OCZ Vertex 4 Review (256GB, 512GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2012 9:00 AM ESTPCMark 7
The storage suite in PCMark 7 validates a lot of what we've seen thus far. Despite great write performance, the Vertex 4 can't outperform the Vertex 3 because of its read speed limitations. From OCZ's perspective however, the gap is narrow enough in overall tests to make the shift away from SandForce likely worthwhile. The Vertex 4 doesn't care about compressible vs. incompressible data and it keeps more of the drive's BOM cost in house compared to the Vertex 3.
It's worth noting that for sufficiently light workloads, the difference in performance between any modern SSD is going to be limited right off the bat. We're talking about a 6% spread between the slowest and fastest drive here. For many users, simply finding the right balance of price and reliability is sufficient - which happens to be one of the reasons we've been such big fans of Samsung's SSD 830.
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danwat1234 - Wednesday, January 21, 2015 - link
The Vertex 4 does have a Marvell controller, with Indilinx firmwareDenithor - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
You seem to have forgotten Octane, 'the 1st time that ocz now owns the controller and firmware that goes into the product.'And, as far as I've heard, Intel was the only one to truly fix the BSOD associated with the SandForce controller. Others made improvements and reduced the frequency but Intel downright fixed it.
id_aaa - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I'm not buying a controlled, I'm buying an SSD, and they delivered a crappy SSD, why should I trust OCZ now?semo - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Yep, OCZ are smiley and I won't buy a product from them as long as there are competitive alternatives. They still haven't issued a mass recall of their first 25nm drives which did not have as much capacity as per their specs. OCZ blamed it on Sandforce's RAISE technology and waited for customers to contact them before replacing the affected SSDs. No one knows how many of those duds were sold and how many were replaced.kristof007 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I've been using my Vertex 2 for just over 2 years now. 120GB model. Not a single hiccup. I'd call that fairly reliable.PaulSabey - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
My 120gb Vertex 2 (bought March 2011) had been running without a hiccup for nearly two years. Then yesterday it just spontaneously failed (BIOS could not even see the drive as present). I guess you can think your drive is totally reliable .. until the moment it fails.Breach1337 - Saturday, April 7, 2012 - link
Same here.Vertex 3 owner - although a great product for months I had a unfit for purpose product, no support and no fix from OCZ and on top of that people were treated with utter condescending arrogance on the forums, asked to effectively troubleshoot the product and if you refused to do that you were not cooperating. Sorry, but never OCZ for me ever again.pattycake0147 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I can live with the lower read speeds, but the power consumption is too high. That said if reliability holds up, sounds like I'll be getting a new drive this year.Great review Anand!
ViviTheMage - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
If this was going in a laptop, MAYBE I would be concerned, but what's a few watts for some more tasty iops?pattycake0147 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
A laptop is exactly what I would like to use it for. Both of my desktops already have SSD/HDD combos.