OCZ ARC 100 Series SSD review

Memory (DDR4/DDR5) and Storage (SSD/NVMe) 367 Page 2 of 20 Published by

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Specifications & Features

Specifications & Features

The sample that OCZ submitted is a 240GB version of the drive. This series is equipped with Toshiba MLC NAND, flash memory from the A19nm node. The NAND flash used is labeled: TH58TEG70DKA4C

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OCZ will release three models within the ARC 100 range, 120 GB, 240 GB and a 480 GB version. Due to the architecture and memory channels used, the 120 GB edition will be a notch slower. This is pretty much the thumb of rule for any brand BTW. Still a 120 GB SSD performing at 475 MB/sec read and 395 MB/sec write performance remains very fast, especially if you keep the price in mind as starting at 240GB you are seeing 50 cents (USD) per GB, say 40 to 45 cents per GB in EURO.

MSRP Pricing in USD:

  • 120 GB - 75 USD
  • 240 GB - 120 USD
  • 480 GB - 240 USD
These obviously are suggested retail prices, it would be save to shave off another 10% 
  • SATA 3 - 6Gbp/s Interface
  • 19nm Toshiba NAND Flash
  • 7mm form factor
  • 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB models
  • Performance and endurance without compression/loss of usable capacity
  • Lower Power consumption IDLE 0.6 W / Active 3.45 W
  • TRIM support
  • 3 Year Warranty
The slide-deck that OCZ presents, makes mention of a small line that states the SSD is rated to be writen 20GB/day of host writes for 3 years under typical client workloads. 20GB x 365 days x 3 years = 21900 GB which is 22 TB written guaranteed. Now do not confuse this with lifespan as that is a warranty indication, in fact OCZ should seriously consider changing or taking out that line as it almost suggest that this SSD has a 3 year lifespan. Which will prevent people from buying it as they get scared.  
 
On the contrary; with proper drive wearing, amplification and all the safety features at 20GB/day you will easily get 10 to 15 years of lifespan out of the product before the NAND cells are exhausted. Example a recent test from a colleague with a Vector 150 (19nm) rated 20 GB/day for 5 years went as far as 844 TB Host Writes with 1313 Terabyte on NAND writes before the drive went belly up. That's 121 years at 20 GB/day and thus over 5000 P/E cycles.
 

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The OCZ Barefoot 3 M10 controller

The flash memory is tied towards the Indilinx (owned by OCZ Technology) Barefoot 3 controller located under product code Barefoot 3 M10. This is an 8-channel NAND flash controller and the third revision from Indilinx, it comes with an all too familiar dual-core ARM architecture. The Barefoot 3 controller makes used of a pretty big memory partition for caching, that means that internal DDR3 memory plastered and hammered shut onto the PCB being used as file and data cache. The SSD has 512 MB of cache divided over two 256 MB ICs from Micron, but as we'll show you later on in the photo shoot, there is room for more. On the next pages we'll be showing you some PCB photo's as well, and what you'll notice is that it carries DDR memory caches as well. In-between the different SKUs the 240 GB has a 512 MB buffer, and some write speed variation with the lower capacity model. Over the SATA3 / SATA 6 Gb/s interface you may expect read speeds up to 490 MB/s and writes up to 450 MB/s based on volume size of the SSD. All the ARC 100 models have an advertised 4K random IOPS rating in-between 75,000 random read and 80,000 random write (4K aligned).
 

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Block diagram of the OCZ Barefoot 3 controller

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