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Installing the OCZ RevoDrive requires a free PCIe slot and a compatible motherboard. For our review today we used the excellent Asus Rampage III Black Edition.
For best results, it is necessary to install the Revo Hybrid as a primary drive in order for the set-up to work properly. If we try to test the Hybrid as a secondary drive, the software will use the primary drive instead of using the Hybrid’s own hard drive. If you aren't a bios guru, the best way to get around this is to temporarily disconnect all other drives while installing the operating system on the RevoDrive Hybrid.
The dual drive configuration of the RevoDrive Hybrid, correctly detected by the Asus Rampage III Black Edition bios. Painfree so far.
Getting the RevoDrive Hybrid detected will require a download of the driver files from OCZ's website, these aren't supplied in the box. It may sound like extra inconvenience, however it ensures you always get the latest revision.
Once the driver is installed, the RevoDrive Hybrid will appear in the list. Above is an example of how NOT to install the RevoDrive Hybrid. We already had a 2TB drive in our system build and it is set to primary. This won't work right.
Yes, that is more like it, just the RevoDrive unit is showing now. You will see two drives listed, the 93.2GB ‘disk' is the SSD drive and the 931.5GB listing is for the mechanical drive. We want to install the operating system to the larger, mechanical drive. The reason for this is simple, the SSD portion of the RevoDrive Hybrid is used for caching later, after the Windows software is installed.
Be prepared for a rather sluggish Windows install, as at this stage the RevoDrive Hybrid is solely using the 5,400 rpm 2.5 inch drive.
The product downloads page on the OCZ site has the software which we need to download for the Hybrid drive. We have to register the product with OCZ, by keying in a name, email address and serial number of the product (on a sticker on the back of the drive). OCZ then allow you to download the Dataplex software, which is required to be able to use the complex caching algorithms between SSD and HDD.
A simple restart is required for the drive to configure itself correctly. Performance will improve over subsequent rebooting.
A single drive is now ready and available within Windows 7, with a total storage capacity of 931GB.
