Memory maker OCZ was one of the first to venture for integrated RAID solutions for Solid State Drives. It simply used multiple memory controllers and a RAID controller directly with its SSDs. This made them look like just like any other SSD, but performance was substantially improved. After showing its anything but retail-oriented Z-Drive it now has a considerably more usable product coming. OCZ Colossus may even push the limits of the SATA 6Gbps interface.
At PC Perspective they have gotten their hands on some numbers from OCZ (thus not impartial) that hints of some very impressive performance.
Colossus has been tested with not just two memory controllers, from Indilinx, but even four controllers for an internal 4 x RAID 0 configuration. Performance in maximal read and write tests are at 260MB/s+ which is a bottleneck of the SATA II interface.
Remaining numbers look promising too, even if a regular Vertex 120GB SSD (Colossus is based on this drive) handles pretty well in several tests.
In 3.5″ format and maximal storage capacity of 1TB Colossus is clearly a unique SSD but prices are actually not that terrifying, at least not when you look at the Price/GB.
OCZ Colossus MSRP:
128GB – $299 – $2.34/GB
256GB – $649 – $2.53/GB
512GB – $1199 – $2.34/GB
1TB – $2199 – $2.14/GB
The Colossus does in fact use a custom PCB design – this is not simply Vertex drives jammed into a 3.5-in hard drive case. For the higher-end Colossus(4x) product it will have FOUR Indilinx controllers each acting as a “virtual drive” working in tandem with the other controllers via an integrated RAID controller. Also, the RAID controller that stripes these logical drives together is from Silicon Image – OCZ seems to have ditched JMicron for that purpose for now at least.
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