OCZ ARC 100 Series SSD review

Memory (DDR4/DDR5) and Storage (SSD/NVMe) 366 Page 1 of 20 Published by

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Introduction

The ARC of OCZ - Familiar and more affordable

We review the all new ARC 100 series SSDs from OCZ Storage Solutions. Based on a familiar Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller we test the 240GB product which comes with the latest iteration of Toshiba NAND flash memory. The end result is an SSD that is very fast and more competitive in terms of pricing as OCZ now drops to 50 cents (USD) / 45 cents (EURO) per Gigabyte starting at the 240GB model.

Competitive is the key work for this review as over the past month or two the dynamics are changing fast, players like Samsung and Micron (Crucial) have introduced new SSDs that brings down the market to its knees really. It was only last year that we wrote that SSD prices settled at just under 1 EURO per GB for the end-user, in the beginning of the year prices have been hovering at 70 cents per GB and currently you can already find SSDs priced at 35 Cents (EURO) per Gigabyte of storage volume. So with that in mind nobody can stay behind, hence today you are seeing a new product series from OCZ Storage solutions. 

The ARC 100 series will look and feel familiar as it uses the cornerstone of features and even the same controller that previous OCZ SSD products have had. A better pricing model combined with impressive performance is key to OCZ.  These days we have nice volume SSDs at way more acceptable prices. Very fast performance versus reliability, OCZ wants to give you the best and made a new combo out of that. The new ARC series based on the Barefoot 3 M10 controller and now combines it with the latest 19nm MLC-Flash memory from Toshiba, of course. The end result is the ARC 100 series hovers at 480 MB/s read with 430 MB/sec rites. Today announced top SKU, the 480 GB model, actually reaches read speeds of 490 MB/sec with write speeds of 450 MB/sec.

Models ARC 100 Series performance

  • 120GB - 475 MB/sec Read - 395 MB/sec Write - 75K IOPS 4K/aligned Read 80K IOPS 4K/aligned Read Write
  • 240GB - 480 MB/sec Read - 430 MB/sec Write - 75K IOPS 4K/aligned Read 80K IOPS 4K/aligned Read Write
  • 480GB - 490 MB/sec Read - 450 MB/sec Write - 75K IOPS 4K/aligned Read 80K IOPS 4K/aligned Read Write
Covered with a three year warranty the street prices for these SSDs will be roughly :
  • 74.99 USD for the 120GB
  • 119.99 USD for the 240GB
  • 239.99 USD for the 480GB
Deduct roughly 10% and you have the EURO prices at hand (on average). OCZ submitted the ARC 100 240GB a model that is a notch slower as opposed to the 480 GB model, yet the specs are very impressive. The models have sustained read/write levels of close to 490 MB/sec and 450 MB/sec respectively. And with 4K random write performance estimated at roughly 75~80K IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) it's launching with the sole mission to impress . Have a peek first, after which we'll dive into the technology behind it and obviously we'll present you a nice phat performance overview.

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OCZ ARC 100 SSD with 19nm Toshiba MLC NAND and the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller

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