A Gamble Pays Off: Vertex 4 Looks Strong
Last year, in our Octane review, we alluded to OCZ trying to wean itself from SandForce's technology within a single product generation. That day arrived sooner than we anticipated. With the launch of its Vertex 4, OCZ shifts away from the bi-polar behavior of a controller that handles compressible and incompressible data differently. It's now forging its own path taking a different path in the SSD world.
In retrospect, OCZ was one of SandForce's most active evangelists, and the success of its Vertex 2 really put the company on the map. However, a subsequent wave of SSDs based on the same technology, sold by vendors eager to get in on such an accessible architecture, created too much competition doing the same thing.
OCZ responded by purchasing Indilinx, a company able to develop its own controllers. Vertex 4's Everest 2 demonstrates compelling performance—enough so to warrant a graduation from the Octane family to the Vertex class. And it puts OCZ in a position to compete more aggressively on its own terms.
| Vertex 3 (Market Price) | Vertex 4 (MSRP) | |
|---|---|---|
| 120/128 GB | $200 $1.67 per GB | $180 $1.40 per GB |
| 240/256 GB | $340 $1.42 per GB | $350 $1.38 per GB |
| 480/512 GB | $770 $1.60 per GB | $700 $1.37 per GB |
Now that OCZ isn't paying for a third-party controller Although OCZ is using a different company's controller (it still has to purchase its NAND, of course), it has a little more flexibility it is being more aggressive with pricing. At least for the launch, OCZ tells us that its Vertex 4 lineup is cheaper than Vertex 3. And there's a good chance that prices on the Vertex 4 will get even more affordable moving forward.
Offering sub-20-second boot times, improved long-term performance, and more affordable prices on fast solid-state storage, the Vertex 4 truly marks a new chapter in OCZ's history. Competitors should take heed: OCZ has declared its controller independence and is on the march with a potent flagship.
Related Stories :
- OCZ Intros Indilinx Everest 2-based Agility 4 Series SSDs
- OCZ Technology Reveals Indilinx Everest 2 Controller
- OCZ Vertex 5 SSDs Won't Launch Q2 2013 After All
- Deals February 6: 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD $99.99
- Android 2.2 Beats Apple iOS 4 in Benchmark Tests
- OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB: Revisiting Write Performance With Firmware 1.5
- OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB: Testing Write Performance With Firmware 1.4
- Deals Sept 13: 115GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD $49.99
- New OCZ Firmware Boosts Vertex 4 Performance Up to 210%
- OCZ Confirms Octane and Vertex 4 use Marvell-based Silicon
Octane was not a special and unique snowflake; Indeed, someone else's fingerprints were all over it. Vertex4 is certainly unique, but I fully expect the next round of drive launches using Marvell products to look like the V4, but possibly with some more balance.
Seems to good to be true.
We'll see how they are once they've been out in the open for 6 months when problems will/will not flare up.
As Billy said only time will tell. These preliminary tests are great and pricing is better but still SSD are expensive...we need to get to cents not dollars per GB. Anyway good start OCZ...now the only thing you need is your own NANDs...perhaps in few years
This is a great step and makes financial sense for OCZ to come to market with a competitive product and possibly undercut all the others. Its a no brainer im my world. Force Samsung to sell units with less profit margins
it'll be interesting to see how reliable these drives are and what their failure rate is going to be. OCZ's vertex 2 and 3 drives were horribly unreliable - in my experience 50% failure/DOA rate, my local shop said they see about 10% of them returned due to failure (and that's just within their 2 week return window alone).
sorry OCZ, you've lost my business this time around. i've since replaced all my remaining OCZ SSD's with crucial m4's, they may not quite perform as well as your latest offerings but in my experience reliability > performance.
When I built Son No.2 's box, we installed the Seagate Barracuda XT on Friday and measured boot times at 21.2 seconds to the Password entry screen. The Vertex 3 arrived on Monday and after installing that, we measured boot times at 15.6 seconds. Not commenting on the actual times as differences in hardware as well as testing parameters could push it in any direction, but what I will comment on is the HD choice for this test.
My testing showed it took 36% extra time to boot off the HD instead of the HD. This test has it taking 226 % longer. If we're gonna test the best SSD's, I'd sure like to see a best in class HD added to the comparisons.
my favourite among the SSD manufacturers
it'll be interesting to see how reliable these drives are and what their failure rate is going to be. OCZ's vertex 2 and 3 drives were horribly unreliable - in my experience 50% failure/DOA rate, my local shop said they see about 10% of them returned due to failure (and that's just within their 2 week return window alone).sorry OCZ, you've lost my business this time around. i've since replaced all my remaining OCZ SSD's with crucial m4's, they may not quite perform as well as your latest offerings but in my experience reliability > performance.
It's interesting because so many people have talked about how unreliable they are, but in my personal experience (a small sample size, granted) I've been very pleased with both the Vertex 2's performance and reliability and the Agility 3's. Maybe I'm just lucky.
all I read was: support for 2TB... *drooling*
Price for 2TB SSD?
*not drooling anymore*
ocz FTW
Hmmm. Basically OCZ decided "Indilinx too slow! sod it, stick 1GB buffer in there!"
I love my vertex 2. I'm looking forward to seeing what ocz comes out with next!
I'd have like to see the 520 included in the benchmarks rather than the 320. Yeah it's higher priced but it's also the most reliable ssd on the market.
When I built Son No.2 's box...
You lucky dog! I wanted a similar naming system of "son 1, 2, 3" and "daughter 1, 2, 3" or even "Thing 1, 2, 3" but my wife would not let me
It's interesting because so many people have talked about how unreliable they are, but in my personal experience (a small sample size, granted) I've been very pleased with both the Vertex 2's performance and reliability and the Agility 3's. Maybe I'm just lucky.
I completely agree, got a 60GB Solid 3 for my wife's PC about a year ago, and just picked up a much larger 240GB Agility 3 for myself. I have also put them in a few PCs for friends and have yet to have a single issue. I think a lot of the bad rap they got was due to bad firmwares that caused any number of issues, but after the last major update last summer I have not been hearing the same complaints.
Also, are those boot times including POST? because my system boots in 9-10 sec after post, which is half the time of these scores and I don't even have a 'performance' SSD
Looks nice but ill stick with a 120 second gen
Outstanding IOPS!
We really need SATA Express yesterday...SATA3 is saturated.
How many 7200 RPM hard drives would it take to match OCZ's SSD? Seek time is out for sure, unless if a HDD manufacturer drops a 60k RPM HDD on the market.
You lucky dog! I wanted a similar naming system of "son 1, 2, 3" and "daughter 1, 2, 3" or even "Thing 1, 2, 3" but my wife would not let me
I completely agree, got a 60GB Solid 3 for my wife's PC about a year ago, and just picked up a much larger 240GB Agility 3 for myself. I have also put them in a few PCs for friends and have yet to have a single issue. I think a lot of the bad rap they got was due to bad firmwares that caused any number of issues, but after the last major update last summer I have not been hearing the same complaints.
Also, are those boot times including POST? because my system boots in 9-10 sec after post, which is half the time of these scores and I don't even have a 'performance' SSD
From the time you hit the power button to desktop.
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com
I'd have like to see the 520 included in the benchmarks rather than the 320. Yeah it's higher priced but it's also the most reliable ssd on the market.
See our SSD 520 review. Basically same scores as Vertex 3 because they are both SandForce.