This Just In: OCZ's Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120GB, The New Mid-Range King?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 15, 2011 5:53 PM ESTI mentioned in our Mid-Range SSD Roundup that most SSD vendors like sampling the best balance of capacity/performance when it comes to SSD review samples. For the SandForce SF-2281 with 25nm NAND that just happens to be 240GB. Unfortunately there's a pretty big fall off in performance when going from 240GB to 120GB due to the decrease in total number of NAND die (8GB per die x 32 die vs. 16 die). I've explained this all before here.
Enter OCZ's MAX IOPS drive. Using 32nm Toshiba Toggle NAND instead of 25nm IMFT ONFI 2.x NAND the die capacity drops to 4GB, which means you get twice as many die per NAND device. The end result? 240GB Vertex 3 performance for slightly more than 120GB Vertex 3 pricing.
I ordered the 120GB MAX IOPS drive at the beginning of the week and just got it in yesterday so I've only had a small amount of time to test with it thus far. Check out the 120GB MAX IOPS drive vs. the Intel SSD 510 in Bench using our 2011 storage test suite. Expect the full review in the coming days.
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kavanoz - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
As recommended by OCZ, sleep and hibernate and all hard drive power saving features are disabled (remember I need the PC on 24/7 so i can access it remotely anytime), hot-plug enabled, Intel RST drivers removed, other controllers tried (Marvel), Windows re-installed etc. etc.BTW, I have most of the BSODs when the computer was idle, but there was one time when it happened while I was actively using it. Just BSOD in front of my eyes.
They said Sandforce re-produced the problem in the lab, so hopefully they nail this down soon.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread...
seapeople - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
Does the extra speed of your blue-screening Vertex drive make you exceptionally happy?chrnochime - Friday, June 17, 2011 - link
Refund because it's incompatible with your PC? And you're saying this with a straight face?OWC Grant - Monday, June 20, 2011 - link
It has NOT been reported to us, nor have we found any forums that discuss OWC SSDs creating the BSOD like other SSD brands, noteably OCZ and Crucial, are creating.If you have such a forum address, please let us know that. Otherwise, pls make sure you are fully informed as to the reliable status of OWC SSDs.
Thanks!
Beenthere - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
Corsair has had to recall their latest SSDs days after release. OCZ hasn't recalled their bad drives yet and people are furious as they well should be. As usual many vendors are rushing this half-baked tech out the door for record profits at the expense of consumers. Microsucks pioneered this ship it and fix it later mentality and it's worked well for them so others have followed. It's criminal IMO and the vendors who do this should pay treble damages and this crap would stop in a heatbeat.I am interested in SSDs for laptop use and have looked at some tests of identical laptops other than one had a 500 GB 7200 rpm HD and the other a 120 GB SSD. It was interesting to see that in the case of the Dell laptops both scored the same performance rating. In two other brands the numbers varied about 10% better in one case for the HD vs the SSD. So it was a split decision. I wonder if typical laptop CPUs limit the advantages of a SSD or what exactly is different in a laptop vs. a desktop?????? Curious minds want to know as it would seem that a 2.5" laptop HD would be a real bottleneck even with a 500 GB 7200 rpm HD compared to a SSD.
TrackSmart - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
I have SSDs in desktop and laptop computers. Except for sequential reads and writes (where spinning hard disks still do pretty well), there is no question of greater overall performance for most SSDs. I don't know what kind of benchmarks you were running.But I agree that there are lots of compatibility issues between SSDs and laptop hardware. Problems that are exceedingly rare for ordinary spinning hard disks. With my desktop, and I had great luck with the first SSD I purchased. For my current laptop, it took three tries to find a model that didn't have problems with sleep/hibernate/boot-up. The common link was SandForce based drives. A Crucial C300 is now in that laptop and working flawlessly, though others have had issues with that drive and some laptop hardware combinations. I guess it will be a while before you can expect an SSD to 'just work' in a given system, as we've taken for granted with spinning hard disks.
Now if only the SSD makers would publish some data on what combinations of hardware are known to be problematic. And offer better options for those who are suffering from compatibility issues.
Beenthere - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
At this point I don't think the SSD folks fully understand the problem with the SandForce drives and what hardware is affected. It's a work in progress and consumers are the guinea pigs... as usual. Pay for bleeding edge hardware and you will bleed it appears.As far as the laptop performance I'm not the one who conducted the tests. I was just reporting on the results that were observed in a test of three different laptop models by different companies. I would love to see more back-to-back comparisons to see if the CPU or something else limits the full performance of an SSD in laptops.
7Enigma - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
Sorry man, whatever testing you are referring to was faulty (due to user setup error/measurement), or outright lies.The difference in general computing, ESPECIALLY on a slow/older laptop drive is downright amazing. Anandtech has done these over the last 2 years or so with their review hardware where they review a system and then pop out the crap HDD and replace with a SSD. The last one I can remember was a MacBook I believe but they have done it with several computers.
Even on netbooks where the CPU can definitely hamper performance you see a benefit (though the cost typically doesn't make sense in this sector).
Beenthere - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
I don't believe the testing was faulty. I believe the testing software used and the systems being tested have a significant impact on the results. Many reviews use only synthetic benches which measure block size transfers. This does not necessarily represent actual workloads. More realistic testing such as productivity, HTPC disk capture and gaming benches can often provide a clearer performance picture.Just to be clear I truly believe that SSDs should provide a substantial increase in performance especially in laptops but I want to see those results from real world testing not just synthetic benches which often look great but are not representative of actual PC performance. It would be interesting to compare the same SSD in a top of the line PC vs. a mainstrean laptop using real world benches to see how much the CPU, SATA II vs. SATA III etc. impact real world performance.
geddarkstorm - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
Um... there have been tons of real world tests for SSDs verses HDDs in laptops and PCs over the years. Just look at boot time alone, for instance. No HDD will come close to an SSD in the speed of booting or application loading. I have no idea what you are talking about, but it is utterly false.See this http://eshop.macsales.com/Video/SSD/Performance_Te... for almost a DOZEN videos of SSDs verses HDDs in real world computing performance.