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Review: OCZ Vertex 3
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OCZ Technology was kind enough to send me a retail version of the Vertex 3 240GB SSD for review. The OCZ Vertex 3 is a native SATA 6Gbps solution and sports the brand new SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor coupled with 25nm MLC NAND manufactured by Micron.
Back in March I previewed the Vertex 3 when the Vertex 3 was at that stage an engineering sample. In this article I will run the full range of tests on the retail version of Vertex 3, and we will see how this new SSD performs in our range of tests.
SandForce came from nowhere last year and took the SSD market by storm with their SF-1200 series SSD processor. In a single swoop they managed to saturate SATA 3Gbps, and not only that, the SF-1200 series had mighty impressive small random file writing performance, excellent durability, and is still present in the review PC as I write this article. The question that most of you will want answered now is, can the Vertex 3 and its SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor surpass what is already an extremely high performance bar set by the Vertex 2?
OCZ company information
I’m sure most MyCE members will be familiar with the OCZ brand name. OCZ Technology has been manufacturing high performance, high quality PC memory, PSU units, SSDs, and other PC related hardware for many years.
If you would like to find out more about OCZ Technology, you can visit the OCZ website.
The OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what the drive came shipped with.
Box front
Box rear
The package contained the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD itself, which has a user capacity of 223GB under Windows 7.
The package also contained a 2.5 inch to 3.5 conversion bracket with fixing screws, to allow the Vertex 3 to be housed in standard 3.5 inch HDD bay.
Now let’s head to the next page, where we look in more detail at the OCZ Vertex 3.
7 Comments
These things just seem to be getting faster and faster all the time.
Wombler
The 240GB Vertex 3 is the fastest, as it has the max parallelism from the NAND to the SSD controller, so the 120GB version isn't quite so fast.
The Agility 3 uses the same SF-2281 controller found in the Vertex 3, but uses synchronous NAND, while the Vertex 3 uses the faster ONFI 2 NAND.
There is now a 60GB version of Vertex 3 as well.
All OCZ SSDs using the SF-2281 are lightning fast in any case.
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Originally Posted by olyteddy
Is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-20227725-L02D its smaller sibling?
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.@Dee: Thank you for your excellent SSD reviews. Am I correct in assuming(hoping
) that the difference between the Vertex/Agility at this speed would be nearly unnoticeable in most usage scenarios? Who would benefit most from stepping up to the Vertex? |
Originally Posted by deanwitty
Am I correct in assuming(hoping
) that the difference between the Vertex/Agility at this speed would be nearly unnoticeable in most usage scenarios? Who would benefit most from stepping up to the Vertex? |
I can show everyone in a review which SSD is technically the fastest, but for most people, in a typical home user pattern, you won't be able to tell them apart in most cases.
Video editing is about the only time a home user will be able to tell the difference. The SSDs with the higher sequential read/write speeds always seem a little bit faster.
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Solid State (ssd)
- Relatively new way of storing data in PCs / Laptops. Solid State Drives (SSDs) have no moving parts which means they're completely silent. Another advantage is that the more expensive SSDs offer better performance than traditional hard disk drives. However, the prices for these more advanced drives are still rather high and the storage capacity relatively low, preventing SSDs to go mainstream still.More about this