OCZ ARC 100 240GB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. OCZ ARC 100 240GB3. OCZ ARC 100 240GB (High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. CrystalDiskMark6. ATTO Disk Benchmark7. AS SSD8. IOMETER9. Closing Thoughts10. View All Pages

The OCZ ARC 100 is a drive that has been designed and released to target the widest possible audience in the budget sector.

There is no doubt that the OCZ ARC 100 is a very capable drive – I rate the OCZ Barefoot 3 M10 controller very highly as it can deal with incompressible and compressible data without suffering performance degradation. Sequential read and write performance may be down a little (430MB/s-500 MB/s) on the market leaders that are able to completely saturate the SATA 3 interface (around 550MB/s), but in the real world you would be hard pressed to tell the difference.

The IOPS results today are also very impressive, especially when factoring in OCZ's claims of sustained long term performance. We generally only get a solid state drive a couple of days before publication so testing these claims for a review is impossible.

We do believe there is only one way to measure long term performance and that is by actually using the solid state drive for many months under real world conditions. That said, the custom .icf file we were sent by OCZ would indicate the ARC 100 should hold up well across longer periods of time.

The biggest challenge that OCZ face is the incredibly competitive market in 2014. The Samsung Evo 840 for instance has proven a firm favourite among KitGuru readers on our Facebook page. The prices continue to drop with the 840 EVO 250GB model now available for £83.99 inc vat. OCZ have confirmed before publication that the ARC 100 240GB will be retailing for around £93.99 inc vat, making it a full £10 more expensive.

Prices could obviously drop after the ARC 100 is released, but customers in this market do tend to aim for the best deal they can find. I think it is important that OCZ manage to match the price of the 840 EVO drives if they want to claim market share.

Based on OCZ's own media kit before launch, it would appear that they know the Evo 840 outperforms the ARC 100 in all areas, apart from sustained random write results. We did analyse this by using the ‘precondition_12hr.icf' that OCZ sent over, however it is honestly difficult to state whether this is a completely accurate test to represent sustained long term performance in the ‘real world'.

Is the OCZ ARC 100 worth buying? It is certainly a well balanced drive with no discernible weaknesses, it does however face considerable challenge in the market today from other, less expensive drives in the budget arena.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• IOPS is strong.
• incompressible and compressible data equally good.
• Low pricing.
• key indicators point to good long term performance.

Cons:

• Facing stiff competition from the likes of Samsung.

Kitguru says: A versatile, well balanced drive that is definitely worth buying.

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