Manufacturer: OCZ Price: $ US Author: Steven Walton Date: 08/12/2014

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out the latest SSD from OCZ and it is a budget offering. Unlike their performance focused Vector 150 and Vertex 460 the new ARC 100 series is designed to deliver the best bang for you buck by offering the companies lowest cost per gigabyte to date... The SSD landscape was vastly changed for the better back in June when Crucial unveiled their latest value line-up. The MX100 series promised prices as low as $0.42 per gigabyte, which was at least 30% less than anything available previously. As a result large capacity models such as the 512GB version could be had for just $225 (now $215). Yet the Crucial MX100 series wasn’'t just affordable, it was also mighty fast, often rubbing shoulders with the likes of Samsung’s SSD 840 Pro and SanDisk’s Extreme II. This made the MX100 an instant hit and the only SSD worth purchasing in our opinion. Shortly after the arrival of the MX100 the new Samsung SSD 850 Pro series arrived and with it Samsung secured the performance crown, as this was the undisputed SATA heavy weight champion. Even so, with a current retail value of $400 for the 512GB model, the Crucial MX100 costs nearly half as much and in all fairness isn’t nearly half as slow. In fact in many of our tests the MX100 was just 20 – 40MB/s slower. Although performance SSD’s are still important, we have now well and truly reached the limits of the SATA 6Gb/s bus, allowing cheaper alternatives to catch up, until manufacturers become committed to the M.2 or SATA Express interfaces. With the MX100 cannibalizing SSD sales the competition has been forced to respond. Noteworthy competitors include the Corsair Force LX Series ($230 for 512GB) which uses the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller and the SandForce SF-2281 powered Mushkin Enhanced Chronos ($205 for 480GB). Neither are as good as the MX100, and the memory featured in the Enhanced Chronos seems to vary. Even Samsung’s value focused SSD 840 EVO with its TLC memory cannot compete, with an asking price of $260 ($0.52 per gigabyte) for the 500GB model. There is however a new competitor on the way and it comes from OCZ, the ARC 100 SSD series. Priced at $0.50 per gigabyte for the 480GB and 240GB models, the ARC 100 SSD series won’t be quite as cheap as the MX100 to begin with, but this pricing is based on the pre-released MSRP. The good news is this new series is based on the OCZ Barefoot 3 M10 controller which will be paired with the latest A19nm Toshiba Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash memory. Even so, on paper it looks to be a rough road ahead for the ARC 100 SSD series, as it not only costs more than the MX100, but is also slower and has less endurance.

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< OCZ ARC 100 SSD Series Test System Specs Benchmarks: File Copy Test Benchmarks: Real-World Applications Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Benchmarks: AS SSD Benchmark Benchmarks: Atto Disk Benchmark Benchmarks: Full Drive Testing Final Thoughts Next Page ->

Freon1

Posted on: 08/13/2014 04:20 PM Looks decent, OCZ might be back on track now!

vidzzz

Posted on: 08/13/2014 11:37 PM If it were a bit cheaper, like 10c per GB I would be all over this.

Happy

Posted on: 08/23/2014 05:59 AM Sorry but it is going to be a year or two before I even consider OCZ again. In that time they really need to prove themselves.