OCZ Vertex 4 Review: A Flagship SSD Powered By...Indilinx?

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OCZ breaks new ground with its Vertex 4 in that this isn't a SandForce-flavored SSD. The company's latest flagship features an Indilinx Everest 2 controller that definitely impresses us. Can Vertex 4 stand up against the SSD 520, m4, and Samsung 830?

Test Setup And Benchmarks

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Test Hardware
SystemDesktopMacBook Pro 8,1
TestingRAW, Windows SATA 3Gb/s, and SATA 6Gb/sMac OS X and SATA 6Gb/s
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost EnabledIntel Core i5-2430M (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 2.4 GHz, 3 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled
MotherboardGigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3-
MemoryKingston Hyper-X 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 VCrucial 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333
System DriveOCZ Vertex 3 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s
Tested DrivesIntel SSD 320 300 GB SATA 3Gb/s, Firmware: 1.92
Row 7 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 320 80 GB SATA 3Gb/s, Firmware: 1.92
Row 8 - Cell 0 Samsung 830 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: CXMO3
Row 9 - Cell 0 Crucial m4 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 0309
Row 10 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 3 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.15
Row 11 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 3 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.15
Row 12 - Cell 0 OCZ Octane 512 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 1.13
Row 13 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 5.10.31
Row 14 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 520 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: -
Row 15 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 520 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: -
GraphicsPalit GeForce GTX 460 1 GBIntel HD Graphics 3000
Power SupplySeasonic 760 W, 80 PLUS Gold-
System Software and Drivers
Operating SystemWindows 7 x64 UltimateMac OS X 10.7.3
DirectXDirectX 11-
DriverGraphics: Nvidia 270.61 RST: 10.6.0.1002 Virtu: 1.1.101-
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Benchmarks
Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0Trace-Based
Iometer 1.1.0Number of Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=8 GB, varying queue depths, 128 KB Sequential
PCMark 7Storage Suite
Andrew Ku
48 Comments Comment from the forums
  • compton
    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.
    Reply
  • billybobser
    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.
    Reply
  • maxinexus
    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
    Reply
  • jgutz2006
    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
    Reply
  • Branden
    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.
    Reply
  • JackNaylorPE
    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.
    Reply
  • burnley14
    Brandenit'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.
    Reply
  • drwho1
    all I read was: support for 2TB... *drooling*
    Price for 2TB SSD?
    *not drooling anymore*
    Reply
  • mitunchidamparam
    ocz FTW
    Reply
  • OntarioHero
    Hmmm. Basically OCZ decided "Indilinx too slow! sod it, stick 1GB buffer in there!"
    Reply