OCZ Octane SATA 3 512GB SSD Review

REVIEW ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Having completed as many SSD reviews as I have in recent years, I took some time to consider my final position with respect the OCZ Octane SATA 3 SSD.  The first thing that came to mind was the fact that some of the performance results were well below that of some of our other reviews and I felt it necessary to make sure these differences were clearly shown throughout the review.

It was at that point that I caught myself and realized that it is probably not just me, but rather, many of us have been sucked into the exact same mindset.  It seems that the industry has been pushing SSD advance so hard and so fast that we have gotten caught up in the hype of performance, forgetting most SSDs are geared towards that of the enterprise environment or extreme enthusiasts.  Seriously, how many typical consumers even understand the measurement of IOPS or how it will, or will not affect their visible performance?

I don’t think there is a learned SSD enthusiast out there that will deny that OCZ Technology has led the fight in SSD innovation throughout the past few years.  Their speed in bringing things to market has not only pushed SSD technology significantly, but also whether we realize it or not, they have played their own part in reducing SSD prices for both enterprise and consumer.  So the question then becomes one of what they have put forth with their entry of the OCZ Octane SATA 3 SSD…

Many are unaware but the Octane 3 has OCZ’s proprietary NDurance technology which significantly increases the lifespan  of NAND flash memory.  As well, their ability to push access times down to .06ms means faster start times as well as superior application and gaming .  OCZ also claims sustained performance which means that, unlike most other drives, performance doesn’t drop after the SSD has been filled for the first time.

From my own point of view, I like what they have done, first and foremost,with the Octanes ability to surpass most other drives when it comes to transferring incompressible data such as music, movies and photographs.  This simply cannot be overlooked and the only SSD to surpass this that I can think of occurred in our recent review of the Corsair Performance Pro.

Next comes capacity and pricing.  We will now see the first publicly available 1TB SSD and their pricing for the 128 and 256GB versions starts off at what just might be the best value for those sizes on the day of release. This is a rarity in SSD pricing.  Another excellent addition OCZ and it’s great to see the success of your Indilinx purchase!