Computerworld - OCZ Technology Group Inc. said today it will release its Colossus solid-state drive (SSD) in the next couple of weeks, delivering the first 3.5-inch form factor SSD with 1TB of capacity.The drive is aimed at external storage and desktop computing applications, and should be particularly attractive to gamers because of its high capacity and impressive performance.Like OCZ's midrange, consumer-grade 2.5-inch Vertex SSD, the Colossus uses an Indilinx controller. But unlike the Vertex, the new Colossus drive comes with two or four controllers depending on the capacity, and can be configured for internal RAID 0 for increased performance.OCZ said that each controller in the Colossus will act as a virtual drive, working with the other controllers through a separate RAID controller from Silicon Image Inc. Using ATTO Disk Benchmarking software, in 1TB, four-controller configuration the Colossus has a maximum sequential read rate of 261MB/sec and a maximum sequential write rate of the same, OCZ says. Using the IOMeter benchmarking tool, the drive turned in 223MB/sec sequential read rate and 224MB/sec sequential write rate."The initial results we have tested show that the Colossus really excels in the small file random reads/writes," an OCZ spokeswoman said.Bottom line on performance: No matter how you look at the numbers, this drive purportedly screams.The Colossus will be available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities for $300, $650, $1200 and $2200, respectively.The 128GB through 512GB models will have dual controllers and the 1TB version will come with four controllers.
wait.... internal raid on a drive that has no moving parts.I see they are going to create virutal drives within the drive...But reading and writing is done electrically and not with moving parts right?so why would we need to stripe data?
http://www.nordichardware.com/news,8528.htmlIt has simply split the memory across the two memory controller that then work in a RAID 0 configuration, which will result in some very affordable performance according to Tony from OCZ."So what does this mean in terms of speed? Well it depends on the sata controller on your motherboard but I can tell you I saw 180+ (actually touched 200) reads and 140+ writes on ICH8m (OCZ DIY Laptop), and on my HP Pavillion 9000 which uses an NVidia chipset, I am seeing 140writes and 160+ reads. Now i can't run any write tests as im actually real world testing this drive every day for 10 hrs, my system here has had 50 to 80GB of data on it at various times over this week while I have been testing... so when I bench it i get what you guys will see..IE this drive is in use."
