Conclusion
With the mid-range SSD market in its current state of stagnation, it is becoming increasingly hard to get excited about new products. Time and again companies are launching drives that are literal clones of one another with identical controller architectures, NAND and even warranty structures. Toshiba and by extension OCZ and their new VX500 are daring to do thing differently by literally paddling upstream against the current and still finding a way to surpass their immediate competition.
Much of this success is due to the epic amount of technology both OCZ and their parent company Toshiba have living under their corporate umbrella. The VX500 is effectively able to leverage an in-house controller with mature yet still high performance NAND to create a mid-tier drive that has both endurance and what should be enduring performance metrics.
While the VX500 is not a bleeding edge SSD with an unobtanium interface or leading-edge 3D NAND, its mature planar (AKA 2D) NAND process and standard SATA 6Gbps interface are immensely beneficial. They both eliminate long-term surprises by insuring this new drive utilizes technology that is known and proven over the long term. That’s no to say we’re against 3D NAND since it is indeed the way of the future but for folks who want to avoid being potential beta testers, the VX500 may be a perfect fit.
In a perfect world SATA as a storage interface for an OS drive would have died long ago. In a perfect world every user, from the first time buyer all the way to the enthusiast, would only be using NVMe based devices to run their Operating System. We don’t live in a perfect world. Back here in the land of mortgage payments and that pesky thing called a <i>budget</i> SATA-based SSDs aren’t going anywhere for many years to come.
This however doesn’t mean that SATA drives have to be slow. Instead they simply have to be fast enough, and offer enough capacity to satisfy the mainstream consumers. This group of buyers may already have some experience with Solid State Drives and know the difference between 'fast for a hard drive' and <i>fast</i> for a SSD. For them the VX500 is tailor made for satisfying <i>every</i> need, want, and even most of their desires.
On the capacity side of the equation the majority of gamers, professionals and even regular home users will have little issue with the relatively affordable VX500 1TB. Meanwhile, many will consider the 512GB version to be downright cavernous compared to their current 200-256GB SSDs! With such reasonable asking prices for <i>both</i> the VX500 1TB and 512GB VX500 neither capacity will remotely be considered a budget buster. That’s a huge feather in this new series’ cap.
This however is only half the equation since savvy buyers will know the ins and outs of SSDs. As such, they’ll expect their drive to be as fast two years from now as the day it was first installed. Here the VX500 is also sure to satisfy as its long term, full capacity performance is extremely impressive given the way other drives in this field operate and even its partially full numbers are very good.
One area that OCZ really focused on was the VX500’s Total Byte Write rating and it shows. As I’ve said from the start of this review, there’s only so many areas mainstream SSDs can still improve within and endurance is one of them. Look no further than the VT180’s numbers –just one and a half generations removed- for an indication of how far OCZ has come in this respect.
Speaking of that VT180, the Vector 180 we’ve shown in our charts is a nearly perfect analog for it since for all intents and purposes OCZ simply rebranded their old SSD to better fit their newer branding. With that in mind this new generation is faster where it matters: in those key real world performance metrics where the rubber really meets the road. Is it a synthetic benchmark champ? Absolutely not but that’s not what Toshiba needs to compete.
Backing all of this up is one of the best, most hassle free <i>five</i> year warranties in the industry. Toshiba will not only cross ship a replacement drive, but they guarantee it will be a brand spanking new SSD rather than a 'refurbished' one. This is what RMA dreams are made of, peace of mind is almost a given and it really adds to the overall value quotient here.
To put this all in perspective, and to boil it all down to bare essentials, the Toshiba OCZ VX500 series is going to really put the screws to the competition. Even Crucial with their beastly MX300 could be in for some interesting months ahead. If you are looking for an excellent drive at a very reasonable price both the 512GB and 1TB versions of the VX500 deserve to be on your shortlist. This model easily surpasses its predecessor the Vector 180 and by extension the VT180 in every way possible.
<div align="center">
<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/VX500/dam_good.jpg" border="0" alt="" /> <img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/VX500/DGV.gif" border="0" alt="" />
</div>
Conclusion
With the mid-range SSD market in its current state of stagnation, it is becoming increasingly hard to get excited about new products. Time and again companies are launching drives that are literal clones of one another with identical controller architectures, NAND and even warranty structures. Toshiba and by extension OCZ and their new VX500 are daring to do thing differently by literally paddling upstream against the current and still finding a way to surpass their immediate competition.
Much of this success is due to the epic amount of technology both OCZ and their parent company Toshiba have living under their corporate umbrella. The VX500 is effectively able to leverage an in-house controller with mature yet still high performance NAND to create a mid-tier drive that has both endurance and what should be enduring performance metrics.
While the VX500 is not a bleeding edge SSD with an unobtanium interface or leading-edge 3D NAND, its mature planar (AKA 2D) NAND process and standard SATA 6Gbps interface are immensely beneficial. They both eliminate long-term surprises by insuring this new drive utilizes technology that is known and proven over the long term. That’s no to say we’re against 3D NAND since it is indeed the way of the future but for folks who want to avoid being potential beta testers, the VX500 may be a perfect fit.
In a perfect world SATA as a storage interface for an OS drive would have died long ago. In a perfect world every user, from the first time buyer all the way to the enthusiast, would only be using NVMe based devices to run their Operating System. We don’t live in a perfect world. Back here in the land of mortgage payments and that pesky thing called a <i>budget</i> SATA-based SSDs aren’t going anywhere for many years to come.
This however doesn’t mean that SATA drives have to be slow. Instead they simply have to be fast enough, and offer enough capacity to satisfy the mainstream consumers. This group of buyers may already have some experience with Solid State Drives and know the difference between 'fast for a hard drive' and <i>fast</i> for a SSD. For them the VX500 is tailor made for satisfying <i>every</i> need, want, and even most of their desires.
On the capacity side of the equation the majority of gamers, professionals and even regular home users will have little issue with the relatively affordable VX500 1TB. Meanwhile, many will consider the 512GB version to be downright cavernous compared to their current 200-256GB SSDs! With such reasonable asking prices for <i>both</i> the VX500 1TB and 512GB VX500 neither capacity will remotely be considered a budget buster. That’s a huge feather in this new series’ cap.
This however is only half the equation since savvy buyers will know the ins and outs of SSDs. As such, they’ll expect their drive to be as fast two years from now as the day it was first installed. Here the VX500 is also sure to satisfy as its long term, full capacity performance is extremely impressive given the way other drives in this field operate and even its partially full numbers are very good.
One area that OCZ really focused on was the VX500’s Total Byte Write rating and it shows. As I’ve said from the start of this review, there’s only so many areas mainstream SSDs can still improve within and endurance is one of them. Look no further than the VT180’s numbers –just one and a half generations removed- for an indication of how far OCZ has come in this respect.
Speaking of that VT180, the Vector 180 we’ve shown in our charts is a nearly perfect analog for it since for all intents and purposes OCZ simply rebranded their old SSD to better fit their newer branding. With that in mind this new generation is faster where it matters: in those key real world performance metrics where the rubber really meets the road. Is it a synthetic benchmark champ? Absolutely not but that’s not what Toshiba needs to compete.
Backing all of this up is one of the best, most hassle free <i>five</i> year warranties in the industry. Toshiba will not only cross ship a replacement drive, but they guarantee it will be a brand spanking new SSD rather than a 'refurbished' one. This is what RMA dreams are made of, peace of mind is almost a given and it really adds to the overall value quotient here.
To put this all in perspective, and to boil it all down to bare essentials, the Toshiba OCZ VX500 series is going to really put the screws to the competition. Even Crucial with their beastly MX300 could be in for some interesting months ahead. If you are looking for an excellent drive at a very reasonable price both the 512GB and 1TB versions of the VX500 deserve to be on your shortlist. This model easily surpasses its predecessor the Vector 180 and by extension the VT180 in every way possible.
<div align="center">
<img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/VX500/dam_good.jpg" border="0" alt="" /> <img src="http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Storage/VX500/DGV.gif" border="0" alt="" />
</div>
Last edited:
