OCZ has just unveiled its fourth generation PCI-Express based solid state drive it calls the Z-Drive R2.

This is one seriously nice piece of kit, unfortunately set back by the extremeties of pricing that keeps it way up the enterprise chain. It betters the original Z-Drive in several key areas, with the biggest step forward being in the choice to use better optimized NAND modules onboard.

Without the SATA bottleneck and connecting directly to 8 PCI-E lanes, the eight-way RAID 0 configuration of the new Z-Drive family can deliver read and write transfer rates of up to a whopping 1.4GB/sec; this being on the flagship Z-Drive R2 p88 model that comes in 1 or 2TB capacities.

Nestled just beneath the p88 is the p84 model that still gives incredible performance of up to 850MB/sec read and 800MB/sec write rates in capacities ranging from 256GB to 1TB. And lastly there's the m84 variant which also comes in capacities from 256GB to 1TB, with the 1TB model giving read and write rates of 800MB/s and 750MB/s respectively.

The other cool factor about these drives is that they're made to be bootable for OS use and also feature interchangeable memory modules that give a more flexible upgrade path.

Pricing isn't yet disclosed. But we all know the figures on these will be far beyond what the majority of us are prepared to pay on a piece of computer hardware.

For further details, you can locate OCZ's official PR here.