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Installing the OCZ RevoDrive requires a free PCIe slot and a compatible motherboard. For our review today we used the excellent Asus Rampage III Black Edition.
For best results, it is necessary to install the Revo Hybrid as a primary drive in order for the set-up to work properly. If we try to test the Hybrid as a secondary drive, the software will use the primary drive instead of using the Hybrid’s own hard drive. If you aren't a bios guru, the best way to get around this is to temporarily disconnect all other drives while installing the operating system on the RevoDrive Hybrid.
The dual drive configuration of the RevoDrive Hybrid, correctly detected by the Asus Rampage III Black Edition bios. Painfree so far.
Getting the RevoDrive Hybrid detected will require a download of the driver files from OCZ's website, these aren't supplied in the box. It may sound like extra inconvenience, however it ensures you always get the latest revision.
Once the driver is installed, the RevoDrive Hybrid will appear in the list. Above is an example of how NOT to install the RevoDrive Hybrid. We already had a 2TB drive in our system build and it is set to primary. This won't work right.
Yes, that is more like it, just the RevoDrive unit is showing now. You will see two drives listed, the 93.2GB ‘disk' is the SSD drive and the 931.5GB listing is for the mechanical drive. We want to install the operating system to the larger, mechanical drive. The reason for this is simple, the SSD portion of the RevoDrive Hybrid is used for caching later, after the Windows software is installed.
Be prepared for a rather sluggish Windows install, as at this stage the RevoDrive Hybrid is solely using the 5,400 rpm 2.5 inch drive.
The product downloads page on the OCZ site has the software which we need to download for the Hybrid drive. We have to register the product with OCZ, by keying in a name, email address and serial number of the product (on a sticker on the back of the drive). OCZ then allow you to download the Dataplex software, which is required to be able to use the complex caching algorithms between SSD and HDD.
A simple restart is required for the drive to configure itself correctly. Performance will improve over subsequent rebooting.
A single drive is now ready and available within Windows 7, with a total storage capacity of 931GB.
yay, kudos to OCZ. about time 🙂
Thats really good. Didnt think that would be possible. Is it just for Windows 7 ?
I was wondering when something like this would be released, and it came quicker than I imagined. There will always be a trade off with a mechanical drive in the mix, but they seem to have it narrowed down a good bit.
great stuff. been waiting for something like this. reckon they could make a 2.5 inch drive like this? obviously it would be much thicker in dimensions and not practical for a laptop, but for a desktop? would make a lot of sense. 1TB sata 6GBps drive right at the limits of the platform for about £350?
This is really incredible. 1tb for under £400 at this speed? OCZ really do lead the way in SSD tech.
How do I know if my motherboard can support this? ive read some dont allow for booting.?
Its still a fair bit of cash. are they making a smaller size? 500gb would be great for £200 🙂
lousy drive for money. seagate has similar pci-e drive with 10X performance for same money.
drashek md
thomasxstewart.
what bollocks. 10GB/s read via a 2.5 inch drive and SSD combo for £400? lol.
Nought to do,
I believe that Segate makes a drive in 300GB and 500GB sizes that is a hybrid SSD and mechanical HDD. I’m pretty sure that it even fits into a laptop. Now, I’m not sure about relative performance and they are pretty pricey for what they are but they do exhist.
Now this OCZ drive, that is a nice piece. I would probably use something like this on my media PC for encoding purposes or the like. My RAID setup seems to slow down when running a lot of reads and writes. I bet that this would be substantially better at doing those type of things.