OCZ RD400 NVMe SSD Review

[Guest]

Toshiba's OCZ division steals the NVMe spotlight with a very high performance M.2 SSD that aims to take the throne from Intel and Samsung. The new drive is a fire breather when pushed to the limits.

OCZ RD400 NVMe SSD Review : Read more

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

I believe Toshiba should just kill the OCZ brand name. As the author mentions, a lot of people have bad reactions to OCZ products. For every user who had good memories, there are at least 3-4 others who don't. So make a clean break - kill the OCZ brand name & either create a new one or just use Toshiba.

 

[CaedenV]

I believe Toshiba should just kill the OCZ brand name. As the author mentions, a lot of people have bad reactions to OCZ products. For every user who had good memories, there are at least 3-4 others who don't. So make a clean break - kill the OCZ brand name & either create a new one or just use Toshiba.

I mean... have you ever used a Toshiba laptop? You think people have bad memories of OCZ! At least the OCZ issues only poisoned the cheap enthusiast market. Toshiba's own bad name is far more broad reaching.

 

[CaedenV]

My own expierence with OCZ was hit and miss. Their great products were fantastic and cheap, while their crap was really truly crap. 3-4 years ago when I was upgrading to SSDs I bought all OCZ products simple because there was nothing else that was affordable at the time. A lot of their gen2 products were pretty scarry, but their 3rd gen Agility lineup was pretty reliable, and came in much MUCH cheaper than anyone else. I had a Solid 2 and Agility 2 that died on me, which were replaced by an Agility 3 and Vertex 3 (both under warranty). So my expierence was not too terrible.
But then again, you get what you pay for. Any time a new tech comes in that much cheaper than the competition you have to expect failures.

Not to mention, some of their PSUs were fantastic! After they bought PC Power & Cooling you could get essentially a PCnP PSU for $50 less as an OCZ rebrand! I have a 750W 80+Silver OCZ rebrand and it has been running 24/7 for almost 5 years without so much as a hiccup! Granted, their in-house OCZ PSUs were crap... but that's why you do a bit of research before buying.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

I believe Toshiba should just kill the OCZ brand name. As the author mentions, a lot of people have bad reactions to OCZ products. For every user who had good memories, there are at least 3-4 others who don't. So make a clean break - kill the OCZ brand name & either create a new one or just use Toshiba.

I mean... have you ever used a Toshiba laptop? You think people have bad memories of OCZ! At least the OCZ issues only poisoned the cheap enthusiast market. Toshiba's own bad name is far more broad reaching.

So you're saying you would go for the new brand name option.

Actually, I have used several Satellite Pro laptops back in the day; they weren't too bad. Even you really want to go back, I've used Toshiba FDDs (floppy disk drives) w/no problems. I also have a number of Toshiba enterprise drives, both HDD and SSD. So I guess for me, Toshiba has much better brand equity in my mind than OCZ.

 

[Krom_121]

Mine experience was horrific and I agree the name should have been changed.

 

[erendofe]

the only thing I bought of OCZ was a 2 power supplies (700W)... I guess its kinda hard to completely screw them up because both work great. must be lucky

 

[3ogdy]

"We, and other sites, notice the proliferation of negativity about OCZ in the comments section of every OCZ news post or product review. Undoubtedly, even before reading beyond this point, some are already reaching for their keyboards to pen a chilling tale of a poor product, support or warranty issue.

In the past, OCZ would flaunt a prototype fresh off the production line at a trade show and we would see retail products within a few months. Times have changed and OCZ is now part of Toshiba, which is renowned for its extensive testing, longer development cycles and true tier 1 status."

I'm glad people like you are aware of this. I'm sad people like OCZ might not be. Well, after how successful they ended up being (/irony) they probably know it too.

How about making this cursed name disappear from the market? It just doesn't matter if Toshiba, Samsung, Microsoft, Bill Gates the man himself, God or an alien aliance bought OCZ. We all remember how they treated their customers and how disastrous their products were. I'm gonna stop talking about it here because you ALL know what's up with OCZ. Toshiba, be smart about it...get rid of that name.

It seems very strange that they decided to put their tech under that crappy brand's hood and market those when they already knew what the problem was. Buying one of those products was like buying a lottery ticket.

Dog gamn, even dictionaries from the Roman era had taken notice of this lousy company's products before they went downhil. I'm surprised there are no comments on how OCZ would destroy their own products through the release of updates that bricked their customers' drives for free? (do I see a pattern here? Oh...right, it's OCZ) l:

 

[crenwelge]

I got great customer service out of OCZ, they promptly replaced an SSD for me that I mistakenly thought was bad. Turns out, the problem was with my Asrock hardware. Asrock is either the stupidest or most dishonest company I've ever dealt with. After 5 RMA's I finally gave up on Asrock. I diagnosed and paid for a replacement out of my own pocket.

 

[Virtual_Singularity]

The listed numbers look promising for the RD400, no doubt. It may be worth noting that of the top 3 performers we see in the charts, only Samsung at least offers a basic level of data security via their AES 256-bit for User Data Encryption. I thought Intel's 750 series would surely at least include the same, and was a tad surprised to find out they don't.

 

[LordConrad]

I have two Vertex 2 drives and one Vertex 3, and never had any problems with them.

I prefer Samsung drives these days because of the V-NAND endurance but the RD400 is a good drive, I would buy one if the price was right.

 

[Guest]

I have a Vertex 3, a Vertex 4, and a 550 Watt power supply from OCZ, never had any problems. Great products. Today I'd buy samsung, but the Vertex series was great.

 

[lucas_7_94]

50°c wow, too hot for an SSD!

What about the timelife, already open and 91%?

 

[CRamseyer]

The 50C you see is not a standing temperature. The SSD Utility was opened just after a long test. The controller temperature can shoot higher under heavy loads. I shot some FLIR images during the throttle test but the Angelbird heatsink blocks the third result.

In the future we will find the throttle point and detail the time it takes to get to it under sequential and random workloads. It's all part of the new power testing coming in the next month.

 

[Mpablo87]

I think, the temperature is not so big...

Toshiba Rules!)

 

[abbadon_34]

Keep the name and drop the price, I and my friends and family use dozens of OCZ RAM and SSD with not problem, and their PC Power & Cooling brand is rock solid. I've never seen a reason to spend more for the same thing. I had one issue with a stick of RAM I burnt through over-volting and they still replaced it. Thinking OCZ sucks is like thinking Made in Japan sucks since the 1950s.

 

[DotNetMaster777]

I am not sure, about the quality of that !!!!

 

[Mpablo87]

Where can I by it in Sofia???

I am sure about Toshiba!))

 

[Virtual_Singularity]

Where can I by it in Sofia???

I am sure about Toshiba!))

Assuming you mean Bulgaria, I'd say your best bet is to try one of the online retailers in the EU, or Amazon.

 

[DotNetMaster777]

I have to check it and I will see how it works a little later

 

[Brian_R170]

I could write a half-dozen "chilling tales" of my OCZ product experiences. Maybe Toshiba has turned them around. Maybe customer reviews of the RD400 a year from now will tell a tale of excellent reliability. Maybe. All I know is that I've got a bad taste in my mouth and when I see the "OCZ" brand, I don't take chances with my money, and I damn sure won't take chances with my data.

 

[mapesdhs]

As I've posted several times before, much of OCZ's old SSD issues were with the early models, especially with early firmware. From the Vertex2 series onwards, with the final firmware, they're very good drives, and ideal for non-PC systems that do not support TRIM (or indeed WinXP). I have dozens of OCZ V2E/V3 drives, no problems with any of them so far.

What's sad is the FUD continued long after OCZ had moved to completely different controllers with the Vertex4 and Vector, both of which were really good (still are). I've fitted V4s in industrial systems to replace FastSCSI2 disks (ie. fitted in SCSI/SATA bridge boxes) and they work very well. I was less impressed with the Vector 180 though (just too expensive).

Today though, cost really is a huge issue for most buyers. Much though I like my older OCZ SSDs, most of my recent purchases have been Samsung 850s (though I bagged some Arc 100s when I had the chance, they are rather good), so unless the RD400 pricing shifts significantly, my next M.2 purchase will still be a 950 Pro.

The problem with the OCZ brand name is that perceptions go well beyond their early SSD issues, ie. PSUs and RAM (though I wish people would stop being so hypocritical, given the screwups that both Intel and Samsung have had aswell), and indeed OCZ DDR2 RAM had a particularly bad rep IIRC (don't know much about their PSUs). Ironic though, I have an old AM2 system that's still running fine with OCZ RAM, but then it's not a mega performance beast, just a 6000+ and 8800GT.

Funny thing about their support though, recently I asked if they could replace a Vector 512GB which I did explain I'd bought on ebay a year before; to my surprise, they replaced it with a Vector 180 480GB without quibble; wasn't expecting that at all, and I doubt most other vendors would have done such a thing.

 

[LordConrad]

I could write a half-dozen "chilling tales" of my OCZ product experiences. Maybe Toshiba has turned them around. Maybe customer reviews of the RD400 a year from now will tell a tale of excellent reliability. Maybe. All I know is that I've got a bad taste in my mouth and when I see the "OCZ" brand, I don't take chances with my money, and I damn sure won't take chances with my data.

In computer years, OCZs problems happened like a hundred years ago. Get over it and move on.

 

[ah]

If I'm not mistaken the drive already comes with PCIe adapter, and OCZ SSD utility has better features than the Samsung Magician (rapid mode is useless for W10 users). I hope that Toshiba will provide a data-migration Software soon. Otherwise, Samsung may have the edge in this regard.

 

[ebaul2k5]

i've never had a problem with OCZ, yes before you troll around, I AM ONE OF THE LUCY ONES" I suppose. Because I have never had a problem with them (in the last 7 years), I can't post anything negative. I started with the 64GB drives, now I"m up to the 3.2TB Revo's (4 of them), never had a problem and the one issue I did have was a driver issue with Window 7 when I first built one with a 1.2TB PCI-e. I have close to 25 OCZ SSDs currently in service, yet I am waiting to have something negative two write about them. Spent over $300,000 in SSDs alone. So, I do consider myself lucky.!!! Sorry you guys had such bad luck, I guess reading about it on other reviews seem you are no alone, is a shame, all I have is good thoughts about their product, or maybe I am looking at this from an enterprise class stand point, but I've also had many OCZ 512s running consumer enthusiast drives running at home at well, 3 on laptops and two on desktops, all of which have perform above expectations. Granted, when I first started using OCZ product, their prices were extremely high compared to many, but I made a decision that today I don't regret. Kill the OCZ over Toshiba's name? That would be suicide for the Toshiba brand. Every single notebook I supported (while their were been used), starting with the cheap and sadly built Satellite has been nothing but trouble. In my 25 years experience as an IT pro, I have never seen a laptop so poorly configure, built like Toshiba's. Good day everyone!