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OCZ have been at the forefront of Solid State drive development for a very long time now, the original Vertex and the Vertex 2 were both class leading SATA 3Gbps drives. We will be honest when we say that we have high hopes for the 6Gbps successor, today's review product, the Vertex 3.
The Vertex 3 was first highlighted by OCZ at CES in January and it uses the second generation SandForce controller to help utilise the SATA 6GBps interface. The official figures from OCZ are quoted at up to 525MB/s read and 500MB/s write, which are staggering, if accurate. Importantly, the 4k random write performance is also rated to a very tasty 60,000 IOPS.
When we compare this drive to the last generation Vertex 2 the performance increases are not just modest, they are staggering … over 90 percent faster on paper. Last year many had assumed that the SATA 6 Gbps interface had plenty of life left in it, but with this drive, the 600 MB/s limitations are already under question.
| Product | OCZ Vertex 3 |
| Interface | Sata III |
| Controller | Sandforce 2281 |
| Size | 240GB |
| SSD Type | Multi Level Cell |
| Trim Support | Yes |
| Read speed (rated) | 525MB/s |
| Write speed (rated) | 500MB/s |
| MBTF | 2 Million hours |
To compliment the consumer model, OCZ have also released an Enterprise class drive, the Vertex 3 Pro, which uses the Sandforce SF-2582 controller and offers power loss data protection and data recovery protection.
The Vertex 3 we are reviewing today uses the SF-2281 controller which offers TCG OPAL security with 256bit AES encryption and an improved ECC engine (capable of correcting up to 55 bits per 512 byte sector).
All of the SandForce SF-2000 series controllers still utilise the patented DuraWrite technology, on the fly compression which reduces the size of the data written to the drive. When this is paired up with wear leveling and intelligent block management the drive will require fewer write cycles during regular use.
Christ, I need a new hard drive. my system really does suck when I read all these reviews here.
Vertex 3 is going to rock,. im waiting for the smaller version, hopefully they do one around 100GB.
This drive really is insanely quick. Intel really dont get shown up very often, but OCZ really own this market.
yum. Im still quite happy with my agillity, but maybe if I win the lottery ill buy a few of these.
OCZ really do focus on this market, but I hear there isn’t much of a mark up on these products, so I do wonder how they are making money right now.
That is serious performance man
Wow, i feel so indequate now, that new sandforce comtroller is powerful.
Wow, i feel so indequate now, that new sandforce comtroller is powerful.
Any news on a 128gb model hitting soon? Prices etc?
I read some people in the forums saying they were buying one for their laptop, whats the point no laptop has 6gbps interface!
It will be 120gb not 128gb, half the size of this one, its logical for the nand layout. Good drive from ocz, price is also great
With today’s SSD structure, you can’t compare different size of SSD. 120GB Vertex 3 got half the number of flash chips, so half the channels.
I’m all for OCZ but you should do that in the future.
The reason for including other different sized drives is to show people who already own the drives just what benefits they will get from an upgrade.
Its not a ‘head to head’