The OCZ Vertex 3 Review (120GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 6, 2011 6:32 PM ESTThe Vertex 3 120GB
Whenever we review a new SSD many of you comment asking for performance of lower capacity drives. While we typically publish the specs for all of the drives in the lineup, we're usually only sampled a single capacity at launch. It's not usually the largest, but generally the second largest and definitely an indicator of the best performance you can expect to see from the family.
Just look at the reviews we've published this year alone:
Intel SSD 510 (240GB)
Intel SSD 320 (300GB)
Crucial m4 (256GB)
While we always request multiple capacities, it normally takes a little while for us to get those drives in.
When OCZ started manufacturing Vertex 3s for sale the first drives off of the line were 120GB, and thus the first shipping Vertex 3 we got our hands on was a more popular capacity. Sweet.
Let's first look at the expected performance differences between the 120GB Vertex 3 and the 240GB drive we previewed earlier this year:
| OCZ Vertex 3 Lineup | |||||
| Specs (6Gbps) | 120GB | 240GB | 480GB | ||
| Max Read | Up to 550MB/s | Up to 550MB/s | Up to 530MB/s | ||
| Max Write | Up to 500MB/s | Up to 520MB/s | Up to 450MB/s | ||
| 4KB Random Read | 20K IOPS | 40K IOPS | 50K IOPS | ||
| 4KB Random Write | 60K IOPS | 60K IOPS | 40K IOPS | ||
| MSRP | $249.99 | $499.99 | $1799.99 | ||
There's a slight drop in peak sequential performance and a big drop in random read speed. Remember our discussion of ratings from earlier? The Vertex 3 was of course rated before my recent conversations with OCZ, so we may not be getting the full picture here.
Inside the 120GB Vertex 3 are 16 Intel 25nm 64Gbit (8GB) NAND devices. Each device has a single 25nm 64Gbit die inside it, with the capacity of a single die reserved for RAISE in addition to the typical ~7% spare area.
The 240GB pre-production drive we previewed by comparison had twice as many 25nm die per package (2 x 64Gbit per NAND device vs. 1 x 64Gbit). If you read our SF-2000 launch article one of the major advantages of the SF-2000 controller has over its predecessor is the ability to activate twice as many NAND die at the same time. What does all of this mean for performance? We're about to find out.
RC or MP Firmware?
When the first SF-1500/1200 drives shipped last year they actually shipped with SandForce's release candidate (RC) firmware. Those who read initial coverage of the Corsair Force F100 drives learned that the hard way. Mass production (MP) firmware followed with bug fixes and threatened to change performance on some drives (the latter was resolved without anyone losing any performance thankfully).
Before we get to the Vertex 3 we have to talk a bit about how validation works with SandForce and its partners. Keep in mind that SandForce is still a pretty small company, so while it does a lot of testing and validation internally the company leans heavily on its partners to also shoulder the burden of validation. As a result drive/firmware validation is split among both SandForce and its partners. This approach allows SF drives to be validated heavier than if only one of the sides did all of the testing. While SandForce provides the original firmware, it's the partner's decision whether or not to ship drives based on how comfortable they feel with their validation. SandForce's validation suite includes both client and enterprise tests, which lengthens the validation time.
The shipping Vertex 3s are using RC firmware from SandForce, the MP label can't be assigned to anything that hasn't completely gone through SandForce's validation suite. However, SF assured me that there are no known issues that would preclude the Vertex 3 from being released today. From OCZ's perspective, the Vertex 3 is fully validated for client use (not enterprise). Some features (such as 0% over provisioning) aren't fully validated and thus are disabled in this release of the firmware. OCZ and SandForce both assure me that the SF-2200 has been through a much more strenuous validation process than anything before it.
Apparently the reason for OCZ missing the March launch timeframe for the Vertex 3 was a firmware bug that was discovered in validation that impacted 2011 MacBook Pro owners. Admittedly this has probably been the smoothest testing experience I've encountered with any newly launched SandForce drive, but there's still a lot of work to be done. Regardless of the performance results, if you want to be safe you'll want to wait before pulling the trigger on the Vertex 3. SandForce tells me that the only difference between RC and MP firmware this round is purely the amount of time spend in testing - there are no known issues for client drives. Even knowing that, these are still unproven drives - approach with caution.
The Test
| CPU |
Intel Core i7 965 running at 3.2GHz (Turbo & EIST Disabled) Intel Core i7 2600K running at 3.4GHz (Turbo & EIST Disabled) - for AT SB 2011, AS SSD & ATTO |
| Motherboard: |
Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) Intel H67 Motherboard |
| Chipset: |
Intel X58 + Marvell SATA 6Gbps PCIe Intel H67 |
| Chipset Drivers: |
Intel 9.1.1.1015 + Intel IMSM 8.9 Intel 9.1.1.1015 + Intel RST 10.2 |
| Memory: | Qimonda DDR3-1333 4 x 1GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Card: | eVGA GeForce GTX 285 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 190.38 64-bit |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows 7 x64 |
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erple2 - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
I believe that the issue is scale. It would not be possible financially for OCZ to issue a massive recall to change the packaging on all existing drives in the marketplace. Particularly given that while the drives have different performance characteristics (I'd like to see what the real world differences are, not just some contrived benchmark), it's not like one drive fails while another works.So it sounds to me like they're doing more or less what's right, particularly given the financial difficulty of a widespread recall.
Dorin Nicolaescu-Musteață - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
IOmeter results for the three NAND types are the same for both compressible and uncompressible data in ”The NAND Matrix”. Yet, the text suggests the opposite.gentlearc - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
The Vertex 3 is slowerIt doesn't last as long
Performance can vary
Why would you write an entire article justifying a manufacturers decisions without speaking about how this benefits the consumer?
The real issue is price and you make no mention of it. If I'm going to buy a car that doesn't go as fast, has a lower safety rating, and the engine can be any of 4 different brands, the thing better be cheaper than what's currently on the market. If the 25nm process allows SSDs to break a price barrier, then that should be the focal point of the article. What is your focal point?
"Why not just keep using 34nm IMFT NAND? Ultimately that product won't be available. It's like asking for 90nm CPUs today, the whole point to Moore's Law is to transition to smaller manufacturing processes as quickly as possible."
Pardon? This is not a transistor count issue, it's further down the road. I am surprised you would quote Moore's Law as a reason why we should expect worse from the new generation of SSDs. The inability for a company to address the complications of a die shrink are not the fault of Moore's Law, it's the fault of the company. As you mentioned in your final words, the 250GB will probably be able to take better advantage of the die shrink. Please don't justify manufacturers trying to continue using a one-size-fits-all approach without showing how we, the consumer (your readership), are benefited.
erple2 - Friday, April 8, 2011 - link
I think that you've missed the point entirely. The reason why you can't get 34nm IMFT NAND going forwards, is that Intel is ramping that production down in favor of the smaller manufacturing process. They may already have stopped manufacturing those products in bulk. Therefore, the existing 34nm NAND is "dying off". They won't be available in the future.The point about Moore's Law - I think Anand may be stretching the meaning of Moore's Law, but ultimately the reason why we get faster, smaller chips is because of cost. It's unclear to me what the justification behind Moore's law is, but ultimately, that's not important to the actual Law itself. It is simply a reflection of the reality of the industry.
I believe transistor count IS the issue. The more transistors Intel (or whomever) can pack in to a memory module for the same cost to them (thereby increasing capacity), the more likely they are to do that. It is a business, after all. Higher density can be sold to the consumer at a higher price (more GB's = more $'s). Intel (the manufacturer of the memory) doesn't care whether the performance of the chips is lower to some end user. As you say, it's up to the controller manufacturer to figure out how to take into account the "issues" involved in higher density, smaller transistor based memory. If you read the article again, Anand isn't justifying anything - he's simply explaining the reasons behind why RIGHT NOW, 25nm chips are slower on existing SF drives than 34nm chips are.
It's more an issue of the manufacturers trying to reuse "old" technology for the current product line, until the SF controller optimizations catch up to the smaller NAND.
gentlearc - Saturday, April 9, 2011 - link
Once again, why do an article explaining a new product that is inferior to the previous generation with no reason why we should be interested? AMD's Radeon HD 6790 was titled "Coming Up Short At $150" because regardless of the new technology, it offers too little for too much. Where is the same conclusion?Yes, this article was an explanation. Anand does a 14-page explanation, saving a recommendation for the future.
"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 questions remains. Why should the120GB Vertex 3 debut $90 more than it's better performing older brother?
mpx999 - Sunday, April 10, 2011 - link
If you have a problem with speed of flash memory then a good choice for you are drives with SLC memory, which doesn't have as much speed limitations. Unfortunately manufacturers severy overprice them, as SLC drives are much more than 2 times more expansive than MLC ones at the same amount GB, despite the fact that the flash is only 2 times more expansive. You can buy reasonably priced (2x MLC version price) SDHC cards with SLC flash, but you can't get reasonably priced (2 x MLC version price) SSD with SLC flash.taltamir - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
"After a dose of public retribution OCZ agreed to allow end users to swap 25nm Vertex 2s for 34nm drives"Actually OCZ lets customers swap their 25nm 64Gbit drives for 25nm 32Gbit drives. There are no swaps to the 32nm 32Gbit drives
garloff - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Anand -- thanks for your excellent coverage on SSDs -- it's the best that I know of. And I certainly appreciate your work with the vendors, pushing them for higher standards -- something from which everybody benefits.One suggestion to write power consumption:
I can see drives that write faster consume more power -- that's no surprise, as they write to more chips (or the SF controller has to compress more data ...) and it's fair. They are done sooner, going back to idle.
Why don't you actually publish a Ws/GB number, i.e. write a few Gigs and then measure the energy consumed to do that? That would be very meaningful AFAICT.
(As a second step, could could also do a mix, by having a bench run for 60s, writing a fixed amount of data and then comparing energy consumption -- faster drives will be longer in idle than slower ones ... that would also be meaningful, but that's maybe a second step. Or you measure the energy consumed in your AS bench, assuming that it transfers a fixed amount of data as opposed to running for a fixed amount of time ...)
Nihil688 - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Hello all,I am kinda new to all this and since I am about to get a new 6GB/s Sata3 system I need to ask this
The main two SSDs that I am considering are the Micron's C400 or the OCZ Vertex3 120' version.
I can see that their sequential speeds in both write and read are completely different with V3 winning
but their Random IOPSs (always comparing the 120GB V3 and the 128GB C400) differ with C400 winning in reads and V3 winning with big difference in writes.
I must say I am planning to install my windows 7 OS in this new SSD I am getting and what I would
consider doing is the following:
-Compiling
-Installing 1 game at a time, playing, erasing, redo
-Maybe Adobe work: Photoshop etc
So I have other hard drives to store stuff but the SSD would make my work and gaming quite faster.
The question is, C400 gives 40K of read which is more important for an OS whilst V3 gives better overall stats and is only lacking in random reads. What would be more important for me? Thanks!
PaulD55 - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
Connected my 120 Gig Vertex 3 ( purchased from New Egg) , booted and saw that it was not recognized by the BIOS, I then noticed the drive was flashing red and green. Contacted OCZ and was told the drive was faulty and should be returned. New Egg claims they have no idea when these will be back in stock.