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OCZ RevoDrive 400 NVMe drives show up in product placeholders

by on03 May 2016


Launch set for May, but will depend on firmware completion

In January, OCZ took the wraps off its upcoming RevoDrive 400 PCI-E SSDs based on Toshiba’s NVMe controller technology and has ever since been quiet about its launch plans for these performance-packed M.2 drives.

With synthetic benchmarks up to 2.4GB/s sequential reads and 1.6GB/s sequential writes, OCZ is well-positioned break Samsung’s M.2 NVMe market monopoly from the 950 Pro Series this summer and infuse some much-needed competition back into the high speed stick-based form factor. Kikatek.com, located in the United Kingdom, has recently listed two RevoDrive 400 product placeholders on its site for OCZ’s 128GB M.2 and 1TB M.2 units. The 128GB option is listed at £121 ($178 USD) while the 1TB option is listed at £622 ($914 USD).

kikatek ocz revodrive 400 128gb

Image source: Kikatek.com

kikatek ocz revodrive 400 1tb

Image source: Kikatek.com

The model placeholder for OCZ’s RevoDrive 400 units is “RVD400-M22280,” and a quick search will currently yield the two listings on Kikatek.com with more to follow shortly. For those interested in product SKUs, the company originally filed its RevoDrive 400 model names with the FCC in July 2015 under “MSIP-REM-OCZ-RVD400” and a second time in December 2015 under “MSIP-REM-OCZ-RVD400-A.”

Based on the ATTO Disk Benchmark results from OCZ’s RevoDrive 400 demonstration at CES, we can expect up to 2.4GB/s sequential reads and up to 1.6GB/s sequential writes in raw, synthetic performance from a single M.2 slot. Meanwhile, OCZ’s SSD Guru utility ranks RevoDrive 400 performance for the 1TB model more conservatively at 1.65GB/s sequential reads, 817MB/s sequential writes, 655MB/s random reads and 223MB/s random writes, respectively.

In March, Samsung unveiled new top-tier M.2 NVMe-ready SSDs for OEMs, namely the SM961 and PM961. These units will be available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities as well and could bring some much-needed competition into the market with OCZ and Toshiba. Samsung’s SM961 M.2 will feature up to 3.2GB/s sequential reads and up to 1.8GB/s sequential writes. Meanwhile, the company has yet to release a 1TB option for its current 950 Pro M.2 NVMe lineup.

SanDisk currently has a 1TB X400 M.2 SSD available for $230, but this drive is AHCI rather than NVMe-based. The Western Digital-owned company has not yet announced any M.2 NVMe competitors to the new lineups from Samsung and OCZ.

Launching soon in 128GB 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities

OCZ told us in an email conversation in March that it was still finalizing firmware on its RevoDrive 400 lineup (128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB) and making sure all the bugs are eliminated before shipping to retail partners and OEM channels. The company’s ETA for launch back then was May, so we are expecting an update sometime within the next couple weeks.

Last modified on 03 May 2016
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