Over a year ago, a 120GB or 128GB SSD would have set you back roughly S$140. In the end, however, it would all come crashing down.Prices of SSDs have fallen to new lows and there has never been a better time to upgrade. Higher-end devices like the RevoDrive further pushed the envelope, and the company even branched out into the enterprise space. OCZ released a plethora of SSDs over the next several years, each a bit more reliable and faster than before. Once enthusiasts started making the jump, it wasn't long before the rest of the industry followed suit. Pricing remained a concern as flash memory was an order of magnitude more expensive than traditional spinning media, but the performance gains that were finally materializing started making the juice worth the squeeze. The company continued to iterate and experiment with different controllers and firmware, going so far as to exit the DRAM market and acquire flash memory specialist Indilinx just a few months later. SSDs eventually found their way into the mainstream, you could argue in part due to OCZ's contributions to push the technology forward.Īn Indilinx controller on an OCZ Technology SSD PCB at CES 2012 Then there were issues with garbage collection and concerns over flash memory endurance. In fact, performance could be quite inconsistent, especially if you didn’t use an alignment tool to specify the optimal drive offset when setting everything up. The latter made them a potentially attractive alternative for notebook and laptop enthusiasts concerned with mechanical hard drive failure.Ī first-gen 30GB OCZ Vertex SSD alongside a 240GB Vertex 3 engineering sampleĪs is often the case with a new category of technology, there were a lot of wrinkles to iron out before marketing the tech to mainstream consumers.Įarly examples didn’t deliver the blistering speeds that today’s drives are known for. The drives, offered in capacities of 32GB and 64GB, featured read and write speeds of up to 100MB/s and 80MB/s, respectively, and utilized no moving parts.
That was over a year before Microsoft released Windows 7, the first version of the operating system designed to work with solid state drives. OCZ introduced its first 2.5-inch SATA II SSDs in March 2008. Power supplies under the OCZ Technology banner on display at CES 2012 Most, however, will remember the company for its contributions and advancement of early solid-state drive technology.
In 2007, OCZ shored up its power supply business by acquiring PC Power & Cooling, one of the most well-respected firms in the industry at the time.Ī year later, OCZ partnered with Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel to design a range of memory and power supplies for gamers. The San Jose-based firm rapidly expanded into multiple categories, including branded video cards, keyboards, mice, and even explored more exotic offerings like the Cryo-Z phase change cooling system. The company started out selling binned processors and memory kits capable of running faster than their rated speeds – items which overclockers were willing to pay a premium for.Įventually, Petersen parlayed the store’s success into a mainstream PC component business, which became OCZ Technology. OCZ Technology was founded in 2000 by Ryan Petersen as "The Overclockerz Store," an online hardware reseller that catered to computer enthusiasts.