The OCZ Vertex 3 Review (120GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 6, 2011 6:32 PM ESTFinal Words
This is going to be a pretty frustrating conclusion to write. I'm still waiting for the final, shipping 240GB Vertex 3 to arrive before passing judgement on it but from what I've seen thus far it looks like that may be the drive to get if you're torn between the two. I feel like if you're going to be working with a lot of incompressible data (e.g. pictures, movies) on your drive then you'll want to either go for the 240GB version or perhaps consider a more traditional controller. The performance impact the 120GB sees when working with incompressible data just puts it below what I would consider the next-generation performance threshold.
The bigger question is how does the 120GB Vertex 3 stack up against similar capacity drives from the competition? Unfortunately with only a 300GB Intel SSD 320, a 250GB Intel SSD 510 and a 256GB Crucial m4 on hand it's really tough to tell. I suspect that the drive will still come out on top given that the rest incur a performance penalty as well when going to smaller capacities, but I don't know that the performance drop is proportional across all of the controllers. I hate to say it but you may want to wait a few more weeks for us to get some of these smaller capacity drives in house before making a decision there.
It's clear to me that these SF-2000 based drives are really best suited for use with a 6Gbps interface. Performance over 3Gbps is admirable but it's just not as impressive. If you've got an existing SF-1200 drive (or similar performing drive) on a 3Gbps system, I don't believe the upgrade to a SF-2200 is worth it until you get a good 6Gbps controller.
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sor - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Oh sure, I agree that the bottom line is whether or not it still works, that's why they do the binning and have grades of product within that brand. If OCZ can use cheaper flash and the controller takes care of the increased failures, or the users never reach the failure threshold, then who cares, as long as the product works the same?I can't speak for the testing procedures within SpekTek or their tolerances, as I only worked for a facility that tested parts for Micron, and in the process generated the bad parts and did some of the binning before sending them to SpekTek. Much of the stuff that went to them failed our tests but was otherwise not physically damaged.
There's a reason why those parts are sold under the SpecTek brand at a discount, it shows that even the manufacturer doesn't trust them to be sold under the good brand after testing.
Panlion - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
I wonder if OCZ will produce a 7mm 2.5 inch drive. The newer notebooks from Lenovo are starting to demand that format it'll be nice if I can have some option other than Intel SSD.sleepeeg3 - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Maintaining integrity while sticking out for the little guy, instead of bending over backward to write glowing articles for every vendor sponsor. That's what has made this site succeed.I wish you could also take OCZ to task on SandForce's controller strange tendency to lock up and vanish from a system, due to built in encryption. They are in complete denial that it is an issue, despite dozens of reports on their user forums.
edfcmc - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Thank you Anand for this very informative and in-depth review of the OCZ issue and their latest 120gb vertex 3 product; especially since the 120gb products are within my price range and the size I am looking to purchase. On a side note, I have been reading your reviews since your review of the FIC PA-2007 many years ago and I love the evolution of this site and your dedication to keeping us consumers informed.p.s. Please consider asking asus/Nvidia to update the Nvidia driver on their ULV80 series as nothing new has been updated since I purchased the UL80vt based on this site's recommendation. Asus/Nvida seem to be a little non-responsive to us folks who have been requesting an update for quite some time.
ekerazha - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Can't wait for reviews of SSDs (Intel G3, Crucial m4) with comparable size (120 GB).Chloiber - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Anand:Just a quick note. In the newest SF-firmware, there is also still a bug with Hynid Flash. You can see it here, under "Open Issues":
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.de/forum/showthread....
"Under benchmarking scenarios with IOMETER 2006, 60GB drives that use Hynix32nm MLC (1024 blocks, 8KB pages) can impose long latencies"
Just FYI.
MarcHFR - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Dear OCZ, Dear Anand,In the past, it was simple :
Vertex : always the same NAND
Agility : NAND could change
I know that Vertex name is a best seller for OCZ, but i think it will be simplier to back to this
strikeback03 - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
That is what I was wondering, I thought the point of the Agility line was that they would use the good controller but possibly cheaper NAND.Adul - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Why not make use of QOR codes so a shopper can just scan the code to be taken to a page with more detail information.miscellaneous - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Given this particularly insidious paragraph:"OCZ will also continue to sell the regular Vertex 2. This will be the same sort of grab-bag drive that you get today. There's no guarantee of the NAND inside the drive, just that OCZ will always optimize for cost in this line."
Will these "grab-bag" drives be using the same SKU(s)/branding as the original - well reviewed - Vertex 2? If so, how is using the _old_ SKU(s) to identify the _new_ "grab-bag" drives, whilst introducing _new_ SKU(s) to help identify drives with the _old_ level of performance a satisfactory solution?