OCZ Launches ARC 100 Series Mainstream SSDs

News
By
published

OCZ introduced the ARC 100, a new family of 2.5-inch SATA 3 (6 Gbps) SSDs that are based on Toshiba's "next generation" A19 nm NAND Flash. This new family is focused on the mainstream consumer as an affordable hard drive replacement for notebooks, home desktops and budget system configurations, and it will become available sometime over the next several weeks in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB.

According to OCZ, the 480 GB model has a max read speed of 490 MB/s and a max write speed of 450 MB/s. The 240 GB version has a max read/write speed of 480 MB/s and 430 MB/s, respectively, and the 120 GB model has a max read/write speed of 475 MB/s and 395 MB/s. All three have a max random read IOPS of 75,000 and max random write IOPS of 80,000.

This new series includes OCZ's proprietary Barefoot 3 M10 controller, 256-bit AES-compliant encryption, SMART monitoring, and an endurance of 20 GB/day of host writes for three years under a normal, everyday workload. When sitting idle, the SSD consumes 0.6 watts of power, and 3.45 watts when it's active.

The ARC 100 comes with what the company calls a "ShieldPlus Warranty." In essence, customers don't need their receipt when contacting customer support for issues. Instead, they merely provide their ARC serial number. If the SSD is defective, OCZ will send the customer a new model of the same capacity. Customers then send their defective drive back to the manufacturer using a pre-paid shipping label.

"The new ARC Series represents an excellent value for consumers as it leverages the proven in-house controller and firmware platforms found in our award-winning Vertex and Vector Series SSDs to deliver exceptional performance, robust features and high reliability that everyday users demand," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Storage Solutions.

Although the ARC 100 Series isn't listed on OCZ's website as of this writing, the pricing is $74.99 for the 120 GB model, $119.99 for the 240 GB model and $239.99 for the 480 GB model.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Kevin Parrish
See more SSDs News
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • falchard
    Nice price $1 per GB. Used to be $4 per GB.
    Reply
  • TrigZ
    the pricing is $74.99 for the 120 GB model, $119.99 for the 240 GB model and $239.99 for the 480 GB mode

    Uh, its ~$0.50 per GB.....
    Reply
  • ickibar1234
    How long is the shieldplus warranty? Is it 3 years or is it valid until you reach the # of TB written threshold?
    Reply
  • ssdpro
    ikibar1234 - Based on what has been said previously, they'll use the endurance specification as a guideline to determine abuse (write to determine max p/e, or server use of a consumer product etc). If you RMA a drive after 3 months and it shows 40TB written, that will void the warranty because the drive isn't being used in a consumer environment and is abused for the sake of abuse. I am not sure how they will handle the ShieldPlus; if they don't take a CC to secure the shipment I don't see how they can recourse any abuse judgement. Ask in the OCZ forum... they are usually pretty good and "real" people that are pretty competent and friendly.
    Reply
  • mapesdhs
    Good to see OCZ finally release a more price sensitive model.

    Strange though, the Scan UK site had some of these listed a couple of
    weeks ago (preorder) but now they're gone.

    Ian.

    Reply
  • Drejeck
    I thought Toshiba would never use again OCZ brand, I think they should start to sell with Toshiba brand, not only because they were on the IT market long before OCZ but because they are a bigger brand. They sell hospital equipment to mainstream products. Quite reliable. OCZ is a distant name in ram, power supplies and now in SSDs.
    Reply
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    I thought Toshiba would never use again OCZ brand, I think they should start to sell with Toshiba brand, not only because they were on the IT market long before OCZ but because they are a bigger brand. They sell hospital equipment to mainstream products. Quite reliable. OCZ is a distant name in ram, power supplies and now in SSDs.

    I'm not sure why you would downvote him, unless you are some type of masochistic OCZ fan boy.

    Branding is very important, and rebranding can help to distance oneself from past debacles (think ValuJet - when it merged with AirTran, which name was retained? You got it - AirTran).

    OCZ definitely has a spotty history with reliability, so rebranding under the Toshiba name would have been a good choice. They could even have created a new name, like Toshiba Solid State Storage Division, or something else innocuous that wouldn't bring up bad OCZ memories for a significant amount of people.

    For the current time, for a "value" SSD, there's no way I'm picking this Arc model over a Crucial MX100 series.
    Reply
  • mapesdhs
    If the Arc is a followon tech-wise from the Vertex4 and Vector drives, then it'll be just fine. It was not those models
    which had issues. Bugs me that people tarnish OCZ's entire previous lineup with the same brush. Vector/Vertex4
    drives are really good.

    I have lots of older models aswell (more than 40 total), never had a problem with any OCZ drive so far. YMMV as they say.

    I don't like the MX100's poor write performance, no thanks. I'd rather have a Vector or somesuch, though atm I'd probably
    just buy an EVO.

    Ian.

    Reply