The rapid advancement of technology has lead the way to breakthrough innovations in the design of processors, memory, video cards, and more. Not only are these components now significantly faster and more efficient, but they are easily affordable and becoming mainstream. However, one component still relatively untouched is the hard drive; though different configurations and platter sizes exist and continue to develop, the underlying magnetic recording techniques remain the same. This presents a serious bottleneck in today’s systems; with very fast processors and memory, conventional hard drives are limiting data transfers, especially in notebooks. As a result, manufacturers have recently released a new class of drives, known as solid state drives (SSDs).
As the name implies, SSDs contain no moving parts; instead, they are composed entirely of flash memory. This means incredibly fast access times, resulting in faster start-ups and overall read / write rates. More importantly, the lack of moving parts makes SSDs virtually silent and very reliable. They also have very low power consumption, therefore generating little heat. These features and more make it the ideal choice for desktops or notebooks alike. All of this, however, comes with a hefty price tag. SSDs are drastically more expensive than their hard drive counterparts with outrageous per GB prices. In addition, with flash memory also being quite costly, SSD capacities are very limited, with current drives ranging from only 32GB to 256GB in size. To put it in perspective, a 64GB SSD from most manufacturers costs about the same as three (in some cases, even four to five) 1TB hard drives.
The OCZ Core Series 2.5″ SATA II SSDs are amongst the few exceptions to these ridiculously high prices and in fact the cheapest SSDs available at this time. In particular, OCZ’s 64GB SSD comes with a street price of only $259; to compare, Samsung’s 64GB SSD is an absurd $790. In today’s review, we will see exactly how the OCZ 64GB SSD (OCZSSD2-1C64G) performs, and if it is worth the heavy price difference over traditional hard drives.
Manufacturer Specifications:
- Available in 32(30)GB, 64(60)GB, 128(120)GB capacities
- Read: up to 143 MB/sec
- Write: up to 93 MB/sec
- Slim 2.5″ Design
- 100.2 x 70 x 9.3mm
- Lightweight 77g
- Operating Temp: -10C ~ +70C
- Storage Temp: -55C ~ +140C
- Low Power Consumption
- Shock Resistant 1500G
- RAID Support
- MTBF 1.5 million hours
- 2 year warranty
- Price as tested: $279 ($239 after rebate)
