OCZ With Hybrid Drive Based on PCIe

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. announced the release of the RevoDrive Hybrid PCIe storage solution.

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Designed to accelerate applications and system responsiveness, the RevoDrive Hybrid is a combination of SSD and HDD technology is a step forward for high-performance, economical storage.

The RevoDrive Hybrid integrates the benefits of both SSD and HDD technology into a single solution to offer enhanced responsiveness and ample storage capacity.

The drive comes bundled with Dataplex caching software which dynamically manages the use of the 100GB SSD with the 1TB HDD for superior overall storage performance.

This combination creates an environment where the most frequently used hot data stays on the ultra-fast SSD, while the cold data remains on the larger capacity HDD. Advanced caching algorithms learn user behavior and adapt storage policies to ensure optimal performance for each individual user, maximizing productivity for the most demanded programs and applications. In addition, the drive eliminates the SATA bottleneck unleashing bandwidth up to 910MB/s, and also features up to 120,000 IOPS (4K random write) for high transactional workloads delivering true SSD-level performance. Finally, the RevoDrive Hybrid provides benefits to users by incorporating features of OCZ’s proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture (VCA) 2.0.

"The RevoDrive Hybrid leverages the best attributes of both solid state drives and traditional hard drive technology to deliver dynamic data-tiering on a single easy to deploy PCIe storage drive," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "Leveraging Dataplex software to efficiently manage frequently accessed data delivers superior performance and capacity, making the RevoDrive Hybrid the ideal solution for high performance computing and media content creation."

The all-new OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB comes backed by a three-year warranty and will be available worldwide for an MSRP of $499.99.

Comments

SSDs continue to be more expansive than HDDs. An all-solid state storage system is prohibitive for most users.

There are several ways to combine both devices for a better price per gigabyte. In all cases, flash memory is used as a cache in front of magnetic memory with the idea to find the most used files or data to store them on SSD for better access - and also to write them on flash - and then later on HDD, to get finally faster IO/s. The key here is the quality of the algorithm to execute this process.

Note that it will always be faster to use a bunch SSDs only, the algorithm trying only to do its best. In a way, you can compare that with what is happening into a PC: when the DRAM is full, the operating system transfers new data on the disk until the main memory is is partly emptied. But the flash cache technology is supposed to optimize the transfer between flash and HDDs, not the OS.

If the flash cache is large enough, high capacity and lower prices SATA disk drives can afterwards do the job without the need of speedy but more expansive SAS units.

Flash into the controller inside the HDD
That's what is currently called hybrid HDDs like the Seagate' offering. But the NAND flash memory has small capacity (4GB) to avoid to increase the price of the complete solution and is used for the reading process only.

Flash into the RAID controller
Several companies have adopted this technology including LSI: a relatively small NAND memory being used as a cache in front of the disk array. In this case, it can also be interesting to transfer the data from the RAM to non-volatile flash in case of power failure.

Mix of HDD and SSD in RAID
Some manufacturers - including EMC and many big storage companies - just propose to replace any HDD by a SSD into their disk arrays with tiering technology. The most accessed files are stored on SSDs, then on HDDs. It's something like HSM between the two memories.

Software only
Several firms (Adaptec, Stec, start-ups like FlashSoft, IO Turbine, Nvelo or VeloBit) have launched and sell cache software only, a promising product. You connect a mix of SSDs and HDDs on your server and their software handled the transfer of data between them. We can imagine tomorrow this feature directly embedded in operating systems (tomorrow on Max OS X as Apple is a big fan of SSDs or on external systems with Thunderbolt?).

SSD and HDD in one box
The Raidon HyBrid RunneR iH1010 is an internal 5.25-inch device combining one SDD and one HDD, the rotating device being here only to backup the SSD.

Hybrid drive on PCIe
It's a new idea from OCZ, one of the most innovative storage company in the growing market of SSDs. PCIe has the fastest interface in term of transfer rate. On a PCIe card, OCZ has incorporated both memories in its RevoDrive Hybrid: 100GB flash cache and 1TB HDD, at an affordable price ($500, 45 cents/GB). Based on caching software called Dataplex, developed by NVELO, most frequently used data stays on the fast SSD, while the cold data remains on the larger capacity HDD. The result announced by the company is impressive: bandwidth up to 910MB/s and up to 120,000 IO/s (4K random write).

SSD on motherboard
Recently announced Aspire S3 ultrabook from Acer has a 7mm 2.5-inch HDD at 320GB with 20GB SSD embedded on the motherboard.

The dream
Of course, the dream is to use SSD only and to avoid all these proprietary and complicated caching technologies. It will be a computer with only one non-volatile memory, no more volatile DRAM, no mechanical HDD, but just one, NAND flash or other new non-volatile memories currently studied in labs only (AEON from Virage Logic, CMOx from Unity and Micron, F-RAM, phase change, planar and 3D chips from Nanosys and Sematech, etc.), directly on the motherboard and external HDDs for backup only. When will it happen? In the future. When precisely? No idea. If I will see this revolution before dying? Not sure.