OCZ Announces 64GB Vertex 4
by Kristian Vättö & Howard Johnston on May 11, 2012 11:42 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- OCZ
- Indilinx Everest 2
- Vertex 4
OCZ announced yesterday via their Twitter profile that a 64GB version of their Vertex 4 will soon be available. Vertex 4 is based on a second generation OCZ/Indilinx controller, named the Indilinx Everest 2. However, it was later revealed that the hardware is actually from Marvell. We reviewed the 256GB and 512GB Vertex 4 SSDs about a month ago and came away very pleased with how the drives performed. The Vertex 4 product page has also been updated with specifications for the 64GB model, which we've summarized in the table below:
| OCZ Vertex 4 Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 64GB | 128GB | 256GB | 512GB |
| NAND | 2Xnm MLC | |||
| Number of NAND Packages | 8 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Number of Die per Package | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Sequential Read | 460MB/s | 535MB/s | 535MB/s | 535MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 220MB/s | 200MB/s | 380MB/s | 475MB/s |
| 4K Random Read | 70K IOPS | 90K IOPS | 90K IOPS | 95K IOPS |
| 4K Random Write | 50K IOPS | 85K IOPS | 85K IOPS | 85K IOPS |
| Street Price | N/A | $150 | $300 | $650 |
As expected, there is a decline in performance when moving from a sixteen package design to an eight package design. Random write unsurprisingly takes the biggest hit but 50K IOPS is still great for a 64GB drive. For comparison, a 60GB Vertex 3 is rated at 60K IOPS and a 64GB Plextor M3 at 40K IOPS. Overall the 64GB Vertex 4 is at the upper spectrum of ~64GB SSDs and it presents very promising performance figures.
OCZ did not announce any specific availability other than "soon", but I contacted OCZ and will update this article once I receive a reply. Pricing is also unknown as of now. We will try to get our hands on a review sample as soon as possible, and Anand also has a 128GB sample in the house, so keep your eye on our SSD Bench section if you're in the market for a new drive.
Source: OCZ Twitter
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
27 Comments
View All Comments
Kristian Vättö - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
While I'm not saying that the data is totally irrelevant, I would like to point out a couple of points.1. OCZ Vertex 2 is experiencing the highest return rate but it's no longer a high performing SSD in today's standards. The return rate of Vertex 3 is noticeably lower, although still fairly high.
2. OCZ was the first one to use SandForce's second generation (SF-2000 series) controllers and they had exclusivity for months. Some of the returns are due to early firmware flaws and bugs, which were fixed before others started selling SF-2000 SSDs.
3. There is no breakdown of Corsair's faulty SSDs. One should note that Corsair sells Marvell based SSDs as well, so their SandForce based SSDs could have a high failure rate but their Marvell SSDs would balance the return rate.
4. There is no info on return rate of Indilinx Everest based SSDs, which is what Vertex 4 is. Now OCZ has more freedom when it comes to firmware and they are not at the mercy of SandForce. OCZ has also said that they are spending more time and money on validation now.
5. It includes only four brands so we don't really get a good idea if OCZ's return rate is due to SandForce or is the problem at OCZ's end.
Again, just pointing these things out. However, I don't think that data is completely valid when talking about Vertex 4.
npaladin2000 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
How dare you use logic and reason against someone's righteous anti-OCZ crusade??? :)Seriously, I would tend to agree. I remember when the original Vertex and Agility drives came out, people loved them. They went downhill when they started selling SandForce drives, but Vertex4, Petrol, and Octane are non-Sandforce. Personally I'm loving my Vertex 4, but even the regular Marvell controllers look to be a lot more flexible. One SandForce drive is just like another, because SandForce writes the firmware. Probably because the firmware is where all the dedup and compression code is. And yet people spew venom not at SandForce but at OCZ, who admittedly made a mistake by joining the "me too" SandForce brigade, but come on no venom for other SandForce makers?
josephjpeters - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
Completely agree. People direct their hate toward the wrong company. That being said, the problems seem to be fixed. Sucks to be an early adopter but sometimes that's the price you're going to pay when you're at the bleeding edge.Interestingly enough I bought a Vertex 3 the first week it was out and had no problems. Still running on the original FW. Go figure.
Pessimism - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
OCZ needs to partner with HGST (formerly IBM's hard drive unit) and JMicron to create the worst SSD known to man. It will be known as"DEATHSTAR SS, STUTTER EDITION"
Klinky1984 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
Hard drives really are not much more reliable:http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-fai...
Look through any newegg hard drive review section and you'll find people putting reviews up like "bought 4, one was dead" or "died after 3 months".
SSDs I think will eventually exceed hard drives as far as integrity goes, some are already doing so.
iwod - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Am i correct in thinking the spec table isn't updated with the latest performance improvement from v1.4 ?And if the 64GB version would get similar performance benefits as well or is that set in stone already?
andrebrait - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Didn't OCZ release a firmware update which nearly doubled the write performance of these SSDs?