Application performance was much the same as the RevoDrive Hybrid defeated the Momentus XT in some tests and lost in others. Although game level load times might continue to improve as you play, it’s hard to be excited about performance gains that you’ll likely never see. How often do you load the same level multiple times back to back? Likewise when loading Windows 7 and Adobe Photoshop or most other real world situations: it’s all about the first load. Nearly any computer will load an application quicker on its second try. Give it a shot. Reboot your system and then open Microsoft Word 2010 (if you have it). You’ll be waiting a few seconds if it’s not installed on an SSD. After it launches, close it and then reopen it. The second load should be nearly instantaneous. To recap, the RevoDrive Hybrid is just a fraction faster than the considerably cheaper Momentus XT 500GB which doesn’t require third party software. The RevoDrive Hybrid doesn’t make much sense from a value perspective either. While it may only cost $0.48 per gigabyte, the total bill is $485. The Vertex 3 240GB is an option at that price, while the OEM version costs just $440. The Vertex 3 is considerably faster in all areas and with 240GB of storage, it’s sufficiently sized for a primary OS drive. You could also purchase two Vertex 3 120GBs for $420 and slap them in a RAID configuration for even more performance. Considering the RevoDrive Hybrid’s lackluster real world performance, you’d likely feel equal speeds with a 2TB 7200RPM HDD. In fact, you’d be better off with a flash drive like the Vertex 3 120GB for $210 and three Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200RPM 6Gb/s SATA hard drives for a storage capacity of 6TB. Regardless of your preference, at nearly $500, there are many solutions available that will offer superior performance and more storage than the RevoDrive Hybrid. Performance and value aside, the biggest gripe I have with the RevoDrive Hybrid is the required Dataplex program. This software’s pesky licensing issue is enough to keep me away from OCZ’s hybrid storage solution. Having spent almost $500 on a 1TB storage device to be hit with the license error after a few Windows 7 updates or hardware upgrades is enough for me to avoid the RevoDrive Hybrid in favor of a pair of Vertex 3s and a mechanical secondary drive. Cons: High entry price kills an otherwise interesting concept; too expensive compared to SSD + HDD combo. Overall performance is disappointing when there’s no data cache. Dataplex software is a nuisance.
