SSD by stefan @ 2012-10-15
The Vertex 4 SSD from OCZ no longer uses a SandForce processor, but an Indilinx Everest 2 one, meaning that we do not longer have a lot of space used for over-provisioning and we should not have performance drops when using incompressible data. OCZ have also fine-tuned the firmware so performance delivery is different after the drive has been filled over 50% of it's total storage capacity.
At first I would like to thank OCZ for offering a sample of their Vertex 4 128GB SATA III SSD for testing and reviewing.
"Founded in 2002, San Jose, California-based OCZ Technology Group, Inc. has built on its expertise in high-speed memory to become a dominant player in the manufacturing and distribution of solid state drives (SSDs), a disruptive, game-changing technology that is replacing traditional rotating magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs). SSDs are faster, more reliable, run cooler, and use significantly less power than the HDDs used in the majority of computers today. In addition to SSD technology, OCZ also offers high performance components for computing devices and systems, including enterprise class power management products and industrial power accessories."
Industry's highest IOPs performance up to 120,000
Incredible performance in workstation and heavy-duty environments with multiple data threads
No compression-related performance limitations
Better performance with "real world" data streams of varying "compressibility" as well as fully incompressible data such as videos and multimedia files, encrypted data, archive files such as .ZIP files and software.
Indilinx InfusedTM Everest 2 platform
Leading edge dual-ARM controller architecture enables faster performance like nothing else you've experienced.
Fast boot times and ultra-low latency
Boot up in as little as 9 seconds, and industry-low latencies of .04 reads and .02 writes enable superior multitasking and flawless performance.
Industry-leading 5 year warranty
Backed by OCZ's renowned service for ultimate peace of mind.
Ndurance 2.0 Technology
Advanced suite of NAND Flash management to increase durability and reliability to expand the NAND's lifespan
In this review we will look upon a recent SSD model from OCZ, named Vertex 4; the product comes now with an Indilinx controller, opposed to the Sandforce on the Vertex 3. The packaging is similar to the one we have found on the previous revision, with a black and silver color scheme. On the frontal side we'll find a photo of the actual product, along some of its features and total capacity:
The back side arrives with a short product description and some serial numbers:
The SSD is further packed inside a protective internal enclosure, along with the rest of the bundle:
Inside the box, we will also find a SSD mount adapter, one Installation Guide, necessary screws and a sticker:
The OCZ case sticker comes with a funny message:
Inside the written guide, we will also find some extra info regarding the warranty (the leaflet is also multi-language):
The Vertex 4 SSD presents itself with a chassis from both plastic and metal and on the top we'll locate the usual product sticker:
The sides come with two mounting holes each:
Looking at the back of the SSD, we'll find the SATA charge/data ports:
On the metallic bottom, we'll find some more SSD identification numbers:
By removing the 4 bottom screws, we'll be able to expose the internals:
In the center, we will find the Indilinx Everest 2 controller, with the IDX400M00-BC part number, which offers Auto-Encryption, a SATA 3.0 6Gb/s interface, AES-256 Support and Ndurance 2.0 Technology, for reduced write amplification , support for Rendundant NAND Array (RNA) and Multi-Level ECC adaptive NAND management. The rated SSD speeds are lower in some cases than the Sandforce model, but they should not suffer this time from compression-related performance drops:
The bottom side of the SSD acts as a heatsink for the controller, with a thermal pad placed in the center:
The same side also reveals eight Intel 25nm synchronous MLC NAND chips:
These are coupled with 512MB of DDR3 1333 from Micron:
On the back side, we will find a similar configuration, with an extra of eight Intel MLC NAND chips, making a total of 16 and a secondary 512MB of DDR3 RAM, for a total of 1GB:
CPU : Intel I5 3750K Retail @ 4.7GHz
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Motherboard : ASRock Z77 Extreme6
RAM :GeIL PC3-17000 2133MHz 8GB EVO Leggera
Video : Sparkle X560 Calibre
Power Supply : Cooler Master 850W
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
The OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD comes unformatted out of the box:
After the SSD has been formated NTFS, here is the total free space reported by Windows 7:
With the help of AIDA64, we can extract more information regarding the drive:
Since firmware 1.4, OCZ has optimized the firmware for the Vertex 4, so the SSD behaves differently depending on how much space is filled on the drive. If the drive is half-full, we will enjoy optimized performance and after crossing more than half full, the garbage collection algorithm will re-optimize the drive for maximum efficiency based on a larger data footprint. Because of this, we will test the drive in two modes: empty and filled over 50%.
HDTach Short Test
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
HDTach Long Test
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Filled SSD
CrystalMark HDD Test Suite
AIDA64 Disk Test Suite
PCMark05 HDD Test Suite
CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)
HDTune Test Suite
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite
AS SSD Benchmark
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
PCMark 7
The new Vertex 4 SSDs from OCZ incorporate the Indilinx Everest 2 controller, unlike the second and third iterations from the past; the new controller comes with features like Auto-Encryption, AES-256 support, Ndurance 2.0 Technology for reduced write amplification, adaptive NAND management or Multi-Level ECC. The controller also supports Redundant NAND Array technology.
Vertex 4 does no longer suffer of any compression-related limitations and was built to produce higher IOps (Vertex 3 was rated at 60K 4K IOps and Vertex 4 at 85K 4K IOps). At the same time, the Vertex 3 was advertised with a 550MB/s transfer rate and the Vertex 4 a little lower, at 535MB/s.
While we can see that in tests which use uncompressed data the Sandforce-based SSDs lead without issues, when we ran more recent benchmarks which use compressed data, the Vertex 4 succeeded to exceed the performances of the Vertex 3 240GB, mostly in the write department. We must also keep in mind that the drive performances are also influenced by the total volume capacity, the 512GB version being the fastest of the bunch, but also the most expensive.
OCZ have optimized the firmware for the Vertex 4, so the SSD behaves differently depending on how much space is filled on the drive. If the drive is half-full, we will enjoy optimized performance and after crossing more than half full, the garbage collection algorithm will re-optimize the drive for maximum efficiency based on a larger data footprint.
The 128GB version of the Vertex 4 can be found for about 97 Euros at online stores, while the Sandforce-based Vertex 3 is available for 101 Euros.
I would like to thank again to OCZ for making this review possible!