OCZ Vertex 3 Preview: Faster and Cheaper than the Vertex 3 Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 24, 2011 9:02 AM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time. We use both standard pseudo randomly generated data for each write as well as fully random data to show you both the maximum and minimum performance offered by SandForce based drives in these tests. The average performance of SF drives will likely be somewhere in between the two values for each drive you see in the graphs. For an understanding of why this matters, read our original SandForce article.
Many of you have asked for random write performance at higher queue depths. What I have below is our 4KB random write test performed at a queue depth of 32 instead of 3. While the vast majority of desktop usage models experience queue depths of 0 - 5, higher depths are possible in heavy I/O (and multi-user) workloads:
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Cow86 - Thursday, February 24, 2011 - link
This is likely going into my next build ^^ Which is a few months off still, so hopefully the prices will be somewhat favourable by then....vol7ron - Friday, February 25, 2011 - link
let me guess... waiting for z68? :)Rasterman - Thursday, February 24, 2011 - link
Which of the benchmarks relate to loading windows and loading programs and games or levels in games? It would be nice to see how these compare, my guess is its not worth it to upgrade from a Crucial Real SSD C300 256GB to a Vertex 3 256GB as the perceived difference is going to be negligible?Some real world tests would be nice:
fresh load of windows 7
start windows 7 from hibernation
starting major games
loading levels in major games
starting major programs (photoshop, visual studio, windows media player, itunes, outlook)
ImSpartacus - Thursday, February 24, 2011 - link
Well, if you do upgrade from that C300, I would happily take it off your hands.I figure that old hardware is only worth, ohhhh, $100? Yeah, that's about right.
So, what do you say?
Figaro56 - Friday, February 25, 2011 - link
The Crucial C300 256GB drive for $100? Dream on!You can buy one brand new today for $420 shipped at amazon.com. You under estimate the C300, it's still a valid product and $100 is just a ridiculous comment.
vol7ron - Friday, February 25, 2011 - link
brand new != usedwith a used drive, you've already cut into warranty and you've reduced its lifespan (as negligible a point as it may be).
Figaro56 - Friday, February 25, 2011 - link
Then you had better buy a new one then. No one is going to sell their originally priced $600 Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SSD for $100, especially after this review.There is a margin of real world performance improvement with the Vertex 3 true, but certainly not so superior over the C300 as to make someone crazy enough to sell an 8 month old $600 SSD for $100 as it's "obviously" not obsolete it's just 2nd best. That's just retarded.
These SSD drives have an incredible life span so cutting into the life span over 8 months of use is nebulous. The warranty is only there for warm fuzzies, if it works it works.
jimhsu - Friday, February 25, 2011 - link
I suppose IM's response is a joke considering the OP's question of whether an ultra-fast drive is faster than the super-fast drive that he already has.(For the record, I bought the C300 256GB for $400 in newegg's awesome 20% off sale).
vol7ron - Friday, February 25, 2011 - link
I took it as a joke too, but still you're not going to get top dollar if you're selling a used device. A person would rather go get a refurb.Also, didn't the C300 have many problems that crept up? Not saying it hasn't been solved and the problems weren't rare, but I though a few weeks after Anand got their version, it died - and a few others died as well (betas and productions). For whatever reason, I decided to stay away from Crucial for that reason; not permanently, but in the short run.
I'm more curious to see with what Intel has to offer. Even if they don't introduce a compression algorithm, I like their wear-leveling better - it should require less additional spare NAND and be cheaper in general. And, of course, I like to see how Vertex 3 fares with TRIM as it approaches the capacity limit.
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 1, 2011 - link
The infamous firmware issue of the Crucial drive was solved, I've never had a problem. This C300 is a very fast SSD and I'm more than happy with it. When an SSD comes along that is actually twice as fast in every bench mark as my C300 256GB SSD then I might feel as though it's obsolete, but we're not there yet.