OCZ ARC 100 240GB Solid State Drive Review

Introduction

There is absolutely no shortage on the market any more when it comes to Solid State Drives (SSD), but not all of them are aimed at the same users and setup scenarios. So to add one more to the list, OCZ has just launched its new range of ARC 100 drives. A budget friendly series of highly reliable drives.

The ARC series is where performance meets affordability. The platform is built for a sustained performance and mixed workloads while keeping an IO consistency. Built upon the brand new Toshiba A19nm Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash and with a heart in form of OCZ’s own Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 controller.

With OCZ now a part of Toshiba, this could be considered a complete in-house product. This is also one of the reasons the drive can be offered at such a low price and the new ARC 100 comes in three sizes. 120 GB for a MSRP of $74.99, the 240 GB for $119.99 and the 480GB  can be had for $239.99.

The main target group for this drive are those who wish to upgrade their consumer notebooks and home desktops to some solid performance, or to those who just want to build a system on a budget without sacrificing the power of Solid State.

All ARC 100 SSDs are engineered and tested to ensure superior quality, reliability, and compatibility and also come backed with OCZ’s brand new “ShieldPlus Warranty”, an industry-leading approach to service that eliminates all the hassle surrounding support and warranty claims consumers often have to deal with. With no original proof of purchase required, end-users simply provide their ARC serial number and a dedicated OCZ customer service representative will provide troubleshooting and support. In the event that the product is determined to be defective, a brand-new ARC SSD of the same capacity will be advanced shipped to the customer. When the replacement is received, end-users will only need to place their original drive in the box and send it back with the included pre-paid return label. OCZ ShieldPlus is available in both North America and EMEA at time of launch, and additional supported regions will be announced in the future. Customers will have the peace of mind that they not only have a quality solid state drive, but also the very best service and support should they ever require it.

Where many SSD’s will fail, the ARC promises to keep up with you. Running multi-read-write instances can force many drives to their knees, but not this one. We’re promised sustained performance around 20k IOPS throughout the most tasking processes where most competition drives scramble between 3 and 5k when it comes to mixed workloads. Other features worth mentioning are the 256-bit AES encryption and ultra slim 7mm formfactor.

This sounds like a solid drive with a small price tag. The expectation are high to see if the drive will show the same results on our test bench.