OCZ Technology group has released a Release Candidate of firmware v1.4 for its Vertex 4 SSD line, claiming to offer a significant performance improvement across its range of Vertex 4 SSDs. The main improvement is doubling the write performance of the 128GB model to 420MB/s (from 200MB/s) based on their press release, making it by far the fastest SSD in this capacity region for write performance for incompressible data, especially considering the majority of 120GB to 128GB SSDs cannot write faster than 200MB/s.
The write performance of the 256GB model is also increased from 380MB/s to 485MB/s. Another improvement includes higher sequential read performance at lower queue depths. It also uses a predictive read algorithm in an aim to be ready to respond to commands yet to be issued by the host, such as sequential series of read commands.
This firmware update also improves the general performance of the Vertex 4 range, especially under real-world conditions with mixed read and write operations, something which our senior reviewer Wendy has demonstrated in her review update for the OCZ's flagship 512GB Vertex 4. This review update also reruns many of the tests carried out in the original review to see what other improvements this version has to offer.
OCZ plans releasing a 64GB model of the Vertex 4 in the coming weeks, which will be ideal as a boot drive or for mobile applications where a large capacity SSD is not required. So far OCZ has not announced any specifications for the 64GB model, but even if it achieves half the write performance of the 128GB, it will still be by far the fastest 64GB SSD on the market.
This firmware v1.4RC will be made available today via their website here. OCZ expects to have the final v1.4 firmware available in the coming weeks and will then start shipping the Vertex 4 with this final firmware to its resellers. According to OCZ, the performance achieved in this release candidate will be maintained in the final release.
