The market for Solid State Drives
(SSDs) continues to expand. While SSDs first started off being
outrageously expensive due to the use of SLC NAND memory, cheaper MLC
NAND technology has brought SSDs to a more
mainstream audience.
Traditionally, SSDs have been offered
in a 2.5" or 1.8" form-factor which is most popular with
notebooks, ultra-portable notebooks, and netbooks. 2.5" SSDs can
be easily added to desktop systems using 3.5" mounting brackets,
but OCZ Technology is looking to cut out the middleman altogether.
OCZ today formally announced its new
Colossus Series SSDs which use the 3.5" form-factor that desktop
users are familiar with. The additional room within the 3.5”
casing also allows OCZ to offer Colossus SSDs in capacities of up to
1TB whereas most mainstream 2.5" SSDs top out at around 256GB.
The drives use an internal RAID-0
architecture (Indilinx SSD controllers plus a Silicon Image RAID controller) to boost performance -- reads, writes, and sustained
writes are listed at 260MB/sec, 260MB/sec, and 220MB/sec respectively
for the 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB Colossus drives. The 120GB Colossus
shares its larger brothers read and write speeds, but its sustained
writes are only listed at 140MB/sec.
“The new Colossus Series is
designed to boost desktop and workstation performance and is for high
power users that put a premium on speed, reliability and maximum
storage capacity,” noted Eugene Chang, VP of Product Management at
the OCZ Technology Group. “The Colossus core-architecture is also
available to enterprise clients with locked BOMs (build of materials)
and customized firmware to match their unique applications.”
OCZ provides all of its Colossus
drives with a 3-year warranty. Amazon lists the prices of the 120GB,
250GB, and 500GB, and 1TB Colossus drives at $609,
$1,123,
$1,770,
and $3,572
respectively. ZipZoomFly has slightly more sane pricing at $438,
$827,
and $1,531
respectively – the retailer doesn't have pricing for the massive
1TB model.
Updated 11/23/2009
PC Perspective has posted a review of OCZ's Colossus SSD