OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480 GB) Review – Incredible Performance Reaching 1800 MB/s

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0.3 x64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is visually straightforward, and is used for measuring the speeds at which your storage device reads and writes in both compressible (oFill/1Fill) and random, mostly incompressible, data. Random data is more consistent with everyday use of a computer, such as transferring videos, pictures and music.

Next up is Crystal DiskMark, where we have tested using random, mostly incompressible data, which is that of videos and pictures, which cannot be compressed as easily as documents. It is typical to expect a drop in performance when switching data types, and we do see that with the RevoDrive 350. However, the performance being pumped out of this PCIe SSD is exceptional!

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER. 1.7

AS SSD Benchmark uses incompressible data in their testing of SSDs, essentially providing results that would be consistent with using the heaviest workload, thus lower speeds are expected. Transfer speeds (MB/s) are seen in the left picture below and IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) are on the right.

The RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD still performs very well when using incompressible data, hence why we insist on using a multitude of different testing parameters to gauge the quality of the SSD’s. The PCIe SSD returned with a total score of 2056, which is fantastic. Another interesting feature of the AS SSD Benchmark is that it also can test  durations and speeds of copying various files, this is an important test for our digital media professionals who require top transfer speeds.

As you can see above, the RevoDrive 350 returned with great transfer results across the ISO and Game parameters, coming in slightly lower when copying Programs. The drive still pumped out an incredible 843 MB/s with ISO transfer, which is great to see.

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)

Anvil Storage Utilities is essentially an all-in-one tool for all of your SSD benchmarking needs. Anvil can be used for basic consumer testing, as well as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests. It displays data regarding the SSD, and even about your system.

Our all-in-one benchmark tool, Anvil’s Storage Utility, returned read results that are similar to what we have seen previously, but slightly decreased write speeds. The RevoDrive 350 achieved a total score of 5883, an amazing score.

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

Technology X uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

• Windows Defender In Use
• Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
• Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
• Starting the Vista Operating System
• Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time-consuming
• Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as Xbox
• Cataloging a music library
• Starting applications

OCZ REVODRIVE 350 VANTAGE TOTAL SCORE

Interesting enough, other than Crystal Disk Info, all of our testing tools worked normally with the RevoDrive 350. Unfortuantely, PCMark Vantage also disliked the PCIe SSD, returning some pretty low scores, lower than that of most of today’s SATA 3 solid state drives. This also helps to explain why it is so important to test a drive across a multitude of platforms, and to see that one test does not determine the integrity of the drive.