevoDrive before you buy one.

The good news if your motherboard supports booting off PCI Express, then you are in for the ride of your life. If you think solid state drives are fast, the OCZ RevoDrive will literally blow your boots off!

Internally, the OCZ RevoDrive is no ordinary solid state drive. In fact, it is really two solid states combined into a RAID 0 array. This allows the RevoDrive to deliver twice the throughput of "regular" solid state drives. It also helps that it runs off the much faster PCI Express x4, instead of SATA 3 Gbps. The end result is a very, very fast solid state drive.

The OCZ RevoDrive's phenomenal performance was evident in our benchmark results. It handily beat its competitors by a remarkable margin in the real world WinBench tests. It also came up top in the AS SSD Benchmark tests. It was especially strong in the multi-threaded 4K IOPS test.

This was backed by the IO Meter 2008 tests where the RevoDrive proved to be much faster than the OCZ Vertex 2. We then checked to see if it would perform as well under heavier loads in the IOPS Scaling Test. When it came to small 4 KB accesses, the RevoDrive was similar or slightly faster at single accesses but it was more capable of handling multiple accesses, pulling far ahead of the Vertex 2 at 32 simultaneous I/Os. Thanks to its internal RAID 0, the RevoDrive was about 50% faster than the Vertex 2 at large 512 KB accesses, no matter whether it was a single I/O or multiple simultaneous I/Os.

For all the kudos we can heap on its outstanding performance, we have to point out that the OCZ RevoDrive is not for everyone. This is a PCI Express-based solid state drive, so obviously it will only work in desktop or workstation PCs. But the real showstopper is the fact that it is not bootable on many older motherboards. It will only work as a boot drive with motherboards that can boot from PCI Express. We cannot stress this enough.

All that performance also comes at a price. The OCZ RevoDrive is about 50% more expensive per GB than the OCZ Vertex 2. In addition, this particular drive has a capacity of only 80 GB. That's good enough for a boot drive but you may not be able to load as many applications as you like or keep all of your work files on it. Despite the rather limited storage capacity though, the OCZ RevoDrive runs quite hot and pulls more power than a regular 2.5" solid state drive. However, this should be of small concern to most desktop users.

What it really boils down to is this. If your motherboard supports booting from PCI Express and you can afford the price tag, upgrading to an OCZ RevoDrive is a great way to boost your PC's performance. With twice the performance of most solid state drives and over 4.4x the performance of the 600 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor, it is impossible not to give the OCZ RevoDrive 80 GB solid state drive our Reviewer's Choice Award! Congratulations, OCZ!

To find the lowest price for OCZ RevoDrive solid state drives, click here!

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