OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive Review

[AkG]

IOMETER

IOMETER

IOMeter is heavily weighted towards the server end of things, and since we here at HWC are more End User centric we will be setting and judging the results of IOMeter a little bit differently than most. To test each drive we ran 5 test runs per HDD (1,4,16,64,128 queue depth) each test having 8 parts, each part lasting 10 min w/ an additional 20 second ramp up. The 8 subparts were set to run 100% random, 80% read 20% write; testing 512b, 1k, 2k,4k,8k,16k,32k,64k size chunks of data. When each test is finished IOMeter spits out a report, in that reports each of the 8 subtests are given a score in I/Os per second. We then take these 8 numbers add them together and divide by 8. This gives us an average score for that particular queue depth that is heavily weighted for single user environments.

<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/Vertex3/IOM.jpg" border="0" alt="" />​

Words like “best in class” and the like simply do not do justice to the Vertex 3. It is not only the best solid state drive, it is in a whole different class from previous models. The only drive which can come even close to it – and not all that close – is the Crucial C300.

 

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ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmark

The ATTO disk benchmark tests the drives read and write speeds using gradually larger size files. For these tests, the ATTO program was set to run from its smallest to largest value (.5KB to 8192KB) and the total length was set to 256MB. The test program then spits out an extrapolated performance figure in megabytes per second.

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If we thought the IOMeter performance of the Vertex 3 was insanely good for a single drive, words fail to describe exactly how impressive these results are. The Vertex 3 starts off very good and then literally explodes into the stratosphere.

 

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Vista Start Up / Adobe CS5 Load Time

Vista Start Up

When it comes to hard drive performance there is one area that even the most oblivious user notices: how long it takes to load the Operating System. While all the other tests were run with a Windows 7 operating system, this particular test uses another older test bed's “day to day” OS (copied over to our new testbed) which has accumulated a lot of crud over the months from installs and removals. We chose the Anti-Virus splash screen as our finish line as it is the last program to be loaded on start up.

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It seems like the Vertex 3 has the real world performance chops to back up its kick ass synthetic results. It has been a long time since we've seen double digit improvements in a single generation and the only thing which even remotely came close to this kind of jump was the original Vertex and its Indilinx Barefoot controller which set the storage world on fire. If we were Marvel, Intel, JMicron or any of the other controller manufactures we would be awfully, awfully worried right about now.

Adobe CS5 Load Time

Photoshop is a notoriously slow loading program under the best of circumstances, and while the latest version is actually pretty decent, when you add in a bunch of extra brushes and the such you get a really great torture test which can bring even the best of the best to their knees. Let’s see how our review unit fared in the Adobe crucible!

While the difference is not as radical as it was with system boot time, there is still a significant reduction in how long it takes for CS5 to load. To be honest, we are actually more impressed with this level of performance than we were with Windows boot time. After all, we are for the first time ever on the cusp of single digit load times for an Adobe product loaded up with a ton of custom palettes.

 

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Real World Data Transfers

Real World Data Transfers

No matter how good a synthetic benchmark like IOMeter or PCMark is, it can not really tell you how your hard drive will perform in “real world” situations. All of us here at Hardware Canucks strive to give you the best, most complete picture of a review item’s true capabilities and to this end we will be running timed data transfers to give you a general idea of how its performance relates to real life use. To help replicate worse case scenarios we will transfer a 10.00GB contiguous RAR file and a folder containing 400 subfolders with a total 12,000 files varying in length from 200mb to 100kb (10.00 GB total).

Testing will include transfer to and transferring from the devices, using MS RichCopy (set to 1 file depth) and logging the performance of the drive. Here is what we found.

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Its funny, but we really think we these numbers would even better still if it was not for the fact that our OCZ RevoDrive was slower than than the Vertex on large sequential transfer speeds. Lets just say that again: a PCI-E device with insanely good write speeds may be the bottleneck when it came to judging how fast the Vertex 3 240GB drive is in real world scenarios. This drive is simply the best we have ever seen in small and large file performance testing and has set the bar awfully darn high.

 

[AkG]

Conclusion

Conclusion

There are good solid state drives, there are great solid state drives and then there is the OCZ Vertex 3. It not only raises the bar for what a single SSD can do but this drive may actually breathe some serious excitement into the storage market. No matter what test we threw at – be it synthetic or real world – the OCZ Vertex 3 was simply in a league of its own. Some of this improvement is thanks to the wider SATA 6Gb/s bus, but even when compared to a very, very good SATA 6GB/s enabled SSD like the Crucial C300 128GB this new OCZ drive just can’t be touched.

To our way of thinking OCZ has once again proven why they are at the forefront of the Solid State Drive industry. This is one of only a handful of companies that continuously strives to innovate in the market instead of running alongside the pack. While OCZ may not always succeed, in our experience their achievements far outweigh their failures.

We dislike saying that a certain drive is “the best of the best”, especially in the fast paced SSD industry where today’s “perfect” drive may be tomorrow’s symbol of mediocrity. So rather than bestowing that somewhat hollow honor upon the Vertex 3, let’s just say that OCZ has once again produced a drive which simply redefines what we thought was possible. It really does provide a level of performance which only a few months ago would have required a pair of high performance SSDs in a RAID 0 setup.

Sadly, while experienced and educated consumers will understand the 25nm endurance "issue" on this drive is a simply a drama lama that (as Shakespeare puts it) “struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more: it is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”, there will always be those who will over react. OCZ’s near lack of an aggressive education campaign in the face of media hype has put a completely unjust mantle of inferiority on the OCZ Vertex 3 in the minds of many consumers. This is a damn shame as it is one hell of a drive. If you do pass on it because of the ill-perceived lack of longevity or performance issues associated with other 25nm NAND products, you will be overlooking one of the best SSDs on the market today. As we saw most users wouldn't even come close to scratching surface of the Vertex's endurance limits and it is vertainly not lacking in the performance department either.

All in all, we feel that the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB is a triumph of engineering which is worth every penny of its current asking price. Naturally it caters to a specific market niche but if you are in the market for a high end SSD, the buck stops here.


Pros:

- Best in class read and write performance
- Best in class real world performance
- Best in class minimum write performance
- Plenty of space for nearly any enthusiast’s needs


Cons:

- Price while good for a brand new 240GB SSD is still a lot of money
- 16GB of over-provisioning may be on the low side
- Perceived issue with 25nm longevity may hurt sales

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