OCZ Vector 150 SSD Review: A New Flagship With 19 nm Flash

By Christopher Ryan
published

OCZ is re-launching its flagship consumer SSD as the Vector 150. Armed with 19 nm Toggle-mode flash and new encryption functionality, this new drive is purported to be the pinnacle of of enthusiast-class solid-state storage. Does it live up to the hype?

Test Setup and Benchmarks

Our consumer storage test bench is based on Intel's Z77 Platform Controller Hub paired with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU. Intel's 6- and 7-series chipsets are virtually identical from a storage perspective. We're standardizing on older RST 10.6.1002 drivers for the foreseeable future.

Changes in RST's driver packages occasionally result in subtle performance changes. They can also lead to some truly profound variance in scores and results as well, depending on the driver revision. Some versions flush writes more or less frequently. Others work better in RAID situations. In fact, builds 11.2 and newer support TRIM in RAID as well. Regardless, results obtained with one revision may or may not be comparable to results obtained with another, so sticking with one version across all testing is mandatory.

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Test Hardware
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled
MotherboardGigabyte G1.Sniper M3
MemoryG.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V
System DriveKingston HyperX 3K 240 GB, Firmware 5.02
Drive(s) Under TestOCZ Vector 150 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 1.1
Comparison DrivesIntel SSD 530 180 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: DC12
Row 6 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 520 180 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 400i
Row 7 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA, Firmware: LLKi
Row 8 - Cell 0 SanDisk A110 256 GB M.2 PCIe x2, Firmware: A200100
Row 9 - Cell 0 Silicon Motion SM226EN 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M0709A
Row 10 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 11 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 12 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 13 - Cell 0 Crucial M500 960 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02
Row 14 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 15 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 16 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 480 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 17 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q
Row 18 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: X211200
Row 19 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 20 - Cell 0 SanDisk Ultra Plus 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware X211200
Row 21 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 22 - Cell 0 Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q
Row 23 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 120 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 24 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 240 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 25 - Cell 0 SanDisk Extreme II 480 GB, Firmware: R1311
Row 26 - Cell 0 Seagate 600 SSD 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: B660
Row 27 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 30 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 28 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 60 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 29 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 120 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 30 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 180 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 31 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 525 240 GB mSATA 6Gb/s, Firmware LLKi
Row 32 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 335 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 335s
Row 33 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 510 250 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: PWG2
Row 34 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 3.20 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.25
Row 35 - Cell 0 OCZ Vector 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.0
Row 36 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 450 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 1.0
Row 37 - Cell 0 Samsung 830 512 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: CXMO3B1Q
Row 38 - Cell 0 Crucial m4 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 000F
Row 39 - Cell 0 Plextor M5 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.02
Row 40 - Cell 0 Corsair Neutron GTX 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: M206
GraphicsMSI Cyclone GTX 460 1 GB
Power SupplySeasonic X-650, 650 W 80 PLUS Gold
ChassisLian Li Pitstop
RAIDLSI 9266-8i PCIe x8, FastPath and CacheCade AFK
System Software and Drivers
OperatingSystemWindows 7 x64 Ultimate
DirectXDirectX 11
DriversGraphics: Nvidia 314.07RST: 10.6.1002IMEI: 7.1.21.1124Generic AHCI: MSAHCI.SYS
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Benchmarks
Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0Trace-Based
Iometer 1.1.0# Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=16 GB, varying QDs, 128 KB Sequential, 8 GB LBA Precondition, Exponential QD Scaling
PCMark 7Secondary Storage Suite
PCM VantageStorage Suite
Custom ScriptsPerformance vs. Capacity
Christopher Ryan
22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Amdlova
    time to upgrade from vertex 4 to 150
    Reply
  • CommentariesAnd More
    It looks pretty good and it does perform pretty good.
    Reply
  • enihcam
    Will Toshiba buy OCZ?
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    11918040 said:
    time to upgrade from vertex 4 to 150

    I just hope the quality increased. Only because at my last job we had used Vertex 3s for all of our work stations and they one by one started having random issues, from not being detected to wiping the partitions.

    I like OCZ because they help lower the price of SSDs but there has to be quality behind the price as well.
    Reply
  • Sakkura
    Some of the numbers in the bottom diagram on page 4 seem to be off. Look at the Intel 520 180GB for example; the random write bar is longer than the random read bar, but the actual IOPS numbers are the other way around.
    Reply
  • Sakkura
    11918340 said:
    11918040 said:
    time to upgrade from vertex 4 to 150

    I just hope the quality increased. Only because at my last job we had used Vertex 3s for all of our work stations and they one by one started having random issues, from not being detected to wiping the partitions.

    I like OCZ because they help lower the price of SSDs but there has to be quality behind the price as well.
    My impression is that OCZ was hit hard by the Sandforce issues, partially as a result of being an early adopter. Their newer drives seem to be reliable.
    Reply
  • cryan
    11918441 said:
    Some of the numbers in the bottom diagram on page 4 seem to be off. Look at the Intel 520 180GB for example; the random write bar is longer than the random read bar, but the actual IOPS numbers are the other way around.

    Awesome catch! The 520 seems to have the right bar length, but the label from the Intel 510. I'll sort that out, but that's a genuine not-my-fault problem. One of the very few. I can blame Excel 2013 with confidence, but kudos for the eagle eye.

    The random write bar is correct though; the SandForce-based 520, 525, and Intel 530 each pull down more random write IOps than read with incompressible data.



    Regards,
    CR
    Reply
  • kancaras
    TOM!!! you gotta unswap PCMARK 7 graph with PCMARK vantage graph!
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    I got two SSD vertex 4 128gb on my computer 3770k and on my girlfriend 3470 I never get an single error on this SSD. raid 0 or normal configs. run solid!
    Reply
  • ssdpro
    11918455 said:
    My impression is that OCZ was hit hard by the Sandforce issues, partially as a result of being an early adopter. Their newer drives seem to be reliable.

    Early on yes, but the 2nd gen SF drives really are pretty darn stable now. OCZ has had solid top tier releases since the Vertex 4. I own Vertex 4 and Vector, will probably get a 150. Hands down the worst thing they ever did was try budget/value offerings like the Petrol. I don't think there is any reason for fanboism, I own Samsung and OCZ drives and all work happily together.

    Reply