OCZ SSD 64GB ‘Core series’ Solid State Disk

Packaging and Appearance
 
The first thing I noticed about the OCZ SSD core’s packaging was how small it was. At about the same size as a CD Jewel case (albeit thicker) you won’t be getting murdered on any delivery costs. This is in contrast to the extremely heavy HDD’s of old which are akin to lead weights.
 
 OCZ Core SSD Box Front OCZ Core SSD Box Back
 
The packing itself is very nicely designed with a jade and dark grey theme carried throughout. To the front of the box is the usual picture, capacity and basic features of the SSD and to the rear a more in-depth look into the specification of the drive itself.
 
OCZ Core SSD Box SpecsOCZ Core SSD Contents
 
Opening the box up we see a rather nice interior box that folds out into two sections, one holding the drive itself which is encased in an anti-static bag and the other a compartment holding what we initially hoped to be 3.5″ – to 2.5″ drive converters, sadly it was just a very large hole containing nothing more than the installations instructions. We would have liked OCZ to add in 3.5″ to 2.5″ spacers and a few screws at the very least for those of us not wishing to install the SSD in a laptop.
 
For anyone who has installed a hard drive before, the instruction leaflet is pretty much useless but that goes for all hard drives I guess. Perhaps the only information of any real use is the notification of 2 years warranty which is less than the standard 3 years (and up to 5 years) given to conventional drives.
 
OCZ Core SSD Comparison 1OCZ Core SSD Comparison 2
 
OCZ Core SSD Compare 3OCZ Core SSD Compare 4
 
Looking at pretty pictures is all good and well, but I wanted you, the reader, to grasp the actual miniscule size of these new drives. I have compared the drive to both a conventional hard disk and my hand. Please note : I am not Jeremy Beadle! As the pics show, the OCZ SSD is both shorter and thinner than a HDD and as mentioned previously, the drive is also very light!
 
PerspectiveTop
 
The drive itself is a matt black plastic affair with a metal base. The Jade/Black theme from the box is carried through here with the top sticker and another sticker underneath with the usual warnings and drive size etc completes the appearance. I personally prefer the brushed aluminium of the standard SSD drive reviewed earlier but this no doubt adds to weight and even so, the black is a nice match for any case design.
 
Most review sites would leave appearance section there but here at OC3D we like to go that one step further for our readers not only that be we are as curious as you are to see what’s actually inside one of these SSD’s!
 
OCZ Core SSD TopOCZ Core SSD Underneath
 
OCZ Core SSD IC ID
 
As you can see, the main bulk of the drive are 8 x 8GB NAND chips from Samsung. Presumably the section underneath would also be populated with the same amount of chips, doubling the capacity to 128GB. Removing the outer casing is no hard task, 8 screws and it’s done which makes installing the drive a cinch for laptop users.