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A quick spin around the Toshiba website reveals just three SSD drives under the Toshiba OCZ branding – the high-end RD400, the value segment TR150 and the VT180 (the old OCZ Vector 180) as the mainstream drive offering. What was needed was a more up to date drive to compete in the mainstream market, and that's where Toshiba OCZ's VX500 fits in.
The drives use the tried-and-tested combination of Toshiba's TC358790XBG controller and Toshiba MLC NAND, which in the case of the VX500 is A15 15nm. Details about the controller are pretty thin on the ground but the TC358790 has been used in a number of Toshiba drives. With experience using the controller in the HG6 (THNSNJ), Q-Series Pro, Q300 Pro and the enterprise segment HK32R range, the Toshiba engineers should be adept at getting the best out of it.
Toshiba OCZ quote sequential performance figures for the 512GB version of the drive as up to 550MB/s and 515MB/s for read and writes respectively. Using the ATTO benchmark we confirmed those figures with a read score of 554MB/s, while the writes were a little better than the official figure at 522MB/s.
The random 4K IOPS test performance is a bit of a mixed bag. When it comes to 4K random reads the drive produced a score of 93,069 IOPS bettering the official 92,000 IOPS. But the 58,118 IOPS write performance was some way off the 65,000 IOPS official figure.
The SSD Utility management software has all the tools you need to maintain the drive and keep it updated. With it, you can securely erase the drive, update the firmware and set the over-provisioning level. That's in addition to keeping an eye on the drive's lifespan, capacity usage and temperature.
It speaks volumes for how far the SSD market has moved within a relatively short space of time; the 480GB-512GB market segment is one of the most aggressive in terms of pricing. Toshiba understand that and they have priced the Toshiba OCZ VX500 very competitively.
The 512GB version of the VX500 retails at £122.99 (inc VAT).
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Pros:
- Overall performance.
- Acronis True Image HD cloning software.
- 5yr warranty.
- Price.
Cons:
- 4K random write IOPS is a little low.
Kitguru says: The 512GB VX500 is pitched into a very competitive market segment but Toshiba have given it every chance with some very strong pricing.
Great review thanks!
Seems like a decent drive, does make me wonder if they are going to continue the old Vector (VT) line and try and claw back some of the high end consumer market segment.
This seems like a very safe, solid drive and that should’t be an issue. But for better or worse OCZ was always a fairly avant guarde, forward looking company. This drive feels like a tweaked rebaged of the Q300, is this what OCZ has become?
What happened to Barefoot 3 and Indilinx controllers, sure they lacked low power sates, but it rivalled the might of Samsung for years! I was really hoping to see an evolution of this tech. Hell maybe it (The IP) has been incorporated into the new Toshiba Controllers and we would never know. But the new Tosh drives seem to behave so different in the benchmarks I doubt it.
I guess I was just hoping for something a little different from OCZ, in a very very similar and saturated SSD Market. For better or worse they always had an interesting product line up…