OCZ Synapse Cache SSD review - Introduction

You know when the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid series launched (a standalone PCIE storage unit with both HDD and an SSD for caching), we we certainly liked very much how it speeds up the overall PC experience.

Fact remains that a 5400RPM HDD will turn away a lot of people, well that and the price of course. With that in mind your next best thing would be to follow the Intel SRT caching route. For that however you'll need a compatible motherboard with a fairly advanced installation.

But it's November 2011, OCZ has launched an alternative. While the company just released the Revodrive Hybrid, they now also launch a seriously fast SSD just for caching. Combined with their Dataplex cache application software and your own HDD, the combination could be just what you are looking for, all at a much better price as well with no limitations to your hardware setup.

See for 120 EUR you can pick up the OCZ Synapse 64GB SATA3 SSD, it's armed with a SandForce 2281 controller and the means to use it, as alongside the SSD you get to use the very same cache software layer the RevoDrive Hybrid uses, Dataplex. A cache in combination with the Synapse SSD offers read speeds of up-to 550MB/s and write performance of up-to 490 MB/sec.

So you can create your own hybrid solution now, take you own massive in size HDD and then have the SSD cache it, regardless of hardware platform (as long as you are using windows 7).

It is an interesting concept, so we'll look at the SSD as it where a single entity, and we'll obviously check out cached performance as well. Head on over to the next page where we'll startup this review.