OCZ Vertex 4 512GB SSD Review

Rating: 9.5.

OCZ have been at the forefront of Solid State Technology now for some time, releasing a wide array of class leading drives to target every price point sector. Today we are looking at something very special however, the latest Vertex 4 drive, based around the new Indilinx Everest 2 Platform.

For the last year OCZ Technology have delivered a primary focus on Sandforce technology, however they have also been diverting resources to their own Indilinx platform. We recently reviewed the Octane 512GB drive which walked away with our ‘Worth Buying' award. The combination of balanced performance with both compressible and incompressible data was a heady combination for the enthusiast audience.

The recent Samsung and Marvell controllers however were very competitive, subsequently not allowing OCZ to dominate. Will this change today?

Sandforce have held the performance throne for some time now, although the range has been been tainted with controller problems. This was serious enough to cause a product recall for several of their partners and I personally feel that OCZ wanted to concentrate on their own products after this happened. After all it makes sense to have complete control over the product development … right to release, without relying on outside influences.

This leads us into the new Indilinx Everest 2 platform. OCZ have been determined to focus on small block performance, as well as reducing write amplification. They have a new controller to address these performance areas.

OCZ plan on maintaining support for the original Everest, while Everest 2 will be released to aggressively target the demanding enthusiast user. OCZ are releasing 128GB, 256GB and 512GB Vertex 3 drives priced at $179, $349 and $699 respectively. Today we are focusing on the flagship 512GB capacity.

Features:

• SATA 3.0 6Gb/s Interface
• Ndurance™ 2.0 Technology
• Reduced Write Amplification without Compression
• Advanced Multi-Level ECC
• Adaptive NAND Flash Management
• Redundant NAND Array™ (RNA) Technology
• Auto-Encryption and AES-256 Support
• Advanced ECC Engine (up to 128bits per 1KB)
• Superior Flexibility (extensive NAND compatibility; vendor-specific NAND commands)

Become a Patron!