Earlier this year I had the chance to visit the OCZ offices. While being shown the offices I could sense the excitement. At that time they finally had the Indilinx crew in the office and they were very excited about how having an in house NAND Controller and firmware production would change the future of OCZ’s SSD business. The first drive that Indilinx had a hand in was the OCZ Vertex 4. Today we are going to put the Vertex 4 to the test in our new benchmark suite along with a few other SATA 3 drives to see how they perform. I hope that the same excitement that I saw in the OCZ offices will equal top notch performance from their current flagship SSD.
Product Name: OCZ Vertex 4 256GB
Review Sample Provided by: OCZ
Written by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
Specifications
Physical |
|
Usable Capacities (IDEMA) |
64GB, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB |
NAND Components |
2Xnm Synchronous Multi-Level Cell (MLC) |
Interface |
SATA III / 6Gbps (backwards compatible with SATA II / 3Gbps) |
Form Factor |
2.5 Inch |
NAND Controller |
Indilinx Everest 2 |
DRAM Cache |
Up to 1GB |
Dimensions (L x W x H) |
99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3 mm |
Reliability/Protection |
|
MTBF |
2 million hours |
Data Path Protection |
ECC corrects up to 128 random bits/1KB |
Data Encryption |
256-bit AES-compliant, ATA Security Mode Features |
Product Health Monitoring |
Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) Support |
Environmental |
|
Power Consumption |
Idle: 1.3 W Active: 2.5 W |
Operating Temperature |
0°C ~ 70°C |
Ambient Temperature |
0°C ~ 55°C |
Storage Temperature |
-45°C ~ 85°C |
Shock Resistance |
1500G |
Compatibility |
|
Serial ATA (SATA) |
Fully compliant with Serial ATA International Organization: Serial ATA Revision 3.0. |
Operating System |
Windows XP 32-bit /64-bit; Windows Vista 32-bit / 64-bit; Windows 7 32-bit / 64-bit; Linux; Mac OS X |
Additional Features |
|
Performance Optimization |
TRIM (requires OS support), dynamic and static wear-leveling, background garbage collection, Indilinx nDurance 2.0 Technology to extend SSD lifespan |
Other Performance Features |
Ndurance 2.0 Technology (Reduced Write Amplification without Compression, Advanced Multi-Level ECC, Adaptive NAND Flash Management) |
Service & Support |
5-Year Warranty, Toll-Free Tech Support, 24 Hour Forum Support |
Packaging
It’s been a while, but the Vertex 4 shares a similar look as far as packaging as the last Vertex we took a look at. Being OCZ’s flagship drive, it has a sharp all black design that matches the same black they use on the drive. The box is small, obviously, so beyond the picture of the drive you only have a few other important details on the front. Around back there really aren’t a lot of details on the drive but OCZ has put a short paragraph about the Vertex 4 drives. There aren’t specifications because OCZ will use this same packaging for all of the different capacity Vertex 4’s.
Inside the drive itself is wrapped up in a static protective bag and locked into place in a foam tray. OCZ also included a 2.5 to 3.5 inch adapter that is tucked away on the bottom of the packaging as well as all the screws needed to put it to use. You also get an installation drive and one of their “My SSD is faster than your HDD” stickers.
Our Testing Procedures and Test Rig
Procedures
Iometer- Random 4K/QD30 IOPS
CrystalDiskMark - Read Seq and Write Seq tests
AS SSD – Copy Benchmark with ISO, Program, and Game results
Passmark - Advanced disk benchmark file server, Web Server, Workstation, and Database benchmarks
Test Rig
Asus Maximus V Gene Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix Tracer Ram 1600Mhz 2x2Gb
Cooler Master Silent Pro M 850Watt PSU
XFX R7970 DD Black Edition Overclocked
Microcool Banchetto 101 Test bench
Performance
From the last time we published an SSD review, we changed our testing procedures around a little to get a better variety. Along with that we tested a few more SATA 3 drives to fill in our results more to give a better representation of the Vertex 4’s performance. To compete with the Vertex 4 we put it up against the Kingston Hyper X SSD as well as the Corsair Force GT. That covers a good portion of the Vertex 4’s competition. The Kingston and the Corsair both use the same Sandforce SF-2281 controller but the Vertex 4 sports their in house Indilinx Everest 2 NAND controller. That means for the most part we should see similar results from the two drives taking into account other factors like the different capacities. Both the Kingston and the Corsair drives use Synchronous IMFT NAND, but they do differ in manufactures with the Kingston running Intel 5K NAND and the Corsair using Micron NAND. Of course IMFT is a joint venture between Micron and Intel, so the different manufacture names don’t make much of a difference. The Vertex 4 also uses an IMFT NAND, making the controller its main difference.
Our first benchmark was Crystal Disk Mark. Between its Sequential and 4K Queue Depth benchmarks we can get a good idea of the drives real world performance as well as how the drive will respond to a high queue depth. Interesting enough, our sequential read speed results were good but slightly lower than the Samsung 830 that we had previously benchmarked and on par with the Kingston HyperX drive. When you introduce a high queue depth though, the Vertex 4 dominated everyone in both read and write. What else I found interesting was how far ahead the Vertex 4 was in write speed tests overall when compared to the other drives.
Next up we have IO Meter to put the Vertex 4 to the test when it comes to IOPS. IOPS stands for Input/Output Operations Per Second. We have our IO Meter configured to run Random files, meaning non sequential, at a file size of 4K and a queue depth of 30. This is similar to the queue depth test on Crystal Disk Mark. As you can see from the graph below the Vertex 4 dominated all of the competition tested in IOPS. This means it’s going to be quick and responsive in everyday use, not just capable of high transfer speeds when doing large file transfers. In my opinion, IOPS is the single most important benchmark you can run on an SSD because it most closely represents the results you would see day to day.
Our last two benchmarks are other freely available programs that allow you to test your drive in very specific conditions that you may run into while using it day to day. Much like IO Meter, these will show a better representation of what to expect when using the drive.
Starting with AS-SSD, we run its three file copy benchmarks. The three tests use a normal program file, game file, and then ISO file transfer as benchmarks on how quick the drive will be during those everyday tasks. As you can see the Vertex 4 outperformed both the Corsair and Kingston drives. Interesting enough, the Samsung 830 popped up here and took the performance crown.
In Passmark we are running very similar tests to IO Meter, but this time around each test represents a blend of random and sequential files and files sizes themselves that best represent what you would see in workstation, web server, file server, and database applications. These are all business focused tests, but the workstation benchmark most closely represents what you would expect from a home PC as well.
The Corsairs results were a little weak, most likely do to its smaller capacity. But The Vertex 4 and Kingston drives went head to head both in the Web Server and File Server benchmarks. The Workstation benchmark had the Kingston drive ahead, but the Vertex 4 made up for it by almost doubling the Database performance. This is similar to what we saw before, the Vertex 4 performs well with the small file size and high queue depth that a database would have.
Overall and FV
When it comes to SSD’s it can be extremely confusing for all but the most knowledgeable enthusiasts. Back in the day people would look at a hard drive read and write speeds and from there you had a good idea of how it would perform. Hell, for that matter, you could tell how fast a drive would be just by reading its spindle speed. These days with SSD’s there isn’t any one thing to look at to be able to judge a drives performance, at least nothing as simple as spindle speed. Because of that, it’s actually very helpful that OCZ has their performance levels with the Agility and the Vertex. If someone were to look at the performance difference between the Vertex 3 and 4 for example, you would only see a 10 MB/s jump. Where the Vertex 4 really shines is in its high queue depth testing and IOPS. These numbers paint a different story. A story that has you getting the best possible performance everyday, not just when you are transferring a single file.
At the end of the day I am very happy with the Vertex 4’s performance. We put it up against a few of the fastest drives on the market and even though it didn’t top the charts in every single benchmark, it did when it counts. Because of that this would be at the top of my recommendation list, at least until someone comes out with something else that will outperform it. And with it listed at just over $200 currently at this capacity, I don’t think you can really go wrong with that. I wouldn’t let it stop me from picking up the Vertex 4 , but in the interest of being complete I should we did see a few drive failures when reading consumer reviews posted online. Every drive will have some failures, but before you buy take a look at the most recent reviews to make sure it’s not a trend. Our drive performed flawlessly in all of our testing though.