The OCZ Vertex 2 Conspiracy: Lost Space, Lost Speed?
Table of contents
- 1. Is There A Problem Here, Sir?
- 2. Lost Capacity: Defining And Explaining The Scope
- 3. Lost Performance: Not Just A Figment Of Your Imagination
- 4. Test Setup And Benchmarks
- 5. Benchmark Results: I/O Performance
Several readers contacted me in the past two weeks, complaining about OCZ's recent adoption of 25 nm NAND and its effect on the capacity and performance of certain SSDs that they expected to be both larger and faster. I bought my own drives to compare.
Back in 2001, I saved up what I considered to be a significant amount of money—a little less than $30 000, if I remember correctly. Rather than doing something smart with it, I went out and bought a Mazda Miata, setting myself up for an endless stream Corky Romano jokes. Jerks.
Except, I didn’t keep the car for even 12 months. The 2001s were advertised with 143 horsepower in the US, though we actually got the 130 HP model. Mazda got called out on the missing ponies, confirmed it had screwed up, and offered to buy back—at full purchase price—the one-year-old cars.
I jumped all over that offer, turned around, and bought an IS300. Although I haven’t driven a Mazda since then, the fact was that the company’s willingness to satisfy its customers endeared it to me. And if there were ever another Mazda that I liked, I wouldn’t hesitate to be return business.
OCZ’s Miata?
More recently, several Tom’s Hardware readers brought to my attention that OCZ had recently stopped shipping its Vertex 2 drives with 34 nm NAND flash from IM Flash Technologies (and 32 nm memory from Hynix), replacing them with 25 nm flash from the same Intel/Micron joint venture.
The switch-over completed in mid-January, according to OCZ, and it was largely low-key. That is to say, it wasn’t really picked up on until customers started seeing lower capacities and reporting reduced performance from certain models compared to the older drives.
Fast-forward to mid-February. Sensing increased discontent over the community’s reaction, OCZ released a notice announcing its industry-first transition to 25 nm NAND adoption. The news purported that the smaller lithography would translate to more affordable performance-oriented SSDs. Indeed, the last time I looked at Vertex 2 pricing was mid-January, and the 120 GB drive was selling for $250. Today you can find the "exact same" model for $230.
What wasn’t addressed in OCZ’s release was whether the $230 drive, with its fancy 25 nm IMFT-based NAND actually is any slower or smaller than its predecessor. Naturally, I wanted to dig. After all, the complaint I received over and over again from Tom’s Hardware readers was that they were buying specific models and getting less usable capacity and unexpected performance results. I was instantly reminded of my own Miata experience.
Fortunately, I had an older OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G on-hand with the 34 nm flash. I hopped onto Newegg and purchased the same thing, hoping it’d be one of the new drives with the 25 nm NAND. All it took was a quick look at the drive’s capacity in Windows to know that it was, indeed, one of the new Vertex 2s.
So, is everyone making a big deal out of an over-hyped artifact of evolution, or is OCZ genuinely at fault for understating the effect of adopting the latest NAND devices?
Related Stories :
- Deals Sept 13: 115GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD $49.99
- Report: OCZ Prepping Launch of Vertex 5 SSD
- OCZ Releases Vertex 3 SSD With 20nm Flash
- Deals February 6: 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD $99.99
- Deals Oct. 19: 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD $59.99 FS
- Deals June 8: 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD $194.99 FS
- OCZ Vertex 4 Review: A Flagship SSD Powered By...Indilinx?
- OCZ Demonstrates New Vertex 4 SSD at CeBIT 2012
- OCZ Vertex 5 SSDs Won't Launch Q2 2013 After All
- OCZ Adds IOPS Edition to Vertex 3 SSD Line
Mushkin.com have a letter posted on the website that they will not be going to 25nm as the drives life cycle is less than half that of a 3*nm drive. Also the performance is not there.
Mushkin.com have a letter posted on the website that they will not be going to 25nm as the drives life cycle is less than half that of a 3*nm drive. Also the performance is not there.
Depending on supply of 34 nm NAND, that's probably not a sustainable position to take. IMFT isn't going to decide to shift back to 34 nm.
At the risk of contradicting myself, Intel will be using 34 nm NAND on its next-gen 6 Gb/s Elmcrest drives. It's not like the flash isn't disappearing entirely, but the vendors making the switch seem to be motivated largely by cost-cutting reasons.
Nicely done Mr. Angelini; however, I still think OCZ pulled a nasty car-salesman tactic on their newest 25 nm NAND SSD products, and as such will be looking elsewhere to purchase any future SSD. Blaming resellers or other sources for the SKU is an incompetent way of deflecting fault and has made them look even more silly.
Thanks radiovan. Like I mentioned in the story, we'll have to see if companies like Corsair and Patriot are able to get their upcoming renamed SKUs onto Newegg, Tigerdirect, Zipzoom, etc.
Ok, but when will we be able to buy ssd's that are $100 @ 1TB capacity?
Ok, but when will we be able to buy ssd's that are $100 @ 1TB capacity?
When blue frozen pigs fly in hell.
1.29 Firmware....how nice... pity that ocz only documents 1.28 for the moment.
And then again why not update the 25nm to 1.29 too?
But I guess consistency is not always wished when trying to demonstrate something
Ok, but when will we be able to buy ssd's that are $100 @ 1TB capacity?
in about 10 years or so....that's a very big maybe
Don't lie, Chris. We all know you still have (and love) that little Miata.
-Devin
Ok, but when will we be able to buy ssd's that are $100 @ 1TB capacity?
when you throw a shoes to bush again meaby lol
It is all about profit.
The real reason is that going to cheaper flash with a 3000 cycle life to reduce the total cost of production (and therefore increase profit) means ... increasing the amount of redundant memory to replace the flash that dies due to wear ... and that process means better error correction is required to achieve that ... therefore performance is effected.
Chris ... I got it into one sentence ... albeit a horrible one.
Nice article mate.
1.29 Firmware....how nice... pity that ocz only documents 1.28 for the moment.And then again why not update the 25nm to 1.29 too?But I guess consistency is not always wished when trying to demonstrate something
Update your drive with the 1.28 toolbox--it'll show up as 1.29
Well normally moving to smaller production technology has mean better performance. I am not sure if the new situation where newer technolygy is inferior compared to old took manufactures by surprice?
But in anyway their own tests should have shown it...
Mazda did the same thing in 2004 with the RX-8. Originally advertised 255hp dropped to 238 and it offered to buy back cars.
Very bad move on OCZ's part. Justified or not, many people who hear this news will not be buying an OCZ drive.
Great article.
It appears as if OCZ was the first to market which would normally mean press releases, announcements, lots of hoopla, and technical reviews. Instead, OCZ chose to remain silent until customers complained. Silence had to be a management decision. What did management know?
BTW - Veteran posters at Tom's Hardware might remember what happened when OCZ acquired PC Power and Cooling. PCP&C had some of the best high quality power supplies available until OCZ acquired the company.
The same was for Toyota with his brakes problems few years ago.
OCZ is a good manufacturer, but at this point when they are out of the RAM business, they need fix that problems and avoid futures ones if OCZ as company wants be on the market for more years in future.
So they pushed out a cheaper less performing model with same name and stayed quiet about it, not the best way to get customers to return to the brand!
I don't like the idea of 25nm flash for several reasons, reliability is my main concern. Sure there are better block handeling in the last gen sandforce controllers (vertex3) but what about quicker dying cells and when the controller runs out of spare cells! When it comes to storage i rather let the tech mature at the expense of early adopters (paying betatesters!?) than have to restore an old backup and hassle with RMA.
The "mistake" by OCZ was not a mistake at all.
They are doing the same thing as before...
With their Rally 2 USB drives to be specific.
The Rally 2 did not have a model change at all (although it did have a different LED color), but users suddenly found out the new Rally 2 drives did not work in Xbox 360s and were slower.
OCZ has been great with their SSD customer support, but this fiasco was a huge slap in the face to all of their fans.
I know my next SSD will most likely be another brand unless the price is considerably less.
It will most likely be a Corsair, Crucial, or Intel. Corsair, because they were completely up front with their transition to 25nm and will also continue to have the Sandforce based chips for their future SSDs.