OCZ Vector 150 (120GB & 240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on November 7, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- OCZ
- Indilinx
- Vector 150
Final Words
The Vector 150 is a logical successor for the Vector. It doesn't redefine SSD performance, yet OCZ has managed to add enough improvements to the Vector 150 to make it a different product. The first one is IO consistency. While the Vector had good performance consistency to begin with, the Vector 150 takes that one step further. It's without a doubt one of the most consistent (if not the most consistent) SSDs we have tested and that's a big achievement. Especially for heavy workloads with lots of random writes the IO consistency is a very important performance metric because the drives tend to be in steady-state (or close to it) due to the amount of writes and you definitely don't want your application to be waiting for your SSD.
The second major improvement is endurance. 50GB/day for five years should cover almost any power user's need for endurance (or if not, you should really invest in an enterprise class SSD). Remember that it's 50GB seven days a week for five years -- even one day with less writes a week will give you even more headroom to play with.
Power consumption is the only thing I have a problem with. For desktops the power consumption obviously plays no role (unless you're building a huge RAID array and want it to be as power efficient as possible) but for mobile it's one of the cornerstones. Battery life is one of those things where you can never have enough and while the rest of the components usually play the bigger role, an SSD can still have an impact of half an hour or so depending on your laptop.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (11/6/2013) | |||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | |
| OCZ Vector 150 (MSRP) | $130 | $240 | $500 |
| OCZ Vector | $125 | N/A | N/A |
| OCZ Vertex 450 | $115 | $220 | $460 |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $100 | $180 | $340 |
| Samsung SSD 840 Pro | $128 | $215 | $570 |
| Crucial M500 | $120 | $155 | $370 |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $150 | $230 | $460 |
| Seagate SSD 600 | $110 | $200 | $380 |
With the original Vector OCZ shifted their goals and tried to lift up their brand image by focusing purely on the high-end segment and the Vector 150 continues that strategy. As a result, the Vector 150 is definitely at the upper pricing segment but there is always a price you have to pay for performance. Compared to SanDisk's Extreme II, Vector 150's most likely rival, the MSRPs are fairly competitive. At 120GB, the Vector is cheaper but at higher capacities SanDisk has a small advantage. However, it's good to keep in mind that we're dealing with MSRPs, so take the prices with a grain of salt until we see what the retail prices end up being.
All in all, I'm excited to see what OCZ has up their sleeve for their SATA Express (i.e. PCIe) based Barefoot 3 successor. We've been limited by the SATA 6Gbps bus for quite a while already, which is why there haven't been any tremendous upgrades in performance compared to what for example the SF-2281 brought when it was first released. The Barefoot 3 is a platform with lots of potential and it shows that OCZ's Indilinx and PLX acquisitions have provided the company with the knowledge they need to stay competitive in the SSD space.
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ssdpro - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I really don't see how comparing a SSD purchase to suicide is relevant. Any component can fail at any time - it is not the end of life having a graphics card fizzle or SSD disappear. If anyone remembers when Anandtech reviewed the 840 Pro the sample died and then when they tested the replacement it died. It happens. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6328/samsung-ssd-840... I still buy and will buy Samsung, I have bought and will buy from OCZ.JellyRoll - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Good luck with that.evonitzer - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
As long as we're playing the anecdotal game, I bought a Vertex 2 and it failed, but allowed me to recover all the data from it. It was a little weird, but whatever. Reinstalled to it and it worked fine. Then I switched to a Vertex 4 and it has treated me well. So ...Samus - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
I just don't get why people would consider an OCZ drive over the competition. It'd be like buying a Quantum Bigfoot, IBM Deskstar 75GXP or Conner S35-series drive, all of which either had storage, performance or price crowns of their time, but all well-known for their poor reliability, including their successors. All of these companies failed.Quantum was purchased by Maxtor who discontinued the Bigfoot, IBM was purchased by Hitachi (who struggled to get those GMR heads to work beyond the 60GXP) and Conner went bankrupt and the assets were ironically purchased by Quantum who liquidated everything but their tape-backup business.
TheWrongChristian - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
The difference is that the Samsung samples were promptly fixed with a firmware update before it was released to retail. I'd have no faith in OCZ fixing such firmware issues, and the Samsung 840 Pro has gone on to be a solid dependable drive.These failures are almost always firmware bugs, I think SSD generally rarely physically fail (though I have no numbers to back that up) and OCZ don't have a stellar reputation in that department.
Not that OCZ will be around to honour the 5 year warranty anyway....
djscrew - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
i do have to agree, my revodrive takes forever to boot... gonna have to try that space thingweiran - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Interesting SSD but at this price I think I'd rather have the Sandisk Extreme II.JellyRoll - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Yes I agree. Sandisk had been around 25 years. Ocz will be lucky to be around for another three months, thier cash burn is ridiculous and they are running on fumes provided by loan sharks....which is why they are a penny stock, yet no one buys them. The reason they haven't been bought is that the barefoot is just a rebadged marvell controller.they have no ip.chubbypanda - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
SanDisk? Since 1988, but for how many years are in SSD business (very, very short time).JellyRoll - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
Yes, but they have produced NAND since its introduction 25 years ago. That is experience, and longevity.