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OCZ's new budget SSD will feature scaled back performance

When we discuss the topic SSDs on DailyTech, one thing that normally is a given with these hot devices is a high price tag. Take for example the Reactor and Nova Series SSDs that Corsair announced earlier this month -- their MSRPs started from $185 and $200 respectively and skyrocket from there.

OCZ also has its fair share of high-priced SSDs, but its new Onyx line is looking to give a speed boost to enthusiasts on a budget. The new Onyx SSD has an MSRP below $100 (we're guessing $99.95) – the catch is that the low price tag only gets you 30GB of storage capacity.

Read speeds for the budget SSD are 125 MB/sec while write speeds are on the low side at 70 MB/sec.

“As new technologies become available, OCZ continues to expand both our enterprise and consumer SSD lines, and one of our goals is to make SSDs more affordable to end-users. Our new Onyx series SSD does exactly that and is a perfect solution for netbooks, laptops, or home desktop PCs,” stated OCZ CEO Ryan Petersen. “Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution.”

The 30GB Onyx SSD has 64MB of cache onboard, a MTBF of 1.5 million hours, and carries a three-year warranty.

For those of you that don't mind dealing with rebates, you can already get a 30GB OCZ SSD for under $100 that offers far better performance than the Onyx. Tiger Direct currently has the 30GB OCZ Agility SSD for $80 after a $40 mail-in rebate [PDF].

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Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we.....
By Aloonatic on 3/11/2010 8:57:39 AM , Rating: 3
So we can now get a SSD for <$100 that is just about enough for a boot/OS partition a few choice applications/games.

Is that 30GB enough though, in conjunction with a larger traditional platter based drive, to make these things a genuine mainstream option, or at least a must have for a new build for all but the most casual/price sensitive consumer?

I've got a laptop with 2 drive bays, currently only housing a 320 GB hard drive in it, this sort of things might work well in conjunction with it too.

We must be getting closer?




By piroroadkill on 3/11/2010 8:59:43 AM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't consider 30GB reasonable for a boot drive.

Windows 7 consumes about 16GB after a fresh install. A few months of cruft, and several application installs, and you'll be regretting your 30GB boot drive purchase.


RE: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we.....
By HotFoot on 3/11/2010 9:05:51 AM , Rating: 2
I agree. For Win7 plus only a couple of your favourite apps, 64 GB is probably the bare minimum. I got myself an 80 GB drive and I've since been wishing I'd gone with 160 GB.


By The0ne on 3/11/2010 11:59:38 AM , Rating: 2
I'm waiting for the price to come down on the large capacity drives myself. I'm not going to give an arm and leg for 30/60G when I already know it's not going to cut it for what I have.


RE: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we.....
By B3an on 3/11/2010 1:21:26 PM , Rating: 1
Yep this drive is pretty useless.

I've used a lot of SSD's and one with this speed will hardly make any noticable difference over a decent and new HDD.
If it was faster it may just be worth it for some people still using an ancient OS with a small install size like XP. But for any remotely new/decent OS then 30GB will not cut it even for a boot drive.


By retrospooty on 3/11/2010 9:13:00 PM , Rating: 2
I have been running Win 7 on a 30gb OCZ vertex for almost a year - it works great. With SSD, you get rid of hibernation file and move the pagefile to a hard drive, install is like 11-12gb. then install games, pics and movies on the hard drive, basically large files.

I have win 7, Adobe CS4 master suite full install, office 2007 and a bunch of other common standard apps and still have 8GB free. Fast as hell, you just have to manage it right... but agreed, the Onyx isnt as fast as vertex, and not a great deal... but 30gb is plenty for a boot drive if you wanna go cheap for another year or 2 until larger SSD's are cheap.


By Aloonatic on 3/11/2010 9:07:43 AM , Rating: 2
Is kinda what I was thinking that it might not be enough for me (and most here) to be honest, but there are a lot of people who just want office, cheap photo app, browser (+ plug ins/players/add ons), printer/camera/phone drivers/software bundels and that's about it, who this might be enough for.

If so, I suppose you would have to ask if then would really care? Then you will probably have a big problem training/getting them to use more than one drive, after being used to using 1 massive traditional drive.


RE: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we.....
By bhieb on 3/11/2010 9:57:07 AM , Rating: 2
Well if you move docs/pics/vids to another drive, and just put your core stuff on it. 30GB would be OK, not ideal by any stretch, but OK nonetheless.

Win7 clouds the picture as the footprint seems larger. On XP I am sitting at 29GB at work and have a ton of crap installed (xp). No games though, those would be a deal breaker as they easily hit 5-15 GB's per game.

I have a 30GB one at home, and do game a lot on it so I regret the size (I end up moving games from my big drive back and forth). But for an office pc just email/office/internet, it may be ok.

quote:
If so, I suppose you would have to ask if then would really care? Then you will probably have a big problem training/getting them to use more than one drive, after being used to using 1 massive traditional drive.

Most likely a person going for any SSD at this point would be people like ourselves that know how to manage a 2 drive setup. Or people with lots of money to blow on 160GB plus single drive setups.


By Aloonatic on 3/11/2010 10:31:33 AM , Rating: 2
I suppose the other thing to consider is, even with TRIM, is whether having a drive that is going to be pretty full at best really a good idea?

Even though TRIM is here and Win7 supported etc, is there a certain amount of free space that it might be a good idea to reserve? Or will the amount that is usually reserved internally be enough?


By Camikazi on 3/11/2010 9:10:54 AM , Rating: 2
for a BOOT drive 30GB is fine, since it is only supposed to be for the OS, hence boot, to make it boot up faster. If you want to use programs and other apps it is no longer a boot drive, but a normal drive and a larger capacity is needed.


By diego10arg on 3/11/2010 11:26:42 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe some tweak is needed. If you have 4Gb RAM you may disable your pagefile and hibernation file and that will save between 4 and 8 Gb.

Either way, that's not for everyone. SSDs either so far.


By porkpie on 3/11/2010 12:01:04 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
I wouldn't consider 30GB reasonable for a boot drive.

Windows 7 consumes about 16GB after a fresh install. A few months of cruft, and several application installs , and you'll be regretting your 30GB boot drive purchase.
I don't think you're quite getting the concept of a "boot" drive...


By InvertMe on 3/11/2010 12:10:25 PM , Rating: 2
Apparently you don't understand what a "boot drive" is.


By Shadowmaster625 on 3/11/2010 1:39:44 PM , Rating: 2
You guys who are saying windows 7 takes 16GB are not being very honest.

I have a 30GB OCZ Agility with Windows 7 Home Premium x64 installed, and it only uses 10.7GB. This is with hibernation enabled (3GB hiberfil) and a 1GB page file. I did nothing special on the install. Note that Win7 was a bonus that came with my vista notebook. Acer's factory Vista 64 actually consumed a great deal more space. Maybe Acer factory Win 7 installs consume 16GB but mine sure doesnt.

With all the updates it went from using 10.5GB to 10.7GB, so I think the degredation over time thing is blown way out of proportion too.


By hybrid2d4x4 on 3/11/2010 1:40:26 PM , Rating: 2
Really? I'm running 7 HP x64 on my main PC, with "a few months of cruft", Office 2k3 and several minor apps and I'm only using 12.5 GB of the boot partition. No hibernation/page file though, and I keep my docs/media on a separate partition.


By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:15:25 PM , Rating: 2
Running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on my laptop and currently using about 22.3GB of the 30GB partition. Partition includes the OS, Office 2007 with the main apps, Nero 9, VMWare 9 (1Gig), Ghost, ACDSee and a game I should be removing, Majesty 2, that's about 1Gig. That's it. 22.3GB!

My Windows folder alone is 14.7GB >.>! Winsxs folder taking 6.5GB, System32 at 1.4GB and SysWOW64 at 1.2GB :D


RE: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we.....
By BZDTemp on 3/11/2010 5:32:55 PM , Rating: 2
I may sound wild and crazy but it is actually possible to install applications to a different drive than your boot drive!

In other words use the 30 GB SSD for the OS and the apps you use the most and put the secondary stuff on a different drive. I'm running my system with a 80 GB Intel SSD and I have the OS, the main apps and the some 50 GB worth of data for a special project. Getting that SSD is the best upgrade I have ever made and it replaced a 10,000 rpm disc so if you're replacing a laptop drive difference will be even larger.


By retrospooty on 3/11/2010 9:15:47 PM , Rating: 2
bingo. If you manage it right, you can actually fit alot of apps on your 30gb win7 boot drive. Just not games, pics and videos.


By AmbroseAthan on 3/11/2010 9:18:00 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
Is that 30GB enough though, in conjunction with a larger traditional platter based drive, to make these things a genuine mainstream option, or at least a must have for a new build for all but the most casual/price sensitive consumer?


I don't think we are there yet. Until we have 100GB+ drives under $100, SSD won't be mainstream. Most users (outside of us techies) simply need a 500GB platter drive for ~$60. They don't need the speed for anything, so it is not worth spending extra money for a smaller drive + a traditional platter drive; they are fine with just one platter drive.

Right now the price/GB difference is still too large for the average consumer to see it being worthwhile.

Non-mainstream, I definitely think we are hitting the point most enthusists will be going SSD for boot drives. Personally, I am definitely looking into 128GB drives for my next build with secondary platters for mass storage.


Articles about new SSD's....
By MrPoletski on 3/11/2010 8:57:01 AM , Rating: 5
Should be BANNED unless they provide RANDOM 4KB READ/WRITE SPEEDS.




RE: Articles about new SSD's....
By Aloonatic on 3/11/2010 9:01:09 AM , Rating: 2
For performance parts, I agree.

However, for cheaper/mainstream parts like this, then can we not just assume that it will still be faster in most areas than a traditional drive, but obviously not up there with the most expensive SSDs?

Still, it would be nice to have the info tho I guess :)


RE: Articles about new SSD's....
By MrPoletski on 3/12/2010 5:33:36 AM , Rating: 2
You know whta hey say about assumptions being the brother of all f***ups?


By therealnickdanger on 3/11/2010 9:32:04 AM , Rating: 2
Meh, this is over-rated now, I think. Let's not forget why random 4K tests were important before: pausing/stuttering. Gone are the cache-less, crap controllers. Now even the lowliest of controllers provides stutter-free performance. Even with the stutter problems of old, those "broken" SSDs still dominated 5400 and 7200 RPM HDDs in all real-world tests, often times besting the VelociRaptor.

To put it simply: even the slowest modern, non-stutter SSD of today dominates any HDD in the majority of real-world tests. People seem to forget that fact. Now the only reason to measure it is to compare it with other SSDs.


I'll continue to wait
By Roffles on 3/11/2010 11:22:30 AM , Rating: 3
I could see this drive being very advantageous for productivity workstations in an office setting. But at home, 30GB isn't going to work.

I wonder how much longer I will be waiting for +120GB Sata III at ~$200? Maybe forever.




RE: I'll continue to wait
By Gungel on 3/11/2010 11:44:57 AM , Rating: 2
Probably sometimes next year when the new 22nm flash makes it into production. The SATA3 6Gbps controllers for SSD's are on the way from Indilinx, Sandforce, Intel and already available from Crucial. In addition we see more and more companies joining the game which will increase competition and ultimately lower prices.


RE: I'll continue to wait
By porkpie on 3/11/2010 12:06:11 PM , Rating: 3
4X the capacity at the same price point within one year? That's unlikely. The move to the new node should roughly double capacity per unit cost.

Of course, economic issues like oversupply could force down prices much further...but undersupply is just as likely as a market glut.


RE: I'll continue to wait
By MadMan007 on 3/12/2010 12:18:43 AM , Rating: 2
HE said ~$200 so it's not the same price point, thus it's 'only' a 2x price/GB improvement. The next NAND shrink likely will deliver this. I am most likely going to be getting a 120-160GB SSD once the new NAND comes out and things settle down a bit.


Bad Marketing
By Gungel on 3/11/2010 9:35:46 AM , Rating: 2
Whats up with OCZ marketing. You can buy now 4 mainstream SSD's from OCZ and all are in the same price range. Vertex, Agility, Solid and the now Onyx series of drives. If you do a search on newegg you can see that after rebates all of the 30GB disk hover around $100. Why buy the Onyx if you can get almost double the speed from a Vertex or Agility? It just doesn't make sense, unless of course they throw a $40 rebate on the Onyx. :)




RE: Bad Marketing
By djc208 on 3/11/2010 10:28:51 AM , Rating: 2
The drives all have different controllers or memory in them so actual performance will not be the same. The sequential read/write numbers they use are practically useless when it comes to determining the fastest hard drive for normal useage.


RE: Bad Marketing
By Camikazi on 3/11/2010 10:50:12 AM , Rating: 3
True, but you can almost guarantee that OCZs Vertex or Agility 30GB drives are gonna out perform the Onyx and they are available for about the same price as the Onyx. Why buy the Onyx when you can get a Vertex or Agility for same price? Unless reviews come out showing otherwise I would take the 30GB Agility over the 30GB Onyx.


Amigos Controller
By RU482 on 3/11/2010 9:45:59 AM , Rating: 2
for those of you that like to try new things, this SSD features the Indilinx Amigos controller




RE: Amigos Controller
By Gungel on 3/11/2010 9:57:28 AM , Rating: 2
I want to see the new JetStream SATA 6Gbps controller instead.


RE: Amigos Controller
By RU482 on 3/11/2010 12:43:41 PM , Rating: 2
think of it this way

Amigos is Indilinx answer to the x25-v


Trim
By Breathless on 3/11/2010 9:01:58 AM , Rating: 2
They need to figure out how to make these work with trim in RAID 0 without the need for the controller to specifically support it. That would be nice...




RE: Trim
By Levish on 3/11/2010 9:48:22 AM , Rating: 2
Windows RAID (SoftRaid) should do the trick :p


RE: Trim
By Breathless on 3/11/2010 11:45:08 AM , Rating: 1
Meh.... only hardware RAID counts.


30 gig drives are a joke
By dubyadubya on 3/11/2010 12:02:44 PM , Rating: 1
As others have said 30 gigs is way too small. If you run win7 64 on a system with 8 gigs of ram as I do a clean install is over 20 gigs. Sure 16 gigs of it is used between the page and hibernate files. Sure you can shrink the page file and disable hibernation but why. I might be ok with shrinking the page file to 4 gigs but I use hibernation though not as you may think. I have an UPS and if the power fails I want my work saved and my PC safely shut down.

Now add some space for system restore say 5 gigs and 5 gigs for programs etc. 20+5+5=30. Nope a 30 gig drive is a joke. I can't believe they even sell them. I could live with a 60 gig though I would rather have 100+ gigs. Nope the prices are still too high. Continue to suck my thumb:)




RE: 30 gig drives are a joke
By kensiko on 3/12/2010 1:27:51 PM , Rating: 2
Fine, it's a joke for you, but not for everyone... I got 2 30GB SSD on 2 computers, one laptop (yes, a laptop!) and a PC.

I can live with a 30GB boot drive. I have 2.5in silent drives in my PC for storage...


RE: 30 gig drives are a joke
By kensiko on 3/12/2010 1:28:01 PM , Rating: 2
Fine, it's a joke for you, but not for everyone... I got 2 30GB SSD on 2 computers, one laptop (yes, a laptop!) and a PC.

I can live with a 30GB boot drive. I have 2.5in silent drives in my PC for storage...


Not Yet
By ranger203 on 3/11/2010 12:30:00 PM , Rating: 2
Call me when it's great performance for $1/GB. I think $128 for 128GB is the perfect price point. OCZ, Kingston, Intel, WD, OWC, are you listening!?!?! My wallet will be open for you......




RE: Not Yet
By retrospooty on 3/11/2010 9:21:25 PM , Rating: 1
ya, I am sure they are just dying to call your cheap ass.

Meanwhile millions of us have SSD's as primary drive and are blazing fast. My $120 investment for a 30GB Vertex is the single fastest noticeable speed boost I have had on a computer since... ever. The difference is HUGE, and I went from a 10000k rpm Raptor to a 30gb ssd. If I had a normal 7200k drive the diff would have been more noticeable.


HPC can benefit from it.
By greylica on 3/11/2010 9:00:15 AM , Rating: 2
HPC normally uses boot from the Internal Gigabit Nic to load kernel and start a node. If we get cheaper and cheaper SSDs, we can start from cold all of the nodes in an independent form, without using net bandwidth. If the price tends to slow, it will be a good choice for beowulf cluster like systems, without power sacrifices.
Best of all, we could develop internal node log systems in a more detailed way, and configure/operate nodes in it's own interface.




Ready Boost, Hybrid, etc.
By roastmules on 3/11/2010 3:54:26 PM , Rating: 2
Why can't I use a 30GB (or even an 8GB) fast SSD as a Ready Boost drive (Windows 7)?

Why can't the SSD be simply a disk Cache? Caching the latest 30GB of what I've read/written to any drive in my system would be the way to go.

Readyboost, readydrive, superfetch, etc, are technologies that should eliminate the discussion on whether 30GB is enough for a sytem drive.

And, whatever happened to hybrid drives?




Yawn.
By CZroe on 3/12/2010 2:01:14 AM , Rating: 2
I've been seeing some older 80GB Intel SSD for about that price for some time. 1.8" with 2.5" adapter too... perfect for a netbook upgrade I'd imagine (8GB/16GB Acer Aspire one SSD model only takes 1.8" SSD and even that requires modification).




Cheap??? I don't think so
By lelias2k on 3/12/2010 4:10:32 PM , Rating: 2
Kingston has had cheaper drives for a while...

You can get a 30GB for $90 WITHOUT the crappy MIR!!! $75 if you want to take that route...

AND the 64GB, which is a lot faster, is only $150...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...




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