OCZ R4 PCIe SSD Packs 16 SandForce SF-2200 Series Subunits

@ 2012/01/10
No, it's not a fancy graphics card by OCZ that's pictured below, don't let the PCI-Express x16 interface and cooling assembly with vents and heat pipes sticking out fool you. This monstrosity is OCZ's R4, a complex PCI-Express solid-state drive (SSD) which packs 16 (!) SSD subunits, each driven by a SandForce SF-2200 controller. Each of the subunits is part of a very large RAID array, which is abstract to the host machine. The host only sees the cumulative capacity into a single volume.

At the heart of the beast is a spanking new VCA 2.0 processor, which provides each of those subunits a SATA 6 Gb/s link, and connects to the host over PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The sequential transfer speed of the R4 is up to 6,656 MB/s (megabytes per second). It will be offered in various capacities, 3.2 TB looks like a possible capacity option.

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