OCZ Builds an ARC 100 Solid State Drive, Invites Value Conscious Users to Hop Aboard

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Respectable performance at a reasonable price

When Toshiba acquired OCZ's storage division and rebranded it as OCZ Storage Solutions, it freed the bankrupt company to concentrate solely on building solid state drives rather than balancing the business side of securing affordable NAND flash memory and trying to contend with shortages. We're starting to see the fruits of this relationship, as OCZ today announced its new ARC 100 SSD Series intended to deliver "exceptional performance an an enticing price point."
The new drives use next generation Toshiba A19nm NAND flash memory paired with the familiar Barefoot 3 M10 controller, which OCZ says emphasizes real-world performance. Reliability and endurance are also areas of focus -- OCZ rates its ARC 100 SSDs as being able to deliver 20GB of host writes per day under a 3-year warranty.
OCZ's ARC 100 comes in three capacities:

• 120GB: 475MB/s max read, 395MB/s max write, 75,000 random read IOPS, 80,000 random write IOPS
• 240GB: 480MB/s max read, 430MB/s max write, 75,000 random read IOPS, 80,000 random write IOPS
• 480GB: 490MB/s max read, 450MB/s max write, 75,000 random read IOPS, 80,000 random write IOPS

A point of emphasis in introducing these drives is OCZ's new "ShieldPlus Warranty" that's intended to eliminate the hassle of dealing with support claims. If a drive goes bad, no original proof of purchase is required -- just provide the ARC serial number and, if deemed defective, OCZ will advance ship a brand new ARC SSD of the same capacity, along with a pre-paid return label for the faulty drive.
The 100 ARC Series will be available in the next few weeks and priced at $75 for the 120GB model, $120 for the 240GB model, and $240 for the 480GB model.
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