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OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD Review

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AkG

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OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD Review





Manufacture Page:
Vertex
Part Number: 120GB- OCZSSD2-1VTXEX120G
TechWiki Info: Vertex - Features, Specs, Images, Videos, and Reviews - TechWiki
Price: Click Here to Check Prices
Warranty: 3 years


Recently we had the pleasure to review the G.Skill Falcon SSD and walked away pretty impressed. By what some would call a cruel twist of fate, we reviewed the last generation of drives by G.Skill (the Titan) and its OCZ counterpart (the OCZ Apex) in a one-two fashion. As with most things in life, the truth is stranger than fiction as less than a week after receiving the Falcon SSD, OCZ approached us to review their Vertex. Since we so thoroughly enjoyed testing and using the Falcon, we decided that the fates had preordained this and gladly accepted the offer.

In the last go around, we found both the Titan and Apex drives to be vastly improved upon the previous generation but still hobbled by J-Micron controllers. In this generation neither the Falcon nor Vertex drive suffer from that hobbled controller and are supposed to make for a very persuasive argument against an Intel X-25M. As we mentioned in the Falcon review the original Vertex series did ship with an earlier version of Indilinx DX110 controller in this particular drive, this may be the same as saying an i7 920 D0 is the same as a i7 920 C0/C1 stepping. Honestly, it may just be a big enough a difference to differentiate them come crunch time. Of course, we also mused that OCZ probably had also moved over to the newer revision of the Indilinx controller and we will be paying close attention to this and any other developments which pop up.

To keep things as up to date as possible, the very first thing we will do is make sure this Vertex is running the newer 1.3 firmware and not an earlier version. By the same token we will not be running any later beta firmware and will stick to “official firmware”. The Vertex goes for about $393 and is available in retailers and e-tailers alike, though we have seen it on sale for less recently. As with the last OCZ drive we reviewed, the biggest question does concern Value. We already know how good the Indilinx controller is and we know that in theory the Vertex 120 should perform a lot like the Falcon as the 1.3 firmware revision is more about bug fixes rather than performance enhancements. Will this OCZ Vertex meet and exceed our expectations or will it be hard to justify going with the original when other competition’s versions of basically the same SSD are a better value? We will endeavor to do our best to answer these and many other questions in this review.

OCZ_Vertex_vertexex_back_b.jpg

 
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AkG

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Specifications

Specifications


<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/Vertex120/OCZ_Vertex_spec.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
 
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AkG

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Packaging and Accessories

Packaging and Accessories


OCZ_Vertex_box_front_sm.jpg

Unlike the Apex SSD, this drive’s packaging is all business, and there is no “fun loving” orange or other “interesting” colours to be found on this wee beastie. The Vertex comes in a black and white colour scheme which for good long time have been the colours of enthusiast grade drives. If this colour scheme is not to your liking you really have to go and argue it with Western Digital who cemented BLACK = enthusiast/power drives, and we think it is good that OCZ followed suite. Water is wet, the sky is blue and arse kicking fast drives are black editions…why try to remake and rebrand what has worked very well for others in the past?

OCZ_Vertex_box_bac_sm.jpg

In this day and age you can’t just have the best of the best, people NEED to know that you are the best and immediately think of YOUR product IP when they think “fast SSD”. We all know this is going to be a very good drive but if you are not “in the know” you just need to look at this box and it will hit you at the visceral level, even when compared to other similarly spec’ed drives from the competition. To us this instant recognition does set the Vertex apart from a market which may just start to get crowded. Product branding is one area where OCZ dominates the market (even when compared to Intel) and you have to give those OCZ marketing masters a nod of respect for knocking another one out of the park.

OCZ_Vertex_box_open_sm.jpg

After admiring the good looks of the box and checking to see that yes its not just a pretty face but does have all the necessary information on the back, we ripped it open and discarded it….as is the curse of any good package: it does its job and is then forgotten at the conscience level.

When you too rip open your Vertex package and remove the interior box you may notice a slight difference between it and the Apex line. Unlike the Apex which was housed in a protective high density foam container on all sides, the Vertex sits in high density foam but the top “flap” is thicker, hollow and made from cardboard and the bottom is just plain old cardboard. This is overprotection at its best folks.

OCZ_Vertex_access_sm.jpg

The list of accessories is about what we expected and unfortunately no right angle locking SATA cable (or any cable for that matter) was included. In a nut shell you get an instruction pamphlet….and that is it. We were disappointed that OCZ did not chose to include a jumper for firmware upgrades, nor instructions on how (or even where to get) firmware upgrades. Heck, we know the TRIM program (aka wiper.exe) is still in beta…but it would have been nice to have had it at least preloaded on the drive if a mini-CD is too costly for OCZ’s bottom line.
 
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AkG

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First Impressions

First Impressions


OCZ_Vertex_top_sm.jpg
OCZ_Vertex_bottom_ang_sm.jpg

As with the Apex OCZ SSD we reviewed recently this drive's all metal cover is done in a striking black and silver colour scheme. As mentioned in that review, the base of the unit is denude of paint and thus “silver” though one could argue it’s a black and nude colour scheme. The “top” label is done in the same bold and aggressive colour scheme which is used on the package it came in, but unlike the Apex which was also consistent with its colour scheme, it really does work well here and we have no complaints about its looks. An expensive, fast drive should look expensive and fast.

OCZ_Vertex_bottom_sm.jpg

Flipping the drive over we see the typical all white information label with black lettering. As with all SSDs this label is crammed full of useful information. The biggest of these is the .35A draw off the 5 volt line or to be more precise this version of the Indilinx 12xGB SSD uses a full .2A less than the G.Skill Falcon at peak. We are not sure if this is a typo, the Falcon’s number was a typo, G.Skill is being more conservative and overestimating the power draw…or even if OCZ has somehow worked a miracle and lowered the voltage requirement by 40%.

OCZ_Vertex_jumper_sm.jpg

The only other notable feature is the dual pin jumper located next to the SATA data and power ports. As we stated in the Falcon review, jumping these pins with the jumper (which is not included) allows you to update the firmware of your drive, though this is mainly for major revisions rather than incremental.

To update to the 1.1 firmware from a previous version requires the jumper to be in place BUT to go from 1.1 to 1.3 you need only run a DOS-based updater (there is no official 1.2 firmware revision). We highly recommend making sure you are running the latest firmware for the Vertex as earlier versions were lacking in certain regards.

When it comes to the looks of this drive there’s not much to dislike. It’s sexy as hell in its black and silver motif; and more importantly, this really is a fitting colour scheme for such a powerful SSD. Though as good looking as this drive is (and to play devil’s advocate for a moment) we have seen little to prove why you should purchase the OCZ branded drive over the competition's version. The quicker release of the 1.3 firmware does seem to help justify the added expense somewhat, but lets see if there are any conclusive reasons to chose one version of the barefoot controller SSD over another.
 
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AkG

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Interior Impressions

Interior Impressions


Before we continue: Please remember that opening any SSD will effectively void your warranty.

OCZ_Vertex_void_sm.jpg

To open the Vertex up you have to remove four screws, and a single sensible precautionary “warranty void” sticker to get at one of the screws.

OCZ_Vertex_top_off_sm.jpg
OCZ_Vertex_board_bac_sm.jpg

Even on just a quick glance at the board one can easily distinguish this board from the Falcon's, as this is green PCB and the Falcon was blue. However, when you take a close look….it as Yogi Berra once said "This is like déjà vu all over again." as this is the exact same layout as the Falcon. At one end you have the data and power ports (and the ingenious jumper pins), then the RAM and Barefoot controller slightly in from it followed by your typical double row of flash chips, with another double row of 4 on the other side. In grand total you have 16 flash chips, one RAM chip and one Indilinx Barefoot controller chip….just like the G. Skill Falcon.

OCZ_Vertex_controller_sm.jpg

The I/O controller chip is of course none other than the Indilinx “Barefoot” IDX110 controller. This is the secret sauce that made the Vertex famous and we are happy to report that unlike earlier drives, this Vertex came with the Indilinx IDX110M00-LC (with emphasis on the LC) and not the older -FC. It seems our hunch on the -FCs version being phased out and ALL Vertex’s (EX or not) having the newer chip was correct.

The Indilinx IDX110 is an ARM based controller with native SATA 3.0Gb/s, supports capacities of up to 512GB, is rated for speeds of 230MB/Sec read and 190MB/s writes. Also and just as importantly unlike the JMicron line of controllers this bad boy also supports up to 64MB of RAM for stutter free operation. On paper this is certainly a potent brew and we are itching to see how it fares in both the synthetic and real world tests.

OCZ_Vertex_ram_sm.jpg

The Ram which helps the Barefoot go stutter free is made by Elpida. To be specific this single 64MB SDRAM chip is S51321CBH-6DTT-F, though the actual Elpida part number is the EDS51321CBH-M-F. This ram chip is rated to run at 166MHZ at CL3 and is rated for an operating temperature range of 20°C to 85°C. Or as is becoming a regular theme…it’s the exact same Ram chip as we found in the Falcon.

OCZ_Vertex_flash2_sm.jpg
OCZ_Vertex_flash_sm.jpg

The MLC NAND chips used in the Vertex are Samsung K9HCG08U1M-PCB0. Once again we, using the online Samsung model decoder we can see these chips are 48 pin 3bit MLC Quad Die Package, 1st gen lead free (ROHS compliant), 2.7V ~ 3.6V, 25 nanosecond NAND chips which operate with Dual nCE (Dual Chip Enable control) & Dual R/nB (Dual Ready/Busy Output). This model is rated at a density of 64Gbits or 8GB per chip and a operating temperature range of 0° to 70°C. Above the model number (and as stated earlier) we can see these were made in the 10th week of 2009 and below it we can see the batch number “CAL37102” (or at least what we assume is the batch number but is describe by Samsung vaguely as “Customer List Reference” only). However, the chips on the backside of the board were made earlier in the 7th week of 2009, but are the exact same model. While we prefer to see all the chips be from the same batch this is obviously not the case with this particular Vertex. It will be interesting to see if these slight differences in batches will have any effect on the performance of the Vertex versus the G. Skill Falcon.

After looking long and hard at all the parts the only difference between the Vertex and the previously reviewed G. Skill Falcon is...nothing. Needless to say, we will be very surprised if this drive performs drastically different than the Falcon and most likely and minor variations will be due to slight variances from batch to batch found in all modern manufacturing process. We have to admit that our intial displeasure over the missing jumper has dissipated like the summer sun hitting morning dew.
 
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AkG

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TRIM, Firmware Updates and MORE!

TRIM and Firmware Update


header_light.jpg


At this time the firmware your Vertex will have is a bit of a dog’s breakfast and really depends on when it was manufactured. Our particular Vertex came with the lasted version of Indilinx controller chip but only version 1.1 (1370) firmware installed. We strongly recommend you check what version your new Vertex firmware is and if necessary update it to 1.1 (1370) and then to 1.3. Versions before 1.1 do not support the TRIM command and while there was an earlier beta “hot rodded” firmware the trade off in a bit of theoretical speed for no TRIM support is not worth it. To update your firmware to 1.1 we recommend you follow this link and read the official guide carefully. After reading that guide but BEFORE following it we also recommend you follow this link and read that it can take up wards of 30 minutes to flash. If you think it has hung….give it more time! If you do reboot or power down the system during this process your drive will be dead!. Period.

After you have successfully installed the 1.1 firmware, the 1.3 update is a breeze.

flashing_4_sm.jpg


TRIM Program


The official thread for the TRIM program can be found here. It contains a lot of information regarding the program itself as well as useful tips and tricks. We recommend you also stop by from time to time as the wiper.exe program is still beta and is being updated, tweaked and all round fine tuned before it becomes official.

trim_sm.jpg

To run the wiper program, the best thing is to have the Vertex be the OS drive and drive 0. To properly run, it needs the Vertex to be Drive 0 but it seemed more hit or miss when it was a data (aka D drive). Since using a Vertex (or any SSD) as a pure data drive is a little unlikely, this caveat is a minor one to say the least. The only other restriction is at this time it will not work on drives which have been placed in RAID.

To run it all you need to do is double click the wiper.exe file. It should be located at the root folder. When you double click it a DOS window opens up and asks you if your are sure you want to continue. Press Y for yes and N for no. Just remember, this is NOT going to wipe all your data; it is more like an old-fashioned disk defragmentation program. If you have made multiple partitions, you need not worry about running it for each partition as the program is smart enough to look for ALL Vertex drives and run it on all “drives”. While we only have one Vertex to play with we assume that as long as you have not RAID’ed multiple drives it will wipe any and all it can find. If you have multiple non Vertex drives you need not worry as it will simply tell you it can not run on XYZ drive and then continue on looking for the Indilinx based one, find it, clean it and then finish.

We think this program is a game changer as it (in a nutshell) does an erase on all the cells which have marked as not in use BUT have been used (i.e. marked by the controller as containing deleted information) and thus frees up these blocks of cells which could have required a slow erase to happen in real time before they could be used for new data. In a perfect world as data is marked as deleted the SSD controller would in fact delete just the data in that cell and that would be that. Unfortunately, SSDs do not work that way as they can erase only at the BLOCK level and not the individual cell level (or group level and not the individual level). So what happens is the controller just marks it and leaves it and then continues on using up fresh blocks of cells until there are no fresh blocks left. It does this even when not all the cells in a given block are used for a write.

When all the fresh cells are gone and there are only partially full cells left, things get dicey. IF the data which is to be written is small there is no problem; however when it is large enough to use not only the fresh cells in the block but also the ones marked as used (but not IN use) the drive can become very slow. As we said, the controllers can only erase at the block level and not the cell level so in order to write fresh data so it first has to move the ENTIRE BLOCK into memory and then ERASE the entire block, put the data back in and then write in the new data. Needless to say, this is a very slow process and since it happens in real time it can cause stuttering.

Indilinx-logo.jpg


This is where TRIM and by extension the wiper.exe work around comes in. An Indilinx drive works just like all the others and merrily goes along labeling cells as used and using fresh blocks until it runs out. HOWEVER, before it runs out you can run this simpl little program and it will go through the drive block by block erasing and moving until all the blocks are either being used or are clean again and ready for fast access. Samsung SSDs cannot do this, Intel SSDs can't either; only INDILINX SSDs can. As we have said in the past, this is not a true TRIM program because you have to manually run it from time to time BUT if you do your drive will never become slow. It is for this simple reason we put little to no faith in testing Indilinx SSDs in their "used" state (ie no free blocks) as it is naive at best to think you will never run this program.

For a more in depth look at TRIM and how SSDs work Anadtech has a great article which you can read here (we have taken the time to fast forward to the longer explanation of what we are talking about with "used" blocks).

As we said, this is beta software coupled with new firmware and while the chances of data loss are slim, you should be aware of this possibility. If you are using a 64bit OS you may wish to wait a bit longer for results to trickle in on the newly released version by more "energetic" free beta testers. OCZ states the recently released 0525 is supposedly 100% safe on 32bit OSes and basically 90% on 64bit...but it still is BETA and thus is still risky!

Here is the is the reason why the original version was causing problems and what OCZ engineers have done to work around the issue:
“The reason why user data got corrupted was some device drivers (eg. Intel Matrix Storage) sent only 28bit LBA address to SSD while Wiper sent 48bit LBA address. Complete solution is not implemented yet, but this version has some avoidance code... In other words, performance may not be restored, but user data will be more likely to be preserved.”

While there have been some articles lately which ignore the TRIM program and dismiss it as nothing more than a defragmentation program, we can tell you from first hand expereice that this program does work. It restored all lost speed to the drive after we had finished torturing it with IOMeter. With Crystal DiskMark the scores were down right abysmal after running the benchmark, but after running the wiper program they were right back up where they were before….like nothing had happened.


Useful S.M.A.R.T. Information


SMART_VTX_sm.jpg

While we refuse to comment on why anyone would overlook such a powerful tool as the wiper.exe program, we can see a reviewer wanting to level the playing field and ignore it. However, as this review was being updated to included 1.3 firmware testing OCZ and Indilinx pulled another big rabbit out of their hat....heck this rabbit is a Flemish Giant of a "rabbit".

The biggest concern everyone has with SSDs is their inability to "know" how long the cells will last (and thus how long the DRIVE itself will last). Well, with Indilinx SSDs you no longer have to wonder! For the first time that we are aware of, you can not only find out how much "life" is left in the drive (in percentage of expected lifespan) but also the average erase count for the cells.

While the life expectancy is just an estimate (though one based on more acurate data than before) the average erase count tells you exactly how many times the cells as a whole have been used (remember that reading has for all intents and purposes NO effect on the life span of SSDs; its the number of erase cycles which are important). Which makes this ability even better is the fact that you do not need any proprietary software, all you need is a SMART reading program which can display the various SMART IDs. In the case of OCZ they use the example of CrystalDiskInfo.

vertex_smart_sm.jpg


As you can see in the above picture the Vertex spits out a whole bunch of data; of this data, D0 (AKA Spin Buzz) and D1(Offline Seek Performance) are the important ones. D0 is the Average Erase Count for the cells (in our case 74), and D1 is drive life left in % based upon the erase count (which in our case is 100%). This second number will give you a very good ball park estimate on how the cells look. While you can argue for and against the wiper.exe program being a game changer; you can not argue that this is not one. This literally gives you a powerful early warning system for your drive....something that a standard HDD can NOT give you.

Backing this up is the fact that OCZ recently announced that their Vertex drives now (retroactively) come with THREE year warranties. Which is the exact same as most HDDs. Amazing job OCZ; simply bloody amazing.

For more information on this here is a direct link to the OCZ forum thread which goes into greater detail: Guide: Crystaldiskinfo has some secrets to tell
 
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AkG

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Testing Methodology

Testing Methodology


Testing a hard drive is not as simple as putting together a bunch of files, dragging them onto folder on the drive in Windows and using a stopwatch to time how long the transfer takes. Rather, there are factors such as read / write speed and data burst speed to take into account. There is also the SATA controller on your motherboard and how well it works with SSDs to think about as well. For best results you really need a dedicated hardware RAID controller w/ dedicated RAM for SSDs to shine. Unfortunately, most people do not have the time, inclination or monetary funds to do this. For this reason our testbed will be a more standard motherboard with no mods or high end gear added to it. This is to help replicate what you the end user’s experience will be like.

Even when the hardware issues are taken care of, the software itself will have a negative or positive impact on the results. As with the hardware end of things, to obtain the absolute best results you do need to tweak your OS setup; however, just like with the hardware solution most people are not going to do this. For this reason our standard OS setup is used. However, except for the XP load test times we have done our best to eliminate this issue by having the drive tested as a secondary drive. With the main drive being a WD 320 single platter drive.

For these tests we used a combination of the ATTO Disk Benchmark, HDTach, HDTune, Cystal Disk Benchmark, h2benchw, SIS Sandra Removable Storage benchmark, and IOMeter for synthetic benchmarks.

For real world benchmarks we timed how long XP startup took, Adobe CS3 (w/ enormous amounts of custom brushes installed) took, how long a single 4GB rar file took to copy to and then from the hard drives, then copy to itself. We also used 1gb of small files (from 1kb to 20MB) with a total 2108 files in 49 subfolders.

For the temperature testing, readings are taken directly from the hottest part of the drive case using a Digital Infrared Thermometer. The infrared thermometer used has a 9 to 1 ratio, meaning that at 9cm it takes it reading from a 1 square cm. To obtain the numbers used in this review the thermometer was held approximately 3cm away from the heatsink and only the hottest number obtained was used.


Please note to reduce variables the same XP OS image was used for all the hard drives.

For all testing a Gigabyte PA35-DS4 motherboard was used. The ICH9 controller on said motherboard was used.

All tests were run 4 times and average results are represented.

Processor: Q6600 @ 2.4 GHZ
Motherboard: Gigabyte p35 DS4
Memory: 4GB G.Skill PC2-6400
Graphics card: Asus 8800GT TOP
Hard Drive: 1x WD 320
Power Supply: Seasonic S12 600W Performance Testing

SSD FIRMWARE (unless otherwise noted):
G. Skill Titan: 0955
G.Skill Falcon: 1571 (AKA FW 1.3)
OCZ Apex: 955
OCZ Vertex: 1.3

Please note: The "G.Skill 64GB" listed in some of the graphs (the one with incomplete data) is the very first SSD we here at HWC reviewed. It does not have a name but its model number is FS-25S2-64GB and here is a link to our review of it.
 
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Read Bandwidth / Write Performance

Read Bandwidth


For this benchmark, HDTach was used. It shows the potential read speed which you are likely to experience with these hard drives. The long test was run to give a slightly more accurate picture.

We don’t put much stock in Burst speed readings and this goes double for SSD based hard drive. The main reason we include it is to show what under perfect conditions a given drive is capable of; but the more important number is the Average Speed number. This number will tell you what to expect from a given drive in normal, day to day operations. The higher the average the faster your entire system will seem.


OCZ_Vertex_read.jpg


While we were expecting to see uber high results, the Vertex numbers still made us smile. There is no getting around it: the Indilinx barefoot controller is a real beast! While these numbers are slightly lower than the G.Skill Falcon this could easily be attributed to slight variations in the chips or even small tweaks OCZ has done to the 1.3 firmware. In either case we consider the Vertex and Falcon to be tied for first and strongly recommend you do the same as these numbers are just too darn close to call and well within the margin of error.


Write Performance


For this benchmark HD Tune Pro was used. To run the write benchmark on a drive, you must first remove all partitions from that drive and then and only then will it allow you to run this test. Unlike some other benchmarking utilities the HD Tune Pro writes across the full area of the drive, thus it easily shows any weakness a drive may have.

While most OS drives spend most of their times reading and not writing, the write speed of the drive does have a big impact on the stutter issue and how fast the drive feels.


OCZ_Vertex_write.jpg


Now this is interesting. Not only is the Vertex slightly better than the Falcon it also produced a much smoother peak and valley looking performance graph, with fewer dips and each of those dips only hitting the low 140s (vs. the Falcons more prevalent highs and lows and thus more dips which all hit in the mid 130s). What ever the reason, be it firmware tweaks or just variances in the chips, the Vertex seems to have a much more refined and polished performance presentation. Needless to say, these numbers destroy all the competition and set the bar even higher than it was before.
 
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Crystal DiskMark

Crystal DiskMark


Crystal DiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your hard drives. Currently, the program allows to measure sequential and random read/write speeds; and allows you to set the number of tests iterations to run. We left the number of tests at 5. When all 5 tests for a given section were run Crystal DiskMark then averages out all 5 numbers to give a result for that section.

Read Performance


<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/Vertex120/OCZ_Vertex_CDM_read.jpg" border="0" alt="" />

As we saw with HDTach, the read speeds of the Vertex are once again slightly lower than the Falcon….in 2 out of 3 of the tests but in the other one (the most important one for OS drives) it beats the Falcon. Maybe tweaking the small file speed higher requires the reads on bigger chunks of data to be slightly lowered? If so we think OCZ made the right call as small files are what the OS will spend most of its time reading. When you look at the other read performance numbers, the Vertex has nothing to be ashamed of as these are very, very good as well and are also right up there with the best in class.

Write Performance


<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/Vertex120/OCZ_Vertex_CDM_write.jpg" border="0" alt="" />

Interestingly enough, the write speeds of the Vertex are actually lower than the Falcon. It may have to do with how Crsytal DiskMark executes its tests as we saw the exact opposite with HD Tune Pro. It appears that all Indilinx based SSD eat the Intel X-25M for lunch on medium and big chunks of data but lose (badly) on the ultra important 4K file write test. On the bright side, 11MB/s and higher is nothing to be ashamed of and is down right impressive when compared against everything but the Intel X-25. Bravo OCZ for having the foresight and fortitude to go and find Indilinx and use them in your flagship product.
 
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Random Access Time / SIS Sandra

Random Access Time


To obtain the absolute, most accurate Random access time, h2benchw was used for this benchmark. This benchmark tests how quickly different areas of the drive’s memory can be accessed. A low number means that the drive space can be accessed quickly while a high number means that more time is taken trying to access different parts of the drive. To run this program, one must use a DOS prompt and tell it what sections of the test to run. While one could use “h2benchw 1 -english -s -tt "harddisk test" -w test” for example and just run the seek tests, we took the more complete approach and ran the full gamout of tests and then extracted the necessary information from the text file. This is the command line argument we used “h2benchw 1 -a -! -tt "harddisk drivetest" -w drivetest”. This tells the program to write all results in english, save them in drivetest txt file, do write and read tests and do it all on drive 1 (or the second drive found, with 0 being the OS drive).

OCZ_Vertex_random.jpg


WOW. What else can you say when you look at a random access this low! As we said in the Falcon review; 0.10 versus 0.09 is so close as to be considered a tie and that really is saying something. To us the Indilinx-based SSD’s and the Intel X-25M are the drives to beat and have set the bar so high it’s in the metaphorical equivalent of the “nosebleed” section of the ballpark.

SIS Sandra


This test was run with the removable storage benchmark in Sandra XII Standard. All of the scores are calculated in operations per second and have been averaged out from the scores of 4 test runs.

OCZ_Vertex_sis.jpg


As we said before, both the Vertex and Falcon are of the same breed and thus their performance is virtually identical. That being said, the Vertex shows itself to be one hell of a drive once again.
 
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