OCZ Vertex 4 Review (256GB, 512GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2012 9:00 AM ESTTRIM Performance
I started out this review with a mention of estimated write amplification and how OCZ was able to significantly reduce it with the Vertex 4/Everest 2 compared to Octane/Everest 1. By reducing write amplification, OCZ should have also significantly improved worst case write performance when TRIM isn't available or before it's able to act.
To find out, I wrote sequential data across all user addressable LBAs and then wrote random data (4KB, QD=32) for 20 minutes across all LBAs. Finally I used HDTach to give me a simple visualization of write performance across all available LBAs (aka the Malventano Method):
This is a huge improvement over what we saw with the Octane. Behavior here isn't quite what we see with Intel's controllers, but again it's a huge step above what we saw in the previous generation.
The Vertex 4 does support idle time garbage collection, but at very low priority. The drive must be idle for at least an hour for the background GC to kick in. I'm glad to see that OCZ has taken a more conservative route here as I've never been a huge fan of idle time garbage collection to begin with.
If you don't leave the drive alone long enough to trigger the idle GC, as soon as 85% of the blocks on the drive are used up the Vertex 4 will automatically trigger its garbage collection algorithms. This is more of what I'd like to see, however I'd prefer it even more if OCZ lowered the limits of when it would start recycling blocks in order to try and maintain good performance under heavily fragmented conditions.
TRIM is alive and well on the drive – a single TRIM pass is able to restore performance to new:
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Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Samsung 830 is "a lot" faster, see our Heavy and Light benches. In real world, you will probably not notice the difference unless you do something I/O intensive. Personally, I've been recommending both Crucial m4 and Samsung 830. Crucial is great if you want to save a few bucks but otherwise Samsung is better. I think Anand has been using the Samsung in his main system for months now and haven't had issues, so that may be a reason as well. After all, we speak based on our own experience.kristof007 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I've been looking around for articles and just looked at bench marks (ignore the M3 and Vertex 4 reviews) and it seemed like the Crucial m4 was hands down the best drive. I purchased it yesterday via Newegg for $299 (it was on sale). Sounds like I won't be disappointed.I was wondering if you guys could maybe have like a top 3 list for SSDs (or heck .. for all categories) with quick pro's and con's for what is out at the moment and what is the best one performance wise.
By the way, I haven't been reading much AT lately, but I've seen a few of your articles and would like to thank you for your work!
nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
The 830 offers up nearly the best "real world" disk busy performance in both the light and heavy benchmarks and has proven to be extremely reliable and consistent without being very expensive. The M4 is great... but a bit outdated performance-wise (not as fast as the 830).antef - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Thanks for the replies. I guess I saw them as trading places a good bit in the benchmarks, but I do see that the 830 often comes out on top. I guess I figured the performance difference is practically nil for mainstream uses and the M4 seems more highly reviewed. But the 830 has been out for less time, so that may improve over time.nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
That's just it - the differences in overall performance aren't likely to keep one awake at night. In the case of a person that has never used an SSD, just about any SSD available online today will completely shock and awe.An SSD that is 20% faster than another SSD which are both 900% faster than a 5400RPM HDD... not a big deal.
antef - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
"Shock and awe" is the correct way to describe my feelings the first time I saw Windows boot in 3 seconds. :)beginner99 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Price wise for average user the m4 is the best bang for the buck. Here its the cheapest sata-3 128 GB drive and 20$ cheaper than the Samsung. Also m4 uses less power, eg better for a laptop.ExarKun333 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
Looks like a trade-off that gave-up read performance for write performance with poor power consumption. Based on the charts, the HyperX 240GB or the Intel 520 would be better all-around options. The OCZ name also doesn't inspire a lot of confidence when it comes to reliability or support. They will really need up their game for customer service this generation to build some confidence in them.alan1476 - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
If you are not impressed by this drive the review did not do this drive justice. If someone reviews a drive especially an SSD you have to understand the inner workings and just how it applys itself to applications in the real world. This SSD is ground breaking.cknobman - Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - link
I see no Sandforce 512gb drives shown in the performance charts.Its pretty common knowledge that SSD performance goes up with capacity and showcasing the Vertex 4 512gb drive against either smaller SSD's or older controllers makes it look better than it likely is.
Did anyone notice the abysmal speeds for the 120gb model???
I also noticed pretty high power consumption.
I don't consider this review proper until you place a 2nd Gen 512gb SandForce drive in the charts to compare directly against the 512gb Vertex 4 drive.