OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB: Revisiting Write Performance With Firmware 1.5

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In our recent look at the Vertex 4 SSD equipped with firmware 1.4, we found that the 128 GB drive's write performance depended heavily on available capacity. OCZ disagreed, but then quickly rolled out firmware 1.5. So, we're back to test the new build.

Firmware 1.5: AS SSD Compression Benchmark

In the charts below, we compare firmware 1.4.1.3, 1.5 beta, and 1.5 final using AS SSD's Compression Benchmark after folders one, two, and three are transferred, leaving 25% free space.

Performance is immediately restored with firmware 1.5 beta, and is markedly different from what we observed with firmware 1.4.1.3. When we ran AS SSD's Compression Benchmark on the final version of firmware 1.5, performance appeared more erratic. Our hypothesis is that read and write performance are impacted by internal clean-up operations running in the background when the benchmark was active. So, we rebooted and re-ran the test. The results looked a lot more like the results for firmware 1.5 beta.

Firmware 1.5 Beta

Firmware 1.5