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The OCZ Revodrive 3 X2 is nicely packaged, with a high resolution image of the product on the front of the box.
The inner box slides out to expose the bundle, including the drive which is packaged in an anti static bag. OCZ include a user manual detailing the installation instructions, and a tongue in cheek sticker which states ‘my SSD is faster than your HDD'.
The RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB is powered by a quad configuration of SF2281 controller chips. It is firmly aimed at the ultra high end consumer market. After formatting, there is around 447GB of storage available.
“The RevoDrive 3 X2 provides unique benefits to users by incorporating features from the VCA 2.0 flash virtualization software that allow certain direct memory access (DMA) and data management functions. Included in this feature-set are OCZ’s exclusive command queuing and queue balancing algorithms, which can be handled by the onboard processing core for higher performance and reduced burden on the host resources. VCA 2.0 is also the only virtualization layer in the industry with TRIM and SCSI unmap support to enhance sustained performance and provide greater endurance by significantly reducing the overhead associated with garbage collection. Furthermore, VCA also offers consolidated SMART support and provides system administrators with advanced features for monitoring, analyzing, and reporting device attributes.”
Installing the drive is straightforward, simply use an available PCI-E 4x (or better) slot on the motherboard. OCZ have detailed a handy motherboard support guide which you can view over here. It is worth pointing out that some motherboards may limit speeds, depending on the specific slot and graphics card configuration.
The image above highlights the layout of the product. There is a main PCB board underneath, with a daughter card mounted on top. Each of these layers shares half of the NAND memory and controller chips. There are not one, not two, but four Sandforce SF-2281 controllers to handle all the tasty features, such as TRIM, data compression and error correction.
Earlier versions of the drive sent to press didn't have the heatsink which is pictured above. This has been included to help manage temperatures under extended, heavy load.
OCZ are using 25nm Micron MLC flash (29F64G08CBAAA), asynchronous by design and built around 64GB die configurations.
