[citation][nom]abbadon_34[/nom]While the Vertex 3 MAX IOPS was always a great performer, the Vertex 4, and then Vector has since come out, with the Vector trading blows for top spot. Why go back 2 generations, and why continue the Sandforce after all the investment in Barefoot? I can only assume these are cheap or maybe made to be always on sale. Even it's the exact same drive, why not rename it for marketing purposes?[/citation]
OCZ wants to keep going with some third party controllers for their more affordable SSDs. They claimed in a release earlier that it was because they can't afford to be making all of their products on their own. When you think about it, with SandForce compression, the somewhat decreased NAND performance of the new flash is most mitigated by SandForce controllers whereas in controllers that don't use compression, real-world performance would take a greater hit in compressible workloads. OCZ has also already positioned their Vertex 3 drives as the replacement for their Agility SSDs for various reasons, some of which are undoubtedly related to this (Agility 4 demonstrated that using slow flash on a controller without compression is asking for trouble).
SandForce, now owned by LSI, is also probably the biggest competitor in SSDs (Samsung is big, but they're not as *everywhere* as SandForce is AFAIK). Better to make it so that OCZ is not purely a competitor, but also a customer. It can be helpful to be a customer of your competitor. For example, OCZ has a better understanding of their competitor's technology while also being able to quickly switch around to having their best SSDs use it if it ever exceeds their own controller technology.
Anyone who's read much from me on the topic may have noticed that I really don't like SandForce, but I can't deny the practicality of this decision. I do agree that renaming the series with the new NAND flash memory would make sense. Keeping the same name with a new product potentially adds confusion and I don't see that being any good.
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