OCZ Vertex 4 Review (256GB, 512GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2012 9:00 AM EST
Power Consumption
The Vertex 4, similar to the Octane before it, consumes entirely too much power at idle. OCZ tells us that this is a known issue, also fixed in the next version of the firmware that should reduce bring it down to roughly 0.75W at idle. At ~1.3W today, the Vertex 4 would draw more power than many 5400RPM 2.5-inch hard drives at idle - something to keep in mind if you're planning on putting this thing into a notebook.
Under load however, the Vertex 4 does quite well. It's more power efficient than Samsung's SSD 830, while offering similar if not better write performance. If your aim is better battery life and not performance however, you may want to stick with one of the 3Gbps Intel drives instead.
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Per Hansson - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
"monitoring port of the SSD"Please enlighten me, Google was no help...
Is it a hardware interface that allows you to see how the drive operates? Reply
adamantinepiggy - Thursday, April 05, 2012 - link
Basically, every SSD has some sort of real-time data port that allows engineers to monitor what is going on with the SSD, even when the drive hangs or has other issues. It is used mainly for development/testing. Consider it sorta like a way to read/access the dump file when Windows BSOD's, except in this case it's on the SSD. This monitoring port gets disabled on released drive firmware and the hardware attachment leads are unattached.. Replyjonup - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
Thanks for asking this! I always wanted to know that myself. I actually google it to no avail while I was reading the article. Replymedys - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
How long till we are overclocking our SSD processors :-/ ReplyFunBunny2 - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
Umm. How you gonna fit that water cooler inside the case? ReplyIketh - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
hahaha... NEVER!! I've yet to break a Win7 installation from overclocking, but I broke XP many times... I shudder at the thought of overclocking an SSD :) ReplyIketh - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
Although, I wonder how long until the processors in SSDs reach, say, today's single-core Atom... OR better yet, how long before the SSD controller is built into the CPU much like the memory controller, where we install more storage the same way we install ram... and then later again the nand controller and RAM controller merge, and a computer is nothing more than a SoC with some nand sitting next to it... Replyiwod - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
We finally have controller that are able to bump out MB faster then Sandforce without using some silly compression engine. Marvell also announced next Gen SSD controller as well.Again we have reached the limit of SATA 6Gbps, we will need to start thinking about SATA Express, Lower power consumption, reliability. etc... Reply
akbo - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
Though I think the high consumption might be because of the controller, the chip is huge! With thermy sticky!Wonder when a die shrink of this is possible. Reply
Freddy G. - Wednesday, April 04, 2012 - link
I want an SSD now for my gaming system, as boot and games drive, what u guys think should be better? Crucial m4 or Corsair Force GT? BTW Im going to start with a 120gb version in the meantime. Reply