OCZ TRION 100 480GB SATA III SSD Review

Introduction

When we first started seeing MLC flash-based SSD's arriving on the scene, believe it or not, there was serious concern that MLC (Multi-Level Cell or 2-Bit per cell) flash could not provide enough endurance to be viable. Advancements in bit error correction engines and node process eventually quelled and put an end to MLC related endurance concerns. Fast forward to today and we now are at the point where concerns over the durability of low cost TLC (Triple-Level Cell or 3-Bit per cell) flash-based SSD's have proven to be unfounded. Make no mistake TLC is here to stay and is poised to become the norm. TLC flash is ushering a new era of solid-state storage affordability.

OCZ is the founding father of today's mainstream SSD's. First on the scene, OCZ has quickly became a household name in the PC Universe. Beginning with the original Vertex, OCZ was really the first company to bring us SSD's we could actually afford. Fast as hell and affordable, the Vertex established OCZ as the leading purveyor of mainstream SSD's, with the lion's share of the market. OCZ is a big believer in PR, implementing a fully staffed forum for their customers to interact with the company and fellow enthusiasts. Many of today's analysts including myself, learned a lot of what we know about SSD's by becoming active members of what I consider one of the best forums ever, the OCZ forum. Sadly, the original forum is no longer with us. When Toshiba acquired OCZ, OCZ was in turmoil and like parent companies will do, Toshiba felt a clean slate was in order for OCZ to be revived as a household name with a favorable image. Part of cleaning the slate was killing off a forum that had become full of customer complaints, and starting a new forum.

Yesterday's OCZ was totally reliant on third party components for their SSD's and that eventually put OCZ at a disadvantage as fab enabled companies like Intel and Samsung began to take a stranglehold on SSD market share. OCZ seeing the writing on the wall, focused their efforts into developing their own in-house controller to level the playing field. Spinning your own silicon is a very costly endeavor, costing upwards of 100 million dollars, but OCZ managed to get it done with the payoff being today's Barefoot controller. Having your own SSD controller is great, it's big asset to any player in the game, but that's really not the most important piece of the puzzle.

To really be a player, having in-house access to flash is what really matters. This means you need to have your own NAND FAB to be really competitive. Problem with that is, a NAND Fab is a multi-billion dollar investment. With the competition on the rise, and no access to a reliable cost effective pool of quality flash, OCZ was hanging on for dear life. Rumors swirled, would OCZ die off? Or, would a large corporation swoop in and acquire OCZ? We are glad to say the latter of the two fates won out. After careful consideration, Toshiba decided they could make OCZ could viable again. OCZ is now back in the game. With an industry giant like Toshiba for a parent company, OCZ is poised to make a comeback.

This brings us to where we are today. The introduction of the first 100% Toshiba-Based OCZ SSD. Having met with Toshiba's storage marketing and development teams at their San Jose, Ca. facilities earlier this year, I can tell you that Toshiba/OCZ have a solid road-map that's rife with cutting edge SSD's. I was introduced to the TRION 100 months ago and since then I've been eagerly awaiting its arrival. Today is that day. Will the OCZ's first value-centered TLC SSD Solution be able to withstand TweakTown's brutal proving ground? Let's take a close look.

Specifications OCZ TRION 100 480GB SATA III SSD

OCZ's TRION 100 SATA III 2.5" FF SSD is available in 4 capacities: 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB. Sequential read performance for the TRION 100 is listed as up to 550MB/s. Sequential write performance varies by capacity, 470 MB/s at 120GB, 520 MB/s at 240GB and 530 MB/s for the 480-960GB drives.

The TRION 100's delivers up to 90,000 4k random read IOPS and 64,000 4k random write IOPS at QD32. Random 4k IOP FOB and Steady State performance vary by capacity. Please refer to the above product specifications for specific ratings by capacity. LBA addressing is handled by a single LPDDR DRAM package that varies in density by capacity. Endurance or TBW (Total Bytes Written) varies by capacity doubling at each increase in capacity from 30TB at 120GB to 240TB at 960GB. Power consumption for the TRION 100 is listed at 4.8W active. Idle power consumption is listed at 830mW and Device Sleep power consumption is listed at 6mW.

OCZ backs the TRION 100 with their exclusive 3-Year ShieldPlus limited warranty. OCZ's ShieldPlus warranty is OCZ's policy of no wait, no receipt necessary, and no shipping cost to the customer product replacement. In the unlikely event that you're OCZ SSD fails, OCZ will immediately ship you a replacement with a postage paid return envelope to return the original purchased product.