OCZ Octane 512GB SSD review

So the first Octane sample from OCZ has arrived, and they figured in their traditional "SSDs Gone Wild" mindset to submit this HUGE 512GB version.

Initial tests immediately surprise is, this product can keep up with any SandForce SSF-2281 SSD product like the OCZ Agility and Vertex 3 and Intels latest and greatest as well.

Once it will become available in the stores you'll notice two Octane lines, a 3Gbps version of the Indilinx Everest controller and asynchronous NAND Flash memory while the second will pack a 6Gbps SATA interface and faster synchronous NAND Flash memory. That SATA3 version as such will deliver speeds of  up to 560MB/s of bandwidth in read performance and a very nice 400 MB/sec in write performance.

Octane Product Features:

• Dual Core Indilinx ASIC
• Up to 512MB DRAM cache
• 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB models
• High sequential speeds:
  Octane (SATA 3.0) Read: 560MB/s; Write: 400MB/s
  Octane-S2 (SATA 2.0) Read: 275MB/s; Write: 265MB/s
• High transactional performance - Optimized for 4K to 16K compressed files
  Octane (SATA 3.0) 45,000 random read 4K IOPS
  Octane-S2 (SATA 2.0) 30,000 random read 4K IOPS
• Industry-low latency:
  Read: 0.06ms; Write: 0.09ms
• Strong performance at low queue depths (QD 1 – 3)
• Up to 8 channels with up to 16-way Interleaving
• Advanced BCH ECC engine enabling more than 70 bits correction capability per 1KB of data
• Proprietary NDurance™ Technology: increases NAND life up to 2X of the rated P/E cycles
• Efficient NAND Flash management: Dynamic and static wear-leveling, and background garbage collection
• Boot time reduction optimizations
• NCQ support up to 32 queue depth
• End-to-end data protection
• TRIM suppor
• Industry standard SMART reporting

Capacities will start at 128GB and can go all the way up to 1TB while the memory chips found inside are built by IMFT.

OCZ  already mentioned that Octane solid state drives have great performance when dealing with compressed data compared to other drives, we'll check that out of course. But that means with large files like ISO, MP3, movies, etc this SSD should be a beast. So sequential read and write performance should be staggering.

All four Octane SSDs will include 2x nm-class MLC Flash memory chips as well as 512MB of fast DRAM cache. Indilinx works with a large memory cache, whereas SandForce uses a segment of the NAND flash the cache. That's the essential difference really.

The OCZ Octane SSDs come with the company's proprietary NDurance technology that promises to extend the life of the NAND memory chips installed and also include built-in support for 256-bit AES encryption.

The SATA3 models just started listing in the stores here in the Netherlands and pricing is as follows:

• OCZ Octane 128 GB costs 172 EUR
• OCZ Octane  256 GB costs 309 EUR
• OCZ Octane 512 GB costs 775 EUR
• OCZ Octane 1024 GB TBA

So these are introduction prices, once they get in stock we think another 105 will be shaved off the price fast enough. But let's have a look at the product shall we?