Ads
Ads
All about Internal Storage
 Latest Internal Storage articles
Laptop Storage: 640GB And 500GB Drives From WD And Fujitsu

Laptop Storage: 640GB And 500GB Drives From WD And Fujitsu
We're looking at two new notebook hard drives today: Fujitsu’s 500GB 2.5" disk and WD’s brand new 640GB 2.5" model (the largest notebook drive you can buy). The capacities on both products are outstanding, but neither drive is completely perfect. Read More

All Internal Storage articles

Newsletters


  • Ask your question about IT issues
  • Post

Partners

The Games selection

crazy : PC Breakdown What is worst than a Fatal Error occuring during a game you did not save? Unleash your rage at your PC in this game. Blow it to pieces, it feels so...
adventure : Scoobydoo: Episode 2 The sequel of Scooby and Sammy's adventures. Same principle as in the previous episode (available on this website). Click on "Instructions" to see...
Ads

Sponsored links

OCZ Unveils Faster Vertex "Turbo" SSD

Next news
3:10 PM - July 8, 2009 by Marcus Yam

Better, faster... still kinda expensive.

Intel's been at the top of the SSD performance heap since it unleashed its X25 line, giving serious system builders only one real choice for going solid state. Now storage competitors are catching up.

OCZ's Vertex line of SSDs is already a worthy choice for those looking for very fast storage, and now there's a turbocharged option as the company announced the Vertex Turbo Edition.

"OCZ is constantly looking for ways to advance our solutions, and based on feedback from our enthusiast consumers and top system integrators we looked for ways to further push the performance envelope in our popular Vertex Series of SSD’s," commented Ryan Edwards, director of product management for the OCZ Technology Group.

Edwards explained what makes this new line carry the turbo label: "The new Vertex Turbo makes use of the fastest SDR DRAM cache available and a proprietary FTL level firmware that provides an even faster solid state drive for enthusiasts looking for the ultimate desktop or laptop storage upgrade."

Specifically, the 64 MB SDR DRAM cache operates at 180 MHz in the Turbo Edition, as compared to 166 MHz in the regular model. The faster memory coupled with a tweaked firmware claim to deliver read and write speeds clocking in at up to 270 MB/s read and 210 MB/s write.

It's unknown if this firmware would also boost performance of the regular Vertex, but for now it seems to be one of the key distinguishing features of the Turbo Edition.

The Vertex Turbo SSDs are available in the following capacity and prices:

  • 32 GB - $139.99
  • 64 GB - $249.99
  • 128 GB - $409.00
  • 256 GB - $774.99

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Talkback
Add your comment
jacobdrj 07/08/2009 9:21 PM
Hide
-6+

Cool. Do the older ones' prices drop now?

mrubermonkey 07/08/2009 9:35 PM
Hide
-0+

Sequential read and write performance is mostly a marketing tool and means little. I would still go with an Intel SSD for typical use due to the superior I/O of Intel's controller unless I had the unusual need for fast sequential write performance (Maybe for uncompressed 1080p 4:4:4 recording from camcorder to laptop).

warlordsagan 07/08/2009 9:41 PM
Hide
-7+

Boo, those SSD prices arn't 20$ yet :D J/k

DXRick 07/08/2009 9:48 PM
Hide
-10+

Where do they put the little turbochargers? :P

rambo117 07/08/2009 9:50 PM
Hide
-0+

^1+++

amen, i think most of us can wait till theyre at mainstream prices ;)

hikayu 07/08/2009 9:51 PM
Show
pocketdrummer 07/08/2009 10:12 PM
Show
ThisIsMe 07/08/2009 10:15 PM
Hide
-7+

It's not about max transfer rates. Those may push the SATA 2 limit, but the average speeds and the lowest speeds are what needs improving. Who cares if your drive can read data at 300MB/s if it only averages 120MB/s. It's those slow times that you'll notice. So I kinda' disagree with what you said about them pushing the SATA 2 limits. At least until they can average 250MB/s+.

vgdarkstar 07/08/2009 10:16 PM
Hide
-11+

hikayu :
how about they stop releasing knew technolgy and focusing on bringing the technolgy to eveyone by making it cheaper ? right now , the speed of these SSD are pushing SATA 2 limit and even if they managed to make it even faster , we're not going to use it until SATA 3 has been standardized .



This is how they do it, by releasing better stuff, then the older stuff because cheaper.

ckiraly 07/08/2009 10:39 PM
Hide
-2+

...all that speed and I still can't get what I need done any faster.

one-shot 07/08/2009 10:55 PM
Hide
--1+

With the slowdown issues related with the OCZ SSDs, I wouldn't consider buying one. Intel SSDs seem fairly trouble free compared to the OCZ without the extra hassle. An OCZ drive never written on will have very high read/writes....after the drive has been used performance will go way down. Check out the reviews on Anandtech.com if you don't know what I mean.

CoopCHennick 07/08/2009 11:13 PM
Hide
-4+

I've almost stopped caring about how fast these little buggers go since I've been waiting and waiting until a decently fast one drops into the more mainstream market.

I don't care if someone makes an SSD that is rated at 10000000000 TB/s. I just want my Vertex for a reasonable price.

flurrball 07/09/2009 12:11 PM
Hide
-0+

thisisme :
It's not about max transfer rates. Those may push the SATA 2 limit, but the average speeds and the lowest speeds are what needs improving. Who cares if your drive can read data at 300MB/s if it only averages 120MB/s. It's those slow times that you'll notice. So I kinda' disagree with what you said about them pushing the SATA 2 limits. At least until they can average 250MB/s+.


I just got done with a benchmark here at work using OCZ Vertex(the original) and the Patriot Warp SSDs. Not only did the Vertex slap the Warp, it's average read speed was ~220MB/s, even when I had all our corporate programs open (some of them are graphics design programs). I would say this new batch of Vertex Turbo's will probably come close to 250MB/s.

And none of the Vertex's I tested had an average read speed below 200MB/s, let alone 120MB/s.

Porksmuggler 07/09/2009 12:58 PM
Hide
-0+

flurrball :
I just got done with a benchmark here at work using OCZ Vertex(the original) and the Patriot Warp SSDs. Not only did the Vertex slap the Warp, it's average read speed was ~220MB/s, even when I had all our corporate programs open (some of them are graphics design programs). I would say this new batch of Vertex Turbo's will probably come close to 250MB/s. And none of the Vertex's I tested had an average read speed below 200MB/s, let alone 120MB/s.



that would depend a whole lot on the "benchmark" your using, are you talking average sequential? pretty sure thisisme is talking about real use averages

one-shot 07/09/2009 1:21 AM
Hide
-0+

Try benchmarking the SSD in a used state then report back the read/write speeds relative to the brand new speeds.

rhys216 07/09/2009 1:46 AM
Hide
-1+

One-shot you are a bit out of date and are a few firmware updates behind.
FW 1.3 now has internal defrag similar to the x25-m but the Vertex also has the use of TRIM which restores performance back to pretty much 100% which is much more efficient than internal defrag methods.
Please do some 'actual' research before spreading mis-info!

doomtomb 07/09/2009 2:13 AM
Hide
-2+

OCZ has been working like a dog with these SSDs now. New ones literally each month. Now when are they going to make them CHEAPER. $409 for 128GB of space X_X

redgarl 07/09/2009 2:32 AM
Hide
-2+

I really want one... but I really need at least 200GB...

I will wait next year, the price and the technology will be finally available in 3.5 inch drive.

mindless728 07/09/2009 4:40 AM
Hide
-0+

^get a ssd and another hdd (if laptop, external laptop drive 500GB)

enewmen 07/09/2009 5:10 AM
Hide
-0+

^ I for example need a 256GB SSD AND a 1TB magnetic data drive. Currently I have a 74GB Raptor boot + 500GB data drive, but I see the boot drive getting full fast with applications. Just thinking of the future when applications comes in Blu-Ray media and the OS needs 24gigs just for the hibernation file.

OvrClkr 07/09/2009 10:15 AM
Hide
--1+

32 GB for 139.99. Id rather buy 2x WD Cav Blacks 640Gb and raid. These drives are waaaaaaay to $$$ for now.. Hopefully in a year the price's should be more reasonable.

sublifer 07/09/2009 1:32 PM
Hide
-0+

when will we see a review on it?

werfu 07/09/2009 4:37 PM
Hide
-0+

LOL, How much time before somebody hack the firmware updater and succesfully update a regular Vertex with the Turbo one firmware? If its only a firmware difference and the Cache DRAM speed, then it's all software. That's pure profit for OCZ.

__-_-_-__ 07/10/2009 4:05 PM
Hide
-0+

Gskill SSD's have a very similar performance and they are much more cheapper

ProDigit80 07/11/2009 6:06 AM
Hide
-0+

The 32GB SSD seems quite affordable to me. Probably the only one I might consider buying for a notebook, given that it's power consumption is as low (or lower) as a notebook HD.
The >32GB SSD's seem still too far from affordable for me.

As far as I see it, on my notebook I need about 128GB with WinXP, and about 150GB with Win7.
But if I'd just be using the OS and programs, and all my downloaded stuff goes on an external HD, XP could run just fine with 32GB. If I'd load the notebook with Win7 or Vista, I'd probably also need a 64GB SSD, to be able to host all my software,games, Swap $ Hibernation file, and personal documents and data; and have additional space available to do some work with.

det1rac 07/14/2009 6:38 PM
Hide
-0+

I agree with ProDigit80 on the 32GB $$. Its affordable, although I would rather have 2 @ RAID0 for the home PC.. Pure performance, permanent data can be on my NAS.

Laptop, Id rather get the single 64 as 32 is just enough for simply the OS.

Sponsored links

Related articles

  • T is for Turbo: The Hitachi DeskStar T7K250

    With its redesigned 250 GB model, Hitachi is adding a drive to its product portfolio for both mainstream purchasers and potential upgraders. Even if you are using older 40 GB and 80 GB drives, this is a worthy upgrade.

  • Turbo Drive: Two Dual Boards with 2000 MHz

    In this contest, Intel 815E and VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipsets are competing against each other on dual processor grounds. We tested two boards - the Acorp 6A815D and the Asus CUV4X-D - under Windows 2000 Pro and Suse Linux 6.4.

  • Flash SSD Update: More Results, Answers

    Acknowledging that our initial article on the efficiency of Flash SSDs was based on an inaccurate test procedure for battery runtime, we looked at more SSDs and HDDs. Our conclusion, however, was not far off, as Flash SSDs can do much better.