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We received one of the first retail samples of the 240GB drive in an eye catching green and black box with a list of main specifications on the front.
The bundle includes an installation leaflet on the product, a tongue in cheek ‘my SSD is faster than your HDD' sticker, and the drive itself protected in an anti static bag, sandwiched inside a protective container.
The drive is finished in a traditional OCZ green and black with the name of the product on the front. A fairly standard chassis design. It is opened by removing four small screws on the rear. Please be aware if you do this, you invalidate the warranty. We don’t really care, but if you buy one, you should.
The unit we have on review is 240GB and OCZ place a NAND flash partition of 16 ICs onto the PCB. Technically, new 25nm NAND FLASH memory has a reduced overall lifespan from 10,000 upwards to around 5,000 program/erase cycles. Industry insiders have hinted that consumer grade 25nm NAND flash memory will have a slightly lower lifespan, between 3,000 and 4,000 program/erase cycles.
While this sounds concerning, if you work out that under normal conditions only between 20-35 full SSD write cycles will be used each year, there is plenty of life in the product. Drive wearing protection also helps to ensure longer lasting flash memory. Thankfully, there is also full TRIM support.
As many already know Sandforce controllers use real time compression. The controllers store a ‘representation’ of your data, not the actual data itself which is achieved by creating a partition of the available NAND flash memory. It can handle around 63 MB/s from one of the eight available channels.
£380, thats a really good price. The 120gb sounds good to me. Any ideas of the release date? this week or after computex?
this is certainly going to kill the vertex 2, which I would guess is intentional.
110 for a 60gb. that would be a wonderful boot drive and size.
Under £400 for a 240GB, is this the first time for one of the latest 2281 powered drives? I think thats quite an achievement.
120gb would be my next purchase, but I might go for vertex 3. not sure yet.
SSDS make such a difference. I added a cheap 40GB SSD to my machine recently (intel) and it really has transformed it.
I thought 40GB would be ok, but its honestly a pain in the ass. I have to keep installed programs to D drive and sometimes I forget as it autopmatically stores to program files.
Need an upgrade. but these are still expensive.
I dont agree with 60GB being enough for Windows 7 boot up. 120gb would be my minimum, but maybe im weird, I hear people use 40GB all teh time.
No one really wants a 40GB for a boot drive. its too small. If its the only drive you have then kiss goodbye to things like adobe suite as it would eat most of it up.
60GB is doable. I ran tests myself recently. installing my office suite, updates. SP1. a few apps I use, and it was around 20GB free on a 60GB Drive. that would be ok. but its still tight.
120gb is ideal, anything extra is gravy. with a nice 1TB or 2TB as a file drive.
Id like to see a review of the 120gb version, £190 is a hell of a price for this.
These are still some way off being mainstream however. I dont know anyone who owns an SSD.
Killer performance, still a lot of cash, but im converted. I bought a kingston value drive last week :p
Excellent, ill be ordering two of the 120gbs for raid next month
will be ordering a 60GB when its available here. nice review, thanks
240GB, wow, what I wouldnt give for one of those in my system.
I have an old kingston drive, I still really like it, hasnt let me down yet
I wonder how many people reading kitguru own an SSD. Id say the percentage would be high