Overall and Final Verdict
When OCZ introduced the Vector, not only was impressed with its performance, but I was very happy to see OCZ thinking outside of the box. What I mean by that of course was OCZ put together a casing for their SSD that was considerably stronger and better looking than the standard black box. I assumed it would be exclusive to the Vector drives but was very happy to see when they introduced the Vertex 450 that it was used on it as well. OCZ has been working very hard to both bring their entire development in house including their own controller. Because of this they have an advantage against the competition because they are the only company running the Barefoot 3 controller while everyone else has to share the same controller designs. This is why OCZs drives have performed extremely well in our benchmarks. To add to the Vertex 450’s value, OCZ also included Acronis® True Image cloning software.
The only downsides to the Vertex 450 really only come up when you start comparing the drive to OCZs own drives. The Vertex 450 isn’t too far off in price from the latest Vector drive, making it a tough choice when you take into account the performance and warranty differences. What warranty difference you ask? Well The Vertex 450 comes with a 3 year warranty while the Vector drives get you a 5 year warranty. There are some people who will also mention the concerns with OCZs company stability as a whole as well. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t include that in our review. No matter how long the warranty is, if OCZ isn’t around to back the warranty up none of it will matter. Toshiba actually purchased OCZ last month, with that in mind and after seeing OCZ showing off a new drive at CES this year I suspect they will be around for a while still. That is good, because the Vector 450 is a great drive that I would put on my short list of drives to consider when shopping for a new SSD.
