OCZ Core

When memory-manufacturer OCZ announced its new “Core Series” line of low-cost, high performance solid-state drives, our resident storage nuts went bonkers with the prospect of securing wallet-friendly SSDs. Naturally, our inquisitive minds began to wonder how OCZ could crank out 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB solid-state drives for $169, $259, and $479, respectively, while maintaining read/write speeds of at least 120MBps/80MBps.

So we spoke with OCZ CEO Ryan Petersen about these potentially game-changing SSDs.  In our interview, Peterson confirmed that the drives are made Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash,  and that they will be available for purchase July 12th or shortly thereafter.

Because MLC flash memory has a reputation for being less reliable than SLC, we asked OCZ a follow-up question about estimated number of write cycles to failure, and we’re still waiting for an answer beyond the 1.5 million hour MBTF number quoted in their specs. Our interview is below.

How did you manage to get the prices so low on the Core Series?
The biggest barrier to SSD adoption has been price, and we have been exploring ways to bring down the price without sacrifices in performance. With the Core Series SSD drives are able to take advantage of lower cost multi-level cell technology in a multiple channel configuration and when coupled with new proprietary firmware we can maximize the speed while simultaneously lowering the cost. The previous issues with using MLC technology in SSD limited the write speeds, reducing the overall performance to that below current high speed HDDs, with the core series this is no longer an issue.

Does OCZ manufacture its own flash memory chips? If not, who is the supplier?
OCZ, while not a foundry, is able to leverage our existing relationships with partners, in this case Samsung to bin flash ICs for the highest possible write and read speeds.

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Today, memory-maker OCZ announced the release of a new line of low-cost, high-performance SSDs. Dubbed the OCZ Core series, the drives will be available in 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities at groundbreakingly low MSRPs of $169, $259, and $479 respectively. OCZ also promises the drives will provide read speeds of 120-143MBs and write speeds of 80-93MBs, along with a seek time of 0.35ms. (via Engadget)

All of these rates, if accurate, would make the Core drives as fast as or faster than industry-leading drives like the the Samsung SATA II SSD (100MBs Read / 80MBs Write) , the Mtron MSP 7000 series (rated at 120MBs read / 90MBs write), or the Memoright MR25 (120MBs Read / 120 MBs Write). It would even share the read, but not the write speed of the Mtron MSP 7500 (130MBs read / 120MBs write), which is widely considered the fastest SSD on the market today, but is intended for servers and costs well above $1,000 at even the 32GB size.

If the price and performance of the OCZ Core Series live up to expectations, the entire hard drive market is in for some earthshaking changes.

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