SSD by stefan @ 2013-03-01
The Vector is one of the latest products from OCZ, sports an in-house Indilinx Barefoot 3 NAND controller and has succeeded to surpass most of the SSDs we have tested so far. The Vector is available in 128GB, 256 and 512GB capacities and is also bundled with Acronis disk cloning software, which is very useful when transferring data from one drive to another.
At first I would like to thank OCZ for offering a sample of their Vector 256GB 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."
The latest SSD from OCZ, Vector, is shipped inside a small sized cardboard enclosure, with a photo of the actual product on the frontal side along with some highlights and total flash capacity. Vector also ships with an Acronis True Image HD Software license, used for HDD/SSD cloning:
On the back side we will see a small product description:
After the removal of the outside packaging, we will end up with an envelope, which contains the SSD along with its bundle:
As documentation, we will receive the leaflet with the Acronis True Image HD Software serial number and some instructions for installation:
The Vector is also shipped with a metallic adapter (3.5’’ mounting kit):
OCZ have also included the “I Love my OCZ SSD” sticker:
Vector’s chassis is made of metal and on the top side we will see a nice product logo:
The Vector comes with the mounting holes on the laterals; considering that it is only 7mm in height, it can be installed in more systems which have these requirements, like Ultrabooks:
On the back we can observe the SATA Data/Power ports:
Now looking on the bottom of the SSD, we will see the product serial number along with the code name:
The bottom is also kept fixed with 4 small screws:
One of the screws is covered with a sticker for warranty purposes:
After the removal of the top metallic cover, we will see that it also acts as a small heatsink for the Indilinx Barefoot 3 SSD controller. Between the controller and the cover we have a thermal pad:
By also removing the pad, we can uncover the inscriptions on it, which read IDX500M00-BC, the code name of the first in-house built controller, which is clocked at 400MHz and built on 65nm:
On the frontal side we can also spot a 256MB Micron IC DDR3 RAM buffer:
Also here we have 8 M2502128T048SX22 OCZ synchronous NAND chips manufactured at the 25nm process:
In order to see what is on the other side of the PCB, we have to remove 4 extra screws; the bottom side of the SSD comes with 8 extra NAND chips and one 256MB DDR3 for a total of 512MB of buffer:
Between the SSD buffer and one of the NAND flash chips, we will also find a TPS652510 power management IC with three step-down buck converters:
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 Vector 256GB 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:
OCZ also has available the latest version of Toolbox on their website, and with it we can flash the product to the latest firmware. In this case, firmware upgrade was not necessary:
With the utility, we can also Secure Erase the SSD or display additional technical information:
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
PCMark 7
AS SSD Benchmark
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Blank SSD
Filled SSD
With this occasion we are also introducing tests with the Anvil SSD Benchmark utility:
Anvil Reads
Anvil Writes
The new Vector SSD from OCZ sports the Barefoot 3 controller, which is the company’s first in-house controller. It comes in different capacity flavors, 128GB, 256 and 512GB and succeeds to wipe the floor with most other models we have tested so far, from other manufacturers.
When pitted against the Vertex 4, which was incorporating the Indilinx Everest 2 NAND controller, we have seen noticeable performance increases, but some of the firmware features the Vertex 4 was incorporating were also carried to the Vector, like the one when the SSD uses performance mode if the drive is filled less than 50%.
The Vector comes with no less than 5 years of warranty (20GB host writes per day) and the 256GB version should be enough for most applications; on the market it can be found for about 225 Euros. However, if we want to use the SSD only as a boot drive, without many space-consuming apps installed, we could also take a look at the 128GB version, which is available for about 130 Euros.
For added value, OCZ has also included the cloning software from Acronis, which we have used for some time now, and we find it very useful for transferring even complete Windows partitions, without the need of re-activating the installations.
I would like to thank again to OCZ for making this review possible!