Although SandForce controllers have powered much of OCZ's solid-state lineup, the company is shifting to its own solutions after purchasing Indilinx early last year. The "Octane" flash drives were the first to use the Indilinx Everest controller last holiday season and now that its SF-2281-based drives are over a year old, OCZ has begun phasing Everest into the rest of its offerings, including the Vertex series.

The Octane drives demonstrated impressive stability and speed, boasting read and write performance of 520MB/s and 410MB/s, which is competitive with today's high-end SATA 6Gb/s SSDs. Despite being a solid series, it hasn't been a particularly popular option among enthusiasts because of pricing. Even today, the 256GB model costs $300, while the 240GB Vertex 3 can be had for as little as $210.

Since the Octane's launch, OCZ has whipped up a second-gen Everest controller, the silicon behind the company's new Vertex 4. Despite touting more performance than the Octane series, the Vertex 4 appears to be competitively priced with existing SandForce, Samsung, and Marvell-based drives, which should make it a more viable option -- if not the de facto choice -- among high-end system builders...

OCZ Vertex 4 Series In Detail

The Vertex 4 series is aimed at performance buffs, with initial Indilinx Everest 2 based models offering capacities of 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. The drives have a slim 2.5" design, measuring 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm and weighing up to 83 grams.

Power consumption is low compared to conventional hard drives as the Vertex 4 uses just 2.5 watts when active and 1.3 watts when in standby mode. While this is less than OCZ’s claimed power rating for the Vertex 3, it's more than what Intel claims for its SSD 520 Series.

The 64GB model packs read and write speeds of 460MB/s and 220MB/s. The 128GB version is much faster with 550MB/s reads and 420MB/s writes. The 256GB and 512GB models feature the same 550MB/s reads, but writes are boosted to 465MB/s and 475MB/s, respectively.

Naturally, using the SATA 6Gb/s interface is essential to achieving these speeds. Currently Intel's Sandy Bridge platforms provide native SATA 6Gb/s support, as does the AMD AM3+ platform.

All Vertex 4 models are loaded with Intel MLC NAND (25nm) synchronous flash memory. Our review sample has sixteen 16GB Intel 29F16B08CCME3 NAND ICs for a capacity of 256GB.

Once formatted in Windows, the original 256GB is converted to 239GiB, though Windows shows this as 239GB, so it seems like 7% of the original capacity has been lost. With a current retail price of $240, the Vertex 4 256GB costs $0.93 per gigabyte, an excellent value for a high-performance SSD.

The Indilinx Everest 2 controller features a dual-core ASIC processor operating at 400MHz and is coupled with a 1GB DRAM cache. OCZ used a pair of Micron DDR3-800 512MB chips, one on either side of the PCB.

The Vertex 4 also includes features that are purportedly unique to the Indilinx controller, including latency reduction technology to enhance system responsiveness and enable instant-on boot-ups. OCZ says access times are as low as 0.02ms. A "Fast Boot’ technology supposedly delivers speedier boot times compared to existing SSDs. Couple that with no data compression limitations as in SandForce-equipped models, users can expect better performance with certain operations with media files and the like.

There's also the proprietary NDurance 2.0 technology which increases the lifespan of the NAND flash memory by as much as two times, from the 3,000-5,000 PE write cycles currently seen on 20nm-class NAND drives back to the 6,000-10,000 range we saw with 30nm-class NAND.

Despite NDurance 2.0, OCZ has only given the Vertex 4 a MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating of two million hours, identical to the Vertex 3.

Regardless of its MTBF, the Vertex 4 carries a respectable five-year warranty, which is also backed by toll-free tech support and 24-hour Web support on the OCZ forums.

The Vertex 4 drives support AES-256 and automatic encryption to secure critical data, bringing unique enterprise features within the reach of enthusiasts. Support for Background Garbage Collection, TRIM, SMART and NCQ are also present.

When measuring read performance with Atto Disk Benchmark, the Vertex 4's mid-range performance was a little sluggish. The drive started out slightly behind the HyperX 3K but fell further behind in the 2K test, further in the 8K test and further still in the 32K test, before completely recovering in the 128K test.

The Vertex 4 faced off against the HyperX 3K again when measuring write performance, starting in front to win the 1K, 2K and 8K tests, but eventually falling behind in the 32K and 128K tests.

The Vertex 4 256GB performed exceptionally well in our large compressed single file transfer test with a throughput of 205.4MB/s, making it 25% faster than the recently reviewed Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB, a SandForce SF-2281 SSD. Interestingly, the Vertex 4 delivered the same performance as the Octane 512GB in this test, while it was a fraction slower than the Samsung 830 Series 512GB.

The program copy test is comprised of many small non-compressed files (6104 files totaling 2.75GB). Again, the Vertex 4 delivers very strong performance, taking the top spot with a throughput of 212.5MB/s, nearly 5% faster than the HyperX 3K and 6% faster than the Octane.

Our game copy evaluation uses a mixture of small and large compressed and uncompressed files. For the first time, the Vertex 4 outpaced the Octane, providing 25% more throughput at 254.8MB/s. It was also 20% faster than the HyperX 3K and 13% faster than the 830 Series.

Crucial RealSSD-C300 SSD Review

Solid State Drive technology has helped transform computers into high-performance machines. Adding to the mania, 6.0-Gbps SATA-III bandwidth has cleared any bottlenecks that may have previously limited SSD speeds. Based on the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 SSD processor, the 256GB Crucial RealSSD-C300 becomes the industry's first SATA-6G consumer Solid State Drive. Likewise, the C300 is also the first SSD to use ONFI 2.1 synchronous NAND flash. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 model rated for 355/215 MBps read and write speeds using the HighPoint Rocket 620LF PCI-Express host controller.

Just over two years ago there were only five companies involved in Solid State Drive technology, and as of January 2010 there are nearly 140 names in the business. Without doubt, the SSD market has enjoyed a powerful growth period with relatively painless consumer acceptance. Benchmark Reviews has been on top of the SSD scene since retail products were first introduced at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show

In such a short amount of time, the entire SSD market has created and recreated itself several times over. Counting the generations of SSD processors has become difficult for experienced experts, and keeping-up with controller architecture has come with its own set of challenges. Benchmark Reviews has already tested dozens of Solid State Drive products, and we've seen everything from dual-SATA controllers in RAID-0 to large cache buffer modules used inside of them. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 SSD controller, which is used in the Crucial RealSSD C300 Solid State Drive by Micron Technology.

While the SSD industry grows daily, only a few select manufacturers offer popularly-accepted Flash NAND SSD controllers. The most popular consumer controllers at the moment are: Indilinx IDX110M00-FC "Barefoot", Intel PC29AS21AA0, JMicron JMF612, Toshiba T6UG1XBG, Samsung S3C29RBB01-YK40, Marvell 88SS8014-BHP2, SandForce SF-1200/1500, and now the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 SATA-III SSD controller.

EDITOR'S NOTE 04-May-2010: Crucial Technologies has released the first public firmware update (version FW0002) for the RealSSD C300 SSD series, available here. Based on our experience, this update must use IDE-mode on a SATA-3GB/s controller. The drive will not be recognized if AHCI or RAID mode is used.

About Crucial Technology

Crucial is a key brand in the Lexar Media family of products. As the Memory Experts, we're the only DRAM supplier that's part of a major memory manufacturer.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc., Lexar Media, Inc. boasts one of the most comprehensive offerings of memory product lines in the industry. We deliver high-quality, award-winning products in every memory category: USB flash drives, all popular form factors of memory cards and card readers, DRAM computer memory for PCs and Mac systems, and solid state drives (SSD). We back our products with outstanding customer support and industry-leading warranties, and we strive to expand our offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers - customers just like you.

The Lexar brand has long been synonymous with reliable, high-performance products, which is reflected in the award-winning memory products and USB flash drives sold under the Lexar name.

Our Crucial brand reflects our status as the only consumer memory upgrade supplier that's part of a major DRAM manufacturer. We sell high-quality memory that has been qualified and approved by most major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The Crucial.com website features innovative online tools and an intuitive design that makes it easy to find compatible memory and recommended upgrades. And because we carry over 250,000 upgrades for more than 40,000 systems, we've got options for nearly every system out there.

Lexar Media has more than 10 years experience in the memory industry. Our strong retail brands, along with our direct online and OEM presence, make Lexar Media a global player in every major customer channel, including value-added resellers, system builders, and e-commerce. And we've built a name synonymous with quality, innovation, and customer service.

About Micron Technology

Micron is one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions. Micron's DRAM and Flash components are used in today's most advanced computing, networking, and communications products, including computers, workstations, servers, cell phones, wireless devices, digital cameras, and gaming systems.

Solid state technology is changing the way data is stored. And, not surprisingly, Micron is a major contributor to the changing NAND landscape. From cost-effective embedded storage to high-performance client SSDs and high-endurance enterprise solutions, our RealSSD products are setting the bar high.

We're able to offer such highly tuned solid state storage because we're one of the few SSD manufacturers who also makes NAND Flash memory. Leveraging our industry-leading advanced process technologies and integration of ONFI interface standards, we're helping push storage to greater heights.

Our groundbreaking RealSSD C300 drives are the fastest client SSDs on the market. Built on our high-speed MLC NAND and the SATA 6Gb/s interface, these drives dramatically improve boot and application load times. Find out how our C300 drives can help optimize the performance of your computing applications.

Crucial RealSSD Features:

The RealSSD C300 drive was designed by Micron Technology, using the company's award-winning 34-nanometer NAND technology and a high-speed ONFI 2.1 NAND interface. Product features include:

128GB Capacity: MTFDDAC128MAG-1G1
256GB Capacity: CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1
2.5-inch form factor
SATA 6Gb/s system interface
4.3W / 94mW average power (active/standby)
Up to 355 MB/s sustained sequential read speed
Up to 215 MB/s sustained sequential write speed
1500 G/1ms shock and 2Hz to 500Hz at 3.1G vibration
0°C to +70°C temperature range
75g weight

	Features	Benefits
Capacity	C300: 128GB to 256GB	Industry standard for notebook applications
Form Factor	2.5-inch	Drop-in replacement for existing designs that use HDDs
System Interface	C300: SATA 6Gb/s	Next-generation SATA 6Gb/s provides ultra-high bandwith for unprecedented performance
Average Power (active/standby)	C300: 3.9W / <100mW	Improves battery life and heat dissipation
Sustained Sequential Read/Write Speeds	C300: up to 355 MB/s read and 215 MB/s write	Improves operating system boot and application load times
Shock and Vibration	1500 G/1ms shock 2Hz to 500Hz at 3.1G vibration	Absence of any moving parts enables reliable operation in the most demanding environments
Temperature Range	0°C to +70°C	Ideal for rugged environments
Weight	2.5-inch: 75g	Lighter than HDDs, making them better for portable applications

MTFDDAC256MAG Specifications:

Micron MLC NAND Flash
RoHS-compliant package
SATA 6Gb/s interface
ATA modes supported
- PIO mode 3, 4
- Multiword DMA mode 0, 1, 2
- Ultra DMA mode 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Industry-standard, 512-byte sector size support
Hot-plug capable
Native Command Queuing support with 32 command slot support
ATA-8 command set compliant
ATA security feature command set and password login support
Secure erase (data page) command set: fast and secure erase (clear, sanitize)
Self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology (SMART) command set
Performance:
- PCMark Vantage (HDD test suite score): 45,000 (SATA 6Gb/s), 35,000 (SATA 3 Gb/s)
- Sequential READ: up to 355 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s), up to 265 MB/s (SATA 3 Gb/s)
- Sequential WRITE: up to 215 MB/s (140 MB/s for 128GB drive)
- Random 4k READ: up to 60,000 IOPS (SATA 6Gb/s), up to 50,000 IOPS (SATA 3 Gb/s)
- Random 4k WRITE: up to 45,000 IOPS (30,000 IOPS for 128GB drive)
- READ latency: 55μs (TYP SATA 6Gb/s), 70μs (TYP SATA 3 Gb/s)
- WRITE latency: 60μs (TYP SATA 6Gb/s), 95μs (TYP SATA 3 Gb/s)
Reliability
- MTBF: TBD
- 3-year warranty
- Static and dynamic wear leveling
- Field-upgradable firmware
- Uncorrectable bit error rate (UBER): <1 sector per 1015 bits read
- Low power consumption
Endurance: Total bytes written (TBW) - 72TB
Mechanical
- SATA connector: 5V ±5%
- 2.5-inch drive: 100.45mm x 69.85mm x 9.5mm
- Weight: 75g (MAX)
Capacity (unformatted): 128GB, 256GB
Operating temperature: Commercial (0°C to +70°C)

First Look: Crucial RealSSD

Micron Technology, the parent company behind the Lexar and Crucial brands, has a long history of product development. Manufacturers will often dress-up their new product to help them sell, but consumers shouldn't get caught-up in the flashy stickers or packaging because they drop out of sight soon enough. When it comes to notebook computer drives consumers need to remember that once installed, that SSD gets hidden away from view and forgotten.

Because this is a premium-priced Solid State Drive storage device with no moving parts, it takes some extra attention towards product presentation to keep consumers feeling comfortable with their high-dollar purchase. To this extent Crucial has pulled out all the stops, and delivered their new RealSSD-C300 in my favorite color combination: black and yellow. This takes me back to my childhood when I would watch stock-car races and cheer for the machine painted with these same colors. Hopefully Crucial's RealSSD-C300 will be just as fast.

In addition to notebook and desktop computer installations, the 256GB Crucial RealSSD-C300 MLC SSD could also be utilized for mission-critical backups or high-abuse data systems; but its real focus is on high-performance data transfer speeds. Although the Micron CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 model does not offer an integrated USB Mini-B port, there is a USB-to-SATA (and SATA power) adapter for making this into a portable backup storage device. Honestly, this should be standard equipment for all SSD storage products, and I'm happy to see Crucial lead by example.

Standard 2.5" drive bay mounting points are pre-drilled and threaded into the Crucial RealSSD-C300, which allows for quick upgrade or addition into any existing notebook or desktop system. The mounting positions matched up to the drive bracket on my notebook computer, and after only a few minutes of drive cloning I was quickly loading the Windows O/S.

Unlike most Hard Disk Drive (HDD) storage products, SSDs are nearly impervious to impact damage and do not require (or benefit from) any kind of special vibration dampening or shock-proof enclosures. Crucial utilizes a textured metal enclosure for their CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 model, which reveals the internal components after removing just four small counter-sunk Phillips-head screws from the top side. The Crucial RealSSD-C300 has a warranty-void sticker along the seam, and removing the enclosure cover will remove consumer protection with it. Benchmark Reviews will reveal all of the internal components on our next section anyway, so just be patient.

Thanks to a new SATA-III Marvell 88SS9174 controller architecture (detailed in the next section), the Crucial RealSSD-C300 Solid State Drive offers outstanding transfer speeds for high-performance enthusiasts. Now that you're acquainted with the basic exterior features for this 256GB C300 SSD, it's time to peek inside the metal enclosure and inspect the internal components...

Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 SSD Controller

Micron utilizes the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 Solid State Drive controller inside their 256GB Crucial RealSSD-C300 SSD, model CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1. While the SSD industry grows daily, only a few select manufacturers offer popularly-accepted Flash NAND SSD controllers. The most popular consumer controllers at the moment are: Indilinx IDX110M00-FC "Barefoot", Intel PC29AS21AA0, JMicron JMF612, Toshiba T6UG1XBG, Samsung S3C29RBB01-YK40, Marvell 88SS8014-BHP2, SandForce SF-1200/1500, and now the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 SATA-III SSD processor introduced by Crucial.

In most respects, the new Marvell SSD circuit board follows the design of several past products. Illustrated from the top-view image above, you'll notice that the printed circuit board (PCB) utilizes a dense component layout for the Micron flash NAND modules and Marvell 88SS9174 SSD-controller with few electronics filling the remaining area. Marvell's 88SS9174 SATA-III SSD processor is joined by up to sixteen flash NAND modules (Micron 0AB12 used here), and a single DRAM chip for buffered transactions. Although only a 256GB capacity has been revealed for the Crucial RealSSD-C300, anything is possible as demand grows for more storage space.

The Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 processor used in this architecture was taken from the Crucial RealSSD-C300 Solid State Drive model CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1. The Marvell 88SS9174 supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) with 32 command slots. Similar to other modern SSD controllers, the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 processor was built to support native TRIM and Secure Erase commands. Additionally, the Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) command set is also supported on the Crucial RealSSD-C300.

Bandwidth estimates for the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 SSD controller claim speeds up to 355 MB/s read-from and 215 MB/s write-to, however these are dependant on the flash-NAND and DRAM buffer used (the Crucial RealSSD-C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 is referenced here).

Since Crucial is a Micron brand, it's not surprising to see Micron NAND used in the RealSSD-C300 Solid State Drive. The flash NAND used on the CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 (256GB) model are built with 34-nanometer technology and utilizes Micron's high-speed ONFI 2.1 NAND interface for 166 MT/s with 512-byte industry standard sector size. Each 32GB NLC NAND module requires 3.3V, and is marked as OAB12 NW172 (Micron part MT29F32G08CBABBWP-12).

The ONFI 2.1 specification pushes NAND performance levels into a new performance range: 166 MB/s to 200 MB/s. This new specification is the first NAND specification to specifically address the performance needs of solid-state drives to offer faster data transfer rates in combination with other new technologies like SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0 and PCI Express Gen2.

The 128MB Micron OAD12-D9LGQ DDR DRAM module offers decent cache performance for fast transaction buffering, which will become more important as SATA-III 6.0Gbps transfers are observed.

While the Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 processor is an ambiguous component, we respect that our sample came inside the Crucial RealSSD-C300 series. Please continue on for details and performance results for this Solid State Drive..