OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD Review

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.

Mainstream SSD prices plummeted nearly 50% in the past year

Finally dipping below the heralded $1 per GB mark, it appears overall SSD prices have been on a precipitous decline over the past year. This observation comes from The Tech Report who analyzed data fromcamelegg.com, a website dedicated to tracking prices at Newegg.

Their overall findings show that Crucial, Corsair, OCZ and Samsung SSDs have been mostly in line with price cuts for their 240GB and 256GB offerings. In many cases, these SSDs have shed more than half their original cost since launch. Meanwhile, 120GB and 128GB SSDs also fell at similar although slightly more modest rates. As of the past week, many 120GB and 128GB SSDs are now hovering under the $120 mark, making them viable alternatives to traditional hard drives for a growing segment of consumers.

Despite the overall trend of falling prices, Intel has continued to treat their SSDs quite differently than competitors. Prices on Intel's drives have come down only slightly and remain stagnant for long periods of time.

Well-known industry vendors like OCZ have typically based their designs on third-party controllers, like those by Sandforce and Marvell. Many of those offerings come in 4-channel and 8-channel configurations with varying numbers of chips, typically in multiples of 8. Intel, on the other hand, is the only company I'm familiar with that offers its own proprietary controller with a 10-channel design. But, even Intel has begun using third-party controllers in some of its SSDs, so maybe we'll see better overall prices from Intel in the future.

Another statistical peculiarity are smaller and monstrously large SSDs. Drives which were 60GB or less are markedly more expensive per gigabyte -- many hit $100 for half the storage of a slightly higher priced 128GB SSDs.

Although The Tech Report doesn't touch on 480GB+ SSDs, some anecdotal price checking reveals that, overall, there is a premium to be paid for solid state drives with unusually high-capacities as well. For now, 128-256GB seems to be the sweet spot.

OCZ announces Indilinx Everest-based Petrol SSD

OCZ has announced a new 'cost-sensitive' range of solid-state drives based on the Indilinx Everest controller. Dubbed Petrol, the new series features the usual 2.5-inch form factor, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, 2xnm asynchronous MLC NAND Flash memory backed by the company's lifespan-enhancing NDurance technology, a MTBF of 1.25 million hours, TRIM support for like-new performance over time, and a three year warranty.

The Petrol SSD Series is said to deliver bandwidth of up 400 MB/s and 35,000 IOPS. Additionally, OCZ says advanced features unique to Indilinx, such as proprietary page mapping algorithms and its latency reduction technology, allow for steady mixed-workload performance and access times as low as 0.06ms.

The OCZ Petrol SSD Series will be available in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities throughout the company's global channel in the coming weeks. Although there's no mention of prices in the press release, techPowerUp says the drives have been found on pre-order going from $113 to $803.

This is OCZ's second SSD family to utilize the Indilinx Everest platform after it purchased the South Korea-based NAND flash controller maker for $32 million back in March. The first was the high-end Octane SSD, introduced in October, which has read speeds of up to 570 MB/s with up to 45,000 IOPS.

OCZ Synapse Cache SSD review

You know when the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid series launched (a standalone PCIE storage unit with both HDD and an SSD for caching), we we certainly liked very much how it speeds up the overall PC experience.

Fact remains that a 5400RPM HDD will turn away a lot of people, well that and the price of course. With that in mind your next best thing would be to follow the Intel SRT caching route. For that however you'll need a compatible motherboard with a fairly advanced installation.

But it's November 2011, OCZ has launched an alternative. While the company just released the Revodrive Hybrid, they now also launch a seriously fast SSD just for caching. Combined with their Dataplex cache application software and your own HDD, the combination could be just what you are looking for, all at a much better price as well with no limitations to your hardware setup.

See for 120 EUR you can pick up the OCZ Synapse 64GB SATA3 SSD, it's armed with a SandForce 2281 controller and the means to use it, as alongside the SSD you get to use the very same cache software layer the RevoDrive Hybrid uses, Dataplex. A cache in combination with the Synapse SSD offers read speeds of up-to 550MB/s and write performance of up-to 490 MB/sec.

So you can create your own hybrid solution now, take you own massive in size HDD and then have the SSD cache it, regardless of hardware platform (as long as you are using windows 7).

It is an interesting concept, so we'll look at the SSD as it where a single entity, and we'll obviously check out cached performance as well. Head on over to the next page where we'll startup this review.

What's that CACHE series all about ?

OCZ's recently released a PCI Express solid state drive that is based on a hybrid design which combines a regular HDD with an SSD.

You as an end-user will be able to benefit from the large storage capacities offered by today's platter-based HDD drives, as well as the high speeds and low access time provided by SSDs, as that SSD will be used as a fast memory cache for the HDD.

Intel offers fairly similar technology on their SRT supporting products and now next to the Hybrid solutions you can create a 'Hybrid' setup yourself.

All you need is a PC with a HDD, you seat this Synapse CACHE SSD next to it and then install Dataplex software that manages and functions as the cache layer. The Dataplex caching software layer is used to create an environment where the most frequently used "hot" data stays on the fast SSD, while the "cold" data remains on the larger capacity HDD (sold separately).

That means with 1st reads you are working in with HDD access times and speeds, but after that 1st run, if the data is frequently accessed, you'll see performance speedups at SSD levels.

Since the Synapse SSD is a fully fetched Sandforce 2281 based SSD it guarantees performance levels of close to 500 MB/sec on reads and writes (over SATA3). Lets have a look at some of the specs:

• Available in 64GB and 128GB capacities
• Interface: SATA 6Gbps / Backwards Compatible 3Gbps
• MLC NAND Flash
• Native TRIM support
• Integrated Dataplex™ caching software
• ECC Recovery, Data Encryption
• Slim 2.5" Design: 98 x 69.9 x 9.1 mm
• Lightweight: 79g
• Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C
• Ambient Temp: 0°C ~ 55°C
• Storage Temp: -45°C ~ 85°C
• Low Power Consumption: 2.7W Active, 1.5W Idle
• Shock Resistant up to 1500G
• Included 3.5" Desktop adapter bracket
• Compatible with Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit
• MTBF: 2 million hours
• 3-Year Warranty
• 64GB Max Performance
  Max Read: up to 550 MB/s
  Max Write: up to 490 MB/s
  Random Write 4k: 75,000 IOPS
• 128GB Max Performance
  Max Read: up to 550 MB/s
  Max Write: up to 510 MB/s
  Random Write 4k: 80,000 IOPS
• 64GB (32GB cache capacity): SYN-25SAT3-64G
• 128GB (64GB cache capacity): SYN-25SAT3-128G
   

OCZ will launch with two models, a 64 and a 128GB cache SSD version. Honestly the 64Gb version is plenty for a data-cache. Mind you though that the SSD has 64GB of NAND flash storage (25nm MLC), however the Synapse Series uses 50% NAND flash for over provisioning to accommodate performance and software features. So the reality remains that roughly 32GB is used as an actual cache and formatted as such, the rest is for redundancy and performance enhancements.

As far as performance is concerned, the model we test comes with a Max Read of up to 550 MB/s and a Max Write: up to 490 MB/s.

Now, please do understand that these are always best case scenarios and based on peak performance. Your non-cached sustained and linear writes will show a somewhat different picture. Read performance on modern age SSDs is however bitching fast alright.

We'll pair today's product with a HDD with some serious booty, the 2 TB Samsung 5400 RPM drive to see where we end up in performance.

Product showcase

The following images were taken at high-resolution and then cropped and scaled down. The camera used was a Canon 450D 12 MegaPixel.

Right, we received the retail product which can be spotted in stores as we speak. Rather standard looking packaging. OCZ includes a 3.5" bracket for easy installation in your PC 3/5" drive bay. You'll also find a manual with instruction of where to download the DataPlex software alongside with a key to bee able to use it.

And there it is, this is the 2.5" SATA III 64 GB version. You should easily be able to place it somewhere in your chassis. Small and light-weight. This drive chunks out peak read and write speeds roughly 500 MB/sec, crazy stuff. Cached the dynamic is a little different, but we'll show you all that in the benchmark suite.

 

When we look at the connectors, we spot the standard power and Serial ATA connectors. This drive is SATA3 compatible, which typically requires a specific SATA3 cable by the way. A proper SATA 6G cable is recommended and should be delivered with your motherboard. We did try, and we never ever had issues with a standard SATA2 cable either.

The unit is Sandforce 2281 based and uses Micron NAND flash modules, 25nm. And all too familiar design really. With Sandforce being sold to LSI we wonder what will happen in the future though.

Installation

On this page we want to share some thoughts on the installation.

The dynamic is really simple. you can add the SSD to an existing HDD based setup. In our case a PC with a 2TB HDD. Mind you that Windows 7 is a requirement.

If you start from a fresh install, just install the OSS on the HD just like you normally do. Once you have installed Windows you'll notice your ATA HDD drive and ATA OCZ cache drive being added. Now simply go towards disk management, the HDD is already formatted as you installed Windows on it, but you also need to make a simple standard partition on the SSD partition. After you initialized it do a quick format on the SSD partition and finish the process.

The 64GB cache drive is formatted as ~32GB drive due to over provisioning.

We now have the partitions active but do need to activate some actual caching, for that you once again need to visit the OCZ website and download DataPlex software. OCZ does not supply a CD-Rom with this software with the package. That is mildly annoying as it requires you to register with keys and everything. Once you downloaded the software, install it like shown below ...

During installation you'll see a screen like this, your target drive is the drive you want to cache thus choose the boot drive (in our case the 2TB HDD) there.

Obviously the SSD partition should be selected as cache drive. Once the process has finished you need one more reboot and you are good to go. The system is now setup to cache our 2TB drive.

In windows if you go to Start menu Dataplex and click on the icon you can quickly verify if the cache function is properly activated.

Reboot your system twice, note down the 1st boot time, and then the second boot time .. yep the actual startup time just halved itself thanks to the working data-cache. its one of the first things you'll immediately notice.

Hardware and Software Used

Now we begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system and the software we used:

Storage

OCZ Synapse cache SSD 64GB (SATA3)
Samsung 2TB HDD 5400 RPM HD204UI (SATA2)

Mainboard

X79

Processor

Into Core i7 3960X

Graphics Cards

GeForce GTX 580
 

Memory

16 GB (4x 4096 MB) DDR3 1600 MHZ

Power Supply Unit

1200 Watt

Monitor

Dell 3007WFP - up to 2560x1600

OS related Software

Windows 7 64-bit
 

Software benchmark suite

PCMark Vantage HDD test 1 through 8
ATTO Disk benchmark v2.4
SiSoft Sandra Storage Benchmark
HDTach 3.0.4.0
HDTune Pro
IOMeter 2010
AS SSD Benchmark
File COPY Write test Compressed
Crysis 2
Alien vs Predator

 

OCZ Octane SSD packs new Indilinx controller, 1TB capacity

OCZ's first solid-state drives based on the Indilinx Everest platform have been officially revealed. The new Octane series includes two models: one with a SATA 3.0 (6Gbps) interface and synchronous NAND flash delivering read speeds up to 570 MB/s and writes of 400 MB/s with up to 45,000 read IOPS using 4K blocks, while a SATA 2.0 (3Gbps) variant with asynchronous NAND can reach 275MB/s and 265MB/s read and write speeds with up to 30,000 4K random read IOPS.

But performance is just a small part of the overall Octane picture. The drives feature Indilinx's NDurance technology, which OCZ says increases the life span of NAND flash memory by as much as 2 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.

Moreover OCZ is touting access times as low as 0.06ms, a ‘Fast Boot’ technology that will supposedly deliver 50% speedier boot times compared to existing SSDs, and no data compression limitations as in SandForce-equipped models, so users can expect better performance with certain operations with media files and the like.

They'll also feature up to 512MB of DRAM cache, AES encryption, TRIM and NCQ support. In terms of storage capacity, the Octane line will include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB drives. Exact prices haven’t been announced just yet but we do know OCZ is aiming for a $1.10 to 1.30/GB price point, which means a 128GB model would sell for around $166.

OCZ agreed to purchase South Korea-based NAND flash controller maker Indilinx for $32 million back in March. The Octane series is their first SSD line to use the newly acquired company's controller technology since then, but OCZ has previously said they will continue to rely on third-party partners for some of their products.

OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB PCI-Express SSD Review

The solid-state drive market continues to grow at a rapid pace and competition is starting to heat up once again. While there was once just a few controllers worth picking from, half a dozen viable choices occupy the market now. The introduction of the Marvell 88SS9174 controller used by the Crucial RealSSD C300 stirred things up, while the recently released Samsung S3C29MAX01, used exclusively in the Samsung 470 series SSDs, provides yet another great option for consumers.

Although a lot of attention is being garnered by these new products, the majority of SSDs are still based on the renowned SandForce SF-1200 controller as it provides some of the best performance, and it's not bad in terms of pricing either.

Although there are more SandForce based drives than we care to count, the most notorious would have to be OCZ's Vertex 2. OCZ was quick to jump on the SandForce bandwagon, making the Vertex 2 among the first to ship with this controller. Since then, the company has released many products based on the SF-1200, including the RevoDrive.

First announced back in June, the original RevoDrive carried not one, but two SF-1200 controllers in RAID and boasted up to 80,000 IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second). It launched in capacities ranging from 50GB through 480GB. The 50GB model flaunted sustained data transfer speeds of 350 MB/s while sequential read speeds were claimed to be as high as 540MB/s.

As impressive as the first RevoDrive was, the follow up model we are testing today completely blows it out of the water. Less than two months ago, OCZ announced theRevoDrive X2 effectively doubling the number SF-1200 controllers used in RAID and coming in sizes from 100GB through an insane 960GB.

The additional controllers boost sustained write speeds up to 600MB/s with sequential read/write throughputs reaching 740 and 720MB/s. Moreover, the RevoDrive X2 is said to be capable of an incredible 120,000 IOPS.

Unlike traditional solid state drives, the RevoDrive X2 is a PCI-Express SSD. That means it doesn't rely on the SATA interface, making it very different from previous products that we have reviewed, so let's dive in for a closer look...

OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB in Detail

As mentioned earlier, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 is available in different capacities. We have the 240GB ($680) version, but there's also 100GB ($460), 160GB ($550), 360GB ($1,160), 480GB ($1,440) and 960GB ($3,360) models.

There's no nice way to say it: the RevoDrive X2 drives are expensive. Our 240GB review sample carries a retail tag of $680, enough to buy you two netbooks or a budget laptop with more storage capacity.

Of course, for this price you are getting four SandForce SF-1200 controllers in RAID0. By comparison four Vertex 2 60GB drives would cost at least $550 making the RevoDrive X2 240GB considerably more expensive. On the other hand, the RevoDrive offers a much more convenient way to go about RAID0. Four Vertex 2 drives require four SATA ports supporting RAID that are connected to a high performance chipset, the RevoDrive X2 simply requires a single PCI Express x4 slot.

The RevoDrive X2 is an entirely self-contained unit and this has both positive and negative angles. While it doesn't require any power or data cables, you're essentially putting all your eggs in one basket. If one of the controllers or NAND flash memory chips were to fail, the entire drive would become useless. With four separate drives, if one of them fails you need only replace the dead drive -- though, you'd likely still lose all your data if using RAID0.

In terms of performance, users are looking at a claimed read and write throughput of 740MB/s and 720MB/s for the 240GB - 960GB models. The 100GB - 160GB models claim the same impressive read performance, but writes are reduced to 690MB/s.

The four SandForce SF-1200 controllers are connected internally using the four-port Silicon Image Sil3124 RAID controller which, to our surprise, is PCI-X-based. The RevoDrive X2 can use PCIe x4 courtesy of the Pericom PCI-X to PCIe bridge chip, which converts the parallel PCI-X signaling into serial PCIe.

The advantage to using PCIe x4 opposed to the SATA interface is that it provides far more bandwidth. The Serial ATA 3Gb/s bus is only capable of connecting devices at transfer speeds of about 300MB/s. The RevoDrive X2 uses the PCI Express 4x bus which allows speeds of up to 1GB/s.

The Sil3124 controller can feed 1GB/s of bandwidth to the Pericom bridge while the PCI Express 4x bus can move up to 1GB/s of data in either direction, meaning there are no bottlenecks. Given that the RevoDrive X2 is said to max out at around 740MB/s, this configuration allows the SandForce SF-1200 controllers to perform at their fullest.

It's worth noting that when using any SSDs in RAID, the TRIM function won't work. This is true with the OCZ RevoDrive X2, which doesn't support TRIM due to its implementation of RAID0. Given that TRIM is designed to maintain optimal performance, the RevoDrive X2 must rely on idle garbage collection to retain its 'like-new' performance.

Another key aspect of the RevoDrive X2 is its ability to be used as a boot drive. Using the supplied drivers, users can allow the Windows installation to detect and install onto the RevoDrive X2 which we did successfully when testing real-world performance.

The RevoDrive X2 measures 181.07mm long x 21.59mm wide x 125.08mm high and weighs roughly 171g. The MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) has been increased to two million hours, which is considerably higher than most SSDs we've reviewed. The typical 1500g vibration resistance rating applies, while OCZ claims that the RevoDrive X2 uses just 3 watts of power at idle and 8 watts when active. OCZ backs the drive with a three-year warranty.

How We Test, System Specs

Core i7 Test System Specs
- Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (LGA1366)
- x3 2GB DDR3-1333 G.Skill (CAS 9-9-9-20)- Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- AData S596 Turbo 32GB
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
- OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB
- OCZ Onyx 64GB
- OCZ Vertex 120GB
- OCZ Vertex 2 40GB
- OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB
- Intel X25-V 40GB
- Kingston SNV425-S2 128GB
- Samsung 470 Series 256GB
- Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
- Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB
- Asus GeForce GTX 480 (1.5GB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
- Nvidia Forceware 262.99

For comparison, we included other SSDs using different controllers, such as the SandForce SF-1200, JMicron JMF616, Intel PC29AS218A, Marvell 88SS9174, Toshiba TC58NCF618GBT, Samsung S3C29MAX01 and Indilinx Amigos. Our testing suite consists of four synthetic benchmark programs and our own file copying and load time tests. In addition to our featured storage devices, the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 3.5" 7200-RPM hard drive has been included.

As you should know by now, a problem with testing SSDs is that their peak out-of-box I/O performance can diminish over time. Unlike a conventional hard drive, any write operation made to an SSD is a two-step process, first the data block must be erased and then written to. Obviously if the drive is brand new and unused there will be nothing to erase and therefore the first step can be bypassed, but this only happens once unless the drive is trimmed.

Considering this, we will test how much performance you can expect to lose from each SSD over time. We will test all drives in their clean unused state, and then run the HD Tach full benchmark several times, which fills the entire drive. This simulates heavy usage and gives us a clear indication of how performance will be affected in normal long-term use.

Benchmarks: File Copy Test

For our 6GB ISO test, we take a single large file and duplicate it on the disk measuring the time it takes using a stopwatch. The test is run three times and the average result is recorded. Generally, all three runs are pretty much identical. The above graphs show both transfer time in seconds and throughput in MB/s.

We typically find that SandForce based SSDs, such as the Vertex 2 Pro 100GB, really struggle with this test as we are working with a large compressed file. As you can see, the Vertex 2 Pro 100GB is no faster than the older Vertex 120GB.

However, the OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB was 3.4 times faster than the Vertex 2 Pro 100GB, taking only 25.7 seconds to complete. The Samsung 470 Series and Crucial RealSSD C300 represent the fastest MLC based drives we've tested, and both of took more than twice as long.

The completion time of 25.7 seconds translated to a throughput of 232.4MB/s, which is staggering compared to the Vertex 2 Pro's 67.4MB/s and even the 114-115MB/s throughput of the Samsung and Crucial drives.

The program copy test is comprised of many small non-compressed files. This is where SSDs often struggle, and early-gen drives have proven to be slower than traditional hard drives in the past. Our reference Samsung 3.5" desktop hard drive managed to complete the test in 28 seconds making it a fraction faster than the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB.

The OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB takes just 6.1 seconds, making it roughly twice as fast as the Samsung and Crucial drives. Compared to the OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB, the RevoDrive X2 240GB was 3.1 times quicker. Again we saw a sustained throughput of 232MB/s, while the Vertex 2 Pro 100GB managed just 73.7MB/s.

The game copy evaluation is comprised of a mixture of small and large files. The OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB completed this test in a blistering fast 5.1 seconds, again making it twice as fast as the Samsung and Crucial SSDs. It was also 3.6 times faster than the Vertex 2 Pro 100GB with a total throughput of 268.9MB/s.

OCZ moves to 25nm NAND flash, customers are not happy

OCZ Technology today announced it is the first solid-state drive manufacturer to complete the transition to 2Xnm NAND flash-based storage solutions. Specifically, the company is using 25nm NAND flash chips from Micron, which take up less space and allow for (eventually) larger capacity SSDs than current 34nm chips, while also costing around 10-15% less.

The smaller chips began to appear in Vertex 2 and Agility 2 drives last week, but so far there hasn't been any significant price cuts from retailers that we know of nor OCZ is making a clear distinction between 25nm and 34nm SSDs. What some unsuspecting buyers did find out, however, is that usable capacities on the newer drives have actually dropped.

Storage Reviews explains the reason behind this in a recent article and essentially it all comes down to the lifespan of 25nm chips. You see, 25nm NAND is 'good' for 3,000 write cycles, while the older 34nm NAND reaches 5,000 cycles, so to account for this drop in individual cell lifespan OCZ needs to increase the amount of reserve capacity that replaces worn sections as the drive degrades. As a result, newer drives are getting around 4-5GB less of usable storage space compared to the same models equipped with 34nm -- which is pretty critical when you are getting a 40GB boot drive.

Besides the reduction in usable storage space, the problem would get even more frustrating for customers looking to setup a RAID 0, 1 or 5 array only to find out that they have drives with mismatching capacities.

We should note that this issue is not exclusive to OCZ, and as other manufacturers start releasing 2Xnm drives we will likely see a similar drop in usable storage space to allow for warranties and expected life spans to stay the same. However, there is something to be said about the lack of transparency when it comes to usable capacity and OCZ's failure to clearly label which version you are buying -- after all, customers are getting less space for the same price and performance, while OCZ presumably nets higher profits with the reduced cost of the smaller 25nm flash.

We hope OCZ takes serious issue with this but so far the only solution offered is for displeased buyers to ship back their 25nm drive and "receive a credit towards the more expensive 32 Gbit die‐based drives.