It has been 3 years since we tested our first Indilinx driven SSD, which was a 120GB version of the original OCZ Vertex. Powered by the “Barefoot” controller the Vertex cost just over $2.80 per gigabyte and that price vs. capacity ratio saw the 120GB version cost well over $300. Despite the price, the read and write performance of 250-180MB/s made the Vertex a hot item.

It wasn’t just OCZ’s Vertex series that flaunted the high performance Indilinx controller either, as a sea of Barefoot enabled SSD’s quickly surfaced. Yet despite their success Indilinx quickly moved back into the shadows as SandForce took over with their SF-1200 series controllers becoming the weapon of choice for the Vertex 2 series and then the SF-2200 followed arming the Vertex 3 series.

While all this was taking place OCZ agreed to purchase South Korea-based NAND flash controller maker Indilinx for $32 million back in March. The Octane series is their first SSD line to use the newly acquired company's controller technology since then, but OCZ has previously said they will continue to rely on third-party partners for some of their products.

The new “Everest” controller boasts read and write performance of 520–410MB/s which is competitive with today’s high-end SATA 6Gb/s SSD’s. The OCZ Octane series was actually announced back in October of 2011 and was said to include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB models, though today the 1TB model is still missing from the line-up.

Early this year, on January 23rd, OCZ announced a new firmware update for the Octane series that dramatically improved performance. Now known as the v1.13 firmware, it effectively doubled the random write IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) performance. This was great news for existing Octane owners as it meant they could receive a significant performance increase for free.

This further bolstered the strength of the Octane series, helping to improve their appeal when compared to the SandForce driven Vertex 3 series. Not only are the Octane SSDs very fast but they are also extremely stable and suffer from no known bugs. For almost half a year this is something owners of second generation SandForce SSDs such as the Vertex 3 and Agility 3 could only dream of.

Although the SandForce BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) firmware bug appears to have been squashed, the fact that it plagued owners of SF-2200 powered SSDs for so long would have undoubtedly left a bad taste in their mouths. For this reason alone it is important for OCZ to diversify their product range if they wish to remain at the forefront of the SSD market...

Power consumption is low when compared to conventional hard drives as the Octane series sucks down just 1.98 watts when active and 1.15 watts when in standby mode. While this is less than OCZ’s claimed power rating for the Vertex 3 series, it is more than what Intel say their SSD 520 Series will consume.

The 128GB model packs read and write speeds of 470MB/s-210MB/s, while the larger 256GB version is slightly faster with 480MB/s reads 310MB/s writes. The 512GB model is slightly faster again as the read performance is boosted to 480MB/s and the write performance 330MB/s.

Naturally, using the SATA 6Gb/s interface is essential to achieving these speeds. Currently Intel's Sandy Bridge platforms provide native SATA 6Gb/s support, as does the AMD AM3+ platform.

There are also third party embedded solutions, such as the Marvell 88SE9128, which can provide motherboards with SATA 6Gb/s support, but offer very poor results compared to Intel's implementation. There's also a new Marvell 88SE9182 controller that can mimic the performance of Intel's 6 series chipsets, so support for 6Gb/s SATA is improving.

All Octane models are loaded with Intel MLC NAND (25nm) flash memory. Our review sample has sixteen 32GB Intel 29F32B08JCME3 NAND ICs for a total capacity of 512GB.

Once formatted in Windows, the original 256GB is converted to 239GiB, though Windows shows this as 239GB, so it seems like 7% of the original capacity has been lost. With an estimated retail price of $849, the Octane 512GB costs $1.65 per gigabyte, which is excellent value for a high-performance SSD.

The Indilinx Everest controller features a dual-core ASIC processor that is coupled with a 512MB DRAM cache. The DRAM cache is actually split into two separate 256MB chips, there is one located on either side of the PCB.

The Octane series also includes advanced features unique to Indilinx, including latency reduction technology to enhance system responsiveness and enable instant-on boot-ups. OCZ says access times are as low as 0.06ms, a ‘Fast Boot’ technology that will supposedly deliver 50% speedier boot times compared to existing SSDs. Couple that with no data compression limitations as in SandForce-equipped models, users can expect better performance with certain operations with media files and the like.

There is also the proprietary NDurance technology which is designed to increase the lifespan of the NAND flash memory and minimize performance degradation. OCZ says this technology increases the life span of NAND flash memory by as much as 2 times, from the 3,000-5,000 PE write cycles currently seen on 20nm-class NAND drives back to the 6,000-10,000 range we saw with 30nm-class NAND.

Yet despite the NDurance technology OCZ has only given the Octane series a MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating of 1,250,000 hours, which is 38% lower than the rating awarded to the Vertex 3 series.

That said, this figure essentially means nothing to the consumer and honestly we really have no idea how reliable these drives are going to be in the very long run. However, the OCZ three-year warranty should let customers sleep comfortably at night knowing they're covered for a reasonable timeframe.

The Octane drives support AES and automatic encryption to secure critical data, bringing unique enterprise features within the reach of enthusiasts. Finally support for Background Garbage Collection, TRIM, SMART and NCQ also exists. And with that let's move on to the benchmark results...

Hardware - Intel Core i7-2600K (LGA1155) - x2 4GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill (CAS 8-8-8-20) - Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA 3Gb/s) - Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) - Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67) - OCZ ZX Series (1250w) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - Nvidia Forceware 295.73

In addition to our featured storage devices, the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB 3.5" 7200-RPM hard drive has been included for comparison purposes.

For comparison purposes we have included SSDs using a wide range of different controllers. Our testing suite consists of four synthetic benchmark programs and our own file copying and load time tests.

As you should know by now, the problem with testing SSDs is that while the manufacturer claims impressive peak I/O performance out of the box, this performance can diminish over time. Unlike a conventional hard drive, any write operation made to an SSD is a two-step process, first the data block must be erased and then written to. Obviously if the drive is brand new and unused there will be nothing to erase and therefore the first step can be bypassed, but this only happens once unless the drive is trimmed.

In consideration of this, we will test how much performance you can expect to lose from each SSD over time. We will test all drives in their clean unused state and then run the HD Tach full benchmark several times, which fills the entire drive. This simulates heavy usage and gives us a clear indication of how performance will be affected in normal long-term use.

Having said all that, all drives support the Windows 7 TRIM function, which is meant to counteract these negative effects in the long run, so it will be interesting to see how the drives perform against each other.

The result from our 6GB ISO file copy test was impressive as the OCZ Octane 512GB achieved a throughput of 205.7MB/s, making it the second fastest SSD ever tested. The Octane 512GB was just 2% slower than the Samsung 830 Series 512GB, while it was almost 20% faster than the quickest SandForce SF-2200 based SSD which was the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB.

It is worth mentioning that because we are working with compressed data here the SandForce drives are at a disadvantage, so it will be interesting to see how the other copy tests go.

The program copy test is made up of many small non-compressed files. This is where SSDs typically struggle and in the past cheaper drives have proven to be slower than traditional hard drives. Our reference Hitachi 3.5” desktop hard drive managed to provide a throughput of just 28MB/s.

Here the OCZ Octane 512GB continues to impress with a throughput of 200.5MB/s, making it the fastest SSD tested. This time the Octane 512GB was just 2% faster than the Vertex 3 240GB, but the fact that it was faster impressed us.

The game copy evaluation is comprised of a mixture of small and large files. Again the Samsung 830 Series 512GB takes the lead, but the OCZ Octane 512GB isn’t far behind with a transfer speed of 203.4MB/s, making it 6% faster than the Vertex 3. This is another amazing result for the Octane 512GB drive as it means thus far we have found it to be faster than the mighty SandForce SF-2200 drives.

The Windows 7 boot time test begins from the moment the initial loading screen appears to the time the Windows desktop's fully loaded. As you can see all SSDs perform exceptionally well here and surprisingly there is very little difference between them.

The Windows 7 boot time performance of the OCZ Octane 512GB was exceptional as the drive took just 9.5 seconds, making it one of the fastest SSD’s tested. This time meant that the Octane 512GB was comparable to most SandForce SF-2200 drives despite being 8% slower than the Vertex 3.

For the application load test we load the following applications into the Windows 7 startup: Internet Explorer, Outlook 2007, Access 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007, Word 2007 and Photoshop CS4. The test starts when the Windows 7 startup sound loads to the time the final application is loaded.

The multitasking performance was also very good, taking just 5.2 seconds to complete this task. Although some SandForce SF-2200 drives are up to 8% faster, we are talking just 0.4 seconds here.

This test measures the time it takes to load Adobe Photoshop CS4 from the time we click on the icon to the time the program is completely loaded and ready to use.

The Adobe Photoshop CS4 load time result was as good as we have seen from an SSD, taking just 1.2 seconds to complete the task.

This next batch of results was recorded when loading the last level from the single campaign in StarCraft II. The test began the second the load screen appeared and was stopped once the “click to play” message appeared.

Finally the game level load time was average as the OCZ Octane 512GB took 16.9 seconds, which was quite a bit slower than we were expecting given previous results. That said, this result is comparable to that of the Samsung 830 Series and Crucial m4.

The CrystalDiskMark sequential read performance saw the OCZ Octane 512GB deliver a throughput of 447.2MB/s, making it 9% faster than the Intel SSD 510 Series 120GB, but 11% slower than the SandForce driven Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB.

The sequential write performance was much better when compared to the competition as the OCZ Octane 512GB achieved a throughput of 314MB/s, making it 2% faster than the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB and 3% faster than the Vertex 3 240GB.

The CrystalDiskMark random 512K read and write performance of the OCZ Octane 512GB was average. The read performance in particular was very slow reaching just 242MB/s, making the Octane much slower than all current high-end SSDs. The write performance was better, though still slower than the SandForce driven competition.

The random 4K-QD32 read and write performance was also very weak and this time the Octane 512GB was much slower than the competition in both tests. With a read throughput of 124MB/s it was 2.3x slower than the Vertex 3 and when measuring write performance it was 2.6x slower.

The AS SSD Benchmark confirms the sequential read/write data from CrystalDiskMark to be accurate, showing the OCZ Octane 512GB to have average read performance with strong write performance.

Here we see that the 4K-64 thread read and write performance of the OCZ Octane 512GB is very weak, just as the CrystalDiskMark 4K-QD32 performance was.

Where the OCZ Octane 512GB does appear to shine quite well is in its access time performance. When measuring the read access time the Octane 512GB took just 0.058ms, making it one of the faster drives tested. The write access time was also strong taking just 0.081ms, which is again up there with the best of the best.

This workload uses a trace of Windows Defender’s Quick scan of the system. Recording of activity on system drive started just before clicking Quick scan on Windows Defender and lasted until the scan finished.

Here the OCZ Octane 512GB provided strong performance, with a throughput of 5.5MB/s, placing it alongside the Crucial m4, Intel SSD 510 Series and countless SandForce SF-2200 SSDs.

This workload uses a trace of importing a collection of images in Windows Live Photo Gallery. A USB stick with 68 images (434MB total) was inserted and images were imported to Windows Live Photo Gallery. Recording of activity on system drive started at the beginning of importing pictures and lasted until thumbnail images appeared on the display. During the trace Windows Live Photo Gallery copied images from USB stick to Pictures library, indexed them and created thumbnails.

The importing pictures performance was average as the OCZ Octane 512GB managed just 25.5MB/s, which was slower than all SandForce SF-2200 drives tested, along with the Crucial m4 and Samsung 830 Series.

This workload uses a trace of compiling a home video from a set of video clips. The source videos were shot with a Sony HDR-HC3 and imported to the PC. The source video was 1080i MPEG-2 videos. A home video project was prepared with Windows Live Movie Maker. Recording of activity on system drive started just before clicking Publish (1080p video) and lasted until publishing finished. During the trace Movie Maker read parts of source files and wrote a single output file.

The video editing performance was strong, matching the best of the best. That said, the vast majority of SSDs tested did deliver between 23–24MB/s, making the OCZ Octane’s performance a little less impressive.

This workload uses a trace of starting up home and office productivity applications. PCMark 7 specification 1.0 document was copied to Desktop. The document was opened by double clicking and few seconds later Internet Explorer was started from the toolbar. Recording of activity on system drive started just before double clicking the document and lasted until both applications had started and became responsive. During the trace Windows loaded the executables and related DLLs from the system drive.

Finally the starting applications performance was very weak, with a throughput of 38MB/s the OCZ Octane 512GB was slower than all current generation SSDs.

The Atto Disk Benchmark read performance for the OCZ Octane wasn’t brilliant as the drive was slower than the Crucial m4, Samsung 830 Series and the SandForce SF-2200 drives for the most part. In fact for the 8K, 32K and 128K tests the Octane 512GB was actually the slowest SSD tested, maxing out at just 449MB/s.

Although the write performance of the OCZ Octane 512GB was better, the drive was still significantly slower than the Intel SSD 520 Series and Vertex 3 based SandForce SF-2200 drives. That said, maxing out at 298MB/s meant that the Octane 512GB was faster than the Intel SSD 510 Series and Crucial m4 drives.

With the Octane series we believe they have achieved this, at least as best we can tell at this point. While testing the 512GB drive we encountered no stability or compatibility issues which was a great start, but as for reliability the jury is still out on that one. We will not know how reliable the Octane drive is until we have had it in one of our systems for several months.

As for the price, well at $200 the 128GB version is just $1.56 per gigabyte, while the 512GB version that we tested costs $1.65 per gigabyte. In comparison the Vertex 3 120GB costs the same amount, while the 480GB model is fetching a whopping $2.50 per gigabyte.

This means for the majority of SSD users that purchase the smaller 120/128GB drives, the Octane series doesn’t really offer anything new in terms of pricing. However for those after larger half terabyte models, the Octane series provides exceptional value. Additionally no other 2.5” SSD series offers 1TB capacities, and while technically neither does the Octane series right now, drives are meant to be on the way.

Getting back to the issue of performance, the Octane series does deliver, just not as well under all circumstances. When running our file copy tests we were blown away by the performance, which was consistently higher than competing SandForce drives. The real-world performance seemed to have its ups and downs, with the Octane 512GB providing strong Windows 7 boot time performance but average game level load times.

The reason for the slightly inconsistent performance was revealed when running the synthetic random tests. Take CrystalDiskMark for example, this benchmark exposed very weak random 512K and 4K performance, particularly when looking at the read throughput. This is without question a real weakness of the Octane series and the Everest controller alike, and although it’s not a deal breaker potential buyers should be aware.

Speaking of potential buyers, do we recommend you purchase an OCZ Octane drive? If you are after ultimate performance then no, as a SandForce SF-2200 based SSD will serve you better as will a Crucial m4 or Samsung 830 Series drive. Moreover the Samsung and Crucial drives are even cheaper, making it difficult to recommend the Octane over them.

What we will say is OCZ and Indilinx first SSD has shown a significant amount of promise and this product means a great deal for OCZ as it helps to separate them from the mass of SandForce clones out there. Having seen what the partnership is capable of, we are excited for the second generation Everest controller which should be seen later this year.