Solid State Drives have long been the big "next thing" in storage technology, promising incredible leaps in performance, power consumption, and overall daily drive. Without any moving parts and advancements in technology, SSDs have largely delivered, becoming staples for many computers and mobile devices. Offering boot times less than 20 seconds long and absurdly fast loading speeds, they are a favorite of gamers, enthusiasts, and workers alike.
Unfortunately, early in their lifetimes many SSD manufacturers were of somewhat sub-par quality, taking advantage of a field that had yet to slim itself down to cut-throat margins and performance.
OCZ is one of those brands that enthusiasts have kept an eye on. Intel, Samsung, Sandisk and others have put out solid drives, many for great price points. OCZ has put out drives that seem to perform as well, but their track record has put their reliability somewhat in doubt. The company went bankrupt and was acquired by Toshiba, who has been working on improving both the reality and perception of OCZ drive reliability. We may soon know if these efforts are paying off as OCZ has launched its new Trion T100 SSD, the first OCZ drive built by Toshiba. The drive makes use of TLC NAND, the same technology used in drives like the Samsung 840 EVO, and the first to use Toshiba's TLC chips.
The Trion T100 is an entry-level drive, available in configurations from 120GB to 960GB. It offers an estimated 550MB/s sequential read and around 500MB/s sequential write, depending on the capacity. Benchmarks show that the drive lives up to its budget name, offering performance that, though significantly better than a mechanical hard drive, doesn't quite live up to the big names in the market. Still, it is a promising product for OCZ and represents something important: a push toward a brighter future for the company and the OCZ brand.
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