OCZ IBIS SSD review - Introduction

If there has been one technology really evolving in say, the last three years, it has to be SSDs and its related technologies. We came a long way with the initial 64GB / 275 EUR costing Jmicron empowered 80MB/sec drives which back then looked... oh so promising.

These days we are surpassing every foreseeable threshold and limit with SSD technology. In fact, SSDs are getting so terrifically fast that we run into the sheer limitation of SATA controllers. One way to bypass that is to utilize the all new SATA 6G controller, which for whatever reason, the SSD industry that needs it so much, does not seem to run rather hot for.

Instead we've witnessed a move towards SSD units with their own controller, seated in the PCIe bus of your PC. A good example of that is of course the OCZ RevoDrive we recently tested. Multiple SSDs are clustered on one PCB and then run over a Silicon image RAID controller allowing it to bypass the limitations of the SATA2 bus.

Nonetheless, recently OCZ introduced a new product line that is set to move and shake the ground a little more. The OCZ IBIS is a 3.5" Solid State Disk that is available in several volume sizes: 100, 160, 240, 360, 480, 720 and even a 960GB are available. The products range from 450 EUR towards near blasphemy at 2500 EUR.

But what is so special about it you might ask? Well several things really. If we take the product we test today as example, the 240GB IBIS then OCZ placed four SSD partitions tied to several multi-channel SandForce controllers inside the SSD casing. OCZ then applies RAID 0 to the four SSD partitions thanks to a Silicon Image RAID controller.

Now if you do some math with me, you'll have figured out that you'd very quickly run into the sheer limitations of the several available SATA busses. As such OCZ applied a new technology, a High Speed interface that sits in-between the RAID controller and (4x) PCIe bus allowing massive, critically massive numbers in terms of bandwith performance.

The 610 EUR costing 240 GB IBIS as tested today will pass 700 MB/sec in both read and write performance. It is so fast that it is nearly sickening. Shock and awe... we like it!

Let's head on over to the next page, where we'll open up the product, talk a little about what is going on inside and then of course pass it through our benchmark suite... and yeah, testing went real fast! Next page please.