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OCZ are certainly onto a winner with their Vertex 2 drive, thanks to the implementation of the Sandforce 2 controller. When we directly compare to any other solitary SSD configuration it is at the top, or close to the top of the pile.
With regards to performance there is certainly nothing lacking, the read performance is excellent and the write performance is class leading … this would mean very noticeable real world benefits within heavy multitasking environments.
All this comes with a caveat, as in the United Kingdom right now the cheapest we have seen the drive on sale is around the £270 mark (inc vat) which means it is rather expensive. The Sandforce controller is the driving force for the pricing, as all these units are still wallet sapping. For less money you can get the original Vertex which offers 20gb+ more storage. As always, ultimate performance comes with a hefty premium.
Importantly, real world performance shines – the boot times are some of the quickest we have seen and you will never be waiting long for applications to load and large files to save to the flash memory.
Everything considered we can easily recommend the Vertex 2 100GB drive, it delivers some of the best performance on the market right now, but just be prepared to pay more for the class leading controller. At the time of writing, UK resellers have 100GB OCZ Vertex 2 drive around £285 inc vat.
KitGuru says: If you aren't so picky about ultimate performance or don't need something so large, then be sure to check out the OCZ Vertex Limited Edition 50GB drive which retails for £140 in the UK right now. Its quite cheap and cheerful.
Discuss in our forums over here or just leave a quick comment below.
OCZ have always been solid SSD drives./ that one is a bit costly though I do agree.
Great drive, good performer. awesome write performance. only issue I have is the pricing. its £300 in our local store. for 100gb? ouch.
im impressed with the performance, only concern is the cost for this performance. I am sure some people will pay it, but the intel 40gb drives seem good value, and in raid 0 outperform most drives in read performance. I know write is much slower, but it seems most people dont really notice it as much. Or am I missing the point?
nice review. outperforms most drives, but for the price, its a bit small i think. Still wouldnt mind one though 🙂
The controller is great. clearly seen in the performance figures. I have to agree with others. almost £300 for 100gb seems a lot of dosh.
I like it, cant quite afford it yet, but it will be my next SSD
sandforce controllers are mega good . all their drives are dear tho. just opart of the costs of owning this controller unit.
These are actually very hard to get in the UK right now, anyone seen them on sale anywhere?
I always like to see real world testing. Seems a solid enough drive, but OCZ are pretty much leaders in this field I think. Bit surprised with the cost however, I was expecting it to be around 200-230./ not 280-300
my friend has one of these, they are very good SSD’s. out of my price league but if I was paying this much for an SSD id go for a 256 gb and spend a bit more.
performance is great, but its not worthy of the price tag. id rather go with a raid 0 system that Zardon reviewed last week. those intel drives would be around 100 less and have more read performance. Write speeds are important for specific jobs, but for a boot OS drive it makes little to no difference.
Great ssd, but for £131.59 at Aria you can get the 50gb vertex 2, and put your OS and main programs on it, and then pick up a cheap traditional hard drive for your data. OK it’s only 50gb, but when you consider the money that can be spent on a processor to speed things up it’s not bad value at all.
I have 6 of the 50s running on different setups with an ahci minimum. If you are worried about cost per gigabyte, don’t think like that. How much was cost per gigabyte when geeks upgraded 286s from 384kb to 2 Meg back in the 80s and how much difference did that make in system speed? $20000 a gig?
These also make fiber optic cards actually go full speed as the drive is capable of doing all the IOPS. The only thing hotter than this in a modest budget are vertex 2 pro and Pcie skinny controller SSD.
Sorry for any typos.