OCZ Vector 256GB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. OCZ Vector 256GB SSD3. OCZ Vector 256GB SSD (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. CrystalDiskMark6. ATTO Disk Benchmark7. AS SSD8. PCMark 79. IOMeter10. Real World Testing11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

Two years ago a Solid State Drive was a pricy piece of hardware set aside for the elite, wealthy enthusiast user. This year has seen prices drop significantly, and the technology has finally made it into the mainstream. As an all round performance drive, there has been little to match the OCZ Indilinx Everest 2 controller.

I have been extolling the virtues of OCZ's Vertex 4 since it was released. Today we are looking at the new OCZ Vector drive which OCZ claim takes the platform to a new performance level.

We all know that technology moves at a frightening pace. While many companies have been happy to rely on the Sandforce 2281 controller now for some time, OCZ realised that a focus should be made on matching incompressible with compressible data bandwidth – a notable weakness of the 2281 controller for some time.

OCZ's focus is obviously on the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, which they say is a ‘milestone' for the company. Not surprisingly it is based around the SATA 3.0 6Gb/s interface with 25nm IMFT NAND flash onboard. The Vector drives are built into the super slim 7mm form factor, making them ideal for ultraportable laptop systems. OCZ are releasing three models: 128GB, 256GB and 512GB.

It is worth pointing out that the 128GB model of the Vector drive exhibits slightly lower performance when compared directly against the 256GB and 512GB drives. Sequential write performance is said to drop from 530 MB/s to 400 MB/s. Sequential read performance is the same – all Vector drives are rated at 550 MB/s.

OCZ Vector overview:

• Sata 3.0GB/s interface
• 25nm IMFT NAND Flash
• 7mm form factor
• 128GB, 256GB and 512GB models.
• Bundled with cloning software
• High performance and endurance without compression/loss of usable capacity
• Advanced suite of flash management to increase durability and reliability.
• Lower power consumption (idle 0.9W/Active 2.25W)
• TRIM Support
• 5 year warranty (or 36.5TB writes – whichever comes first).

The OCZ Vector arrives in a bright blue box with an image of the Solid State Drive highlighted in the middle. The capacity is listed bottom right.

OCZ bundle a ‘I Love my SSD' sticker, a 3.5 inch bay for installation in some desktop cases. There is also a code for Acronis True Image cloning software and a set of mounting screws. This software really is excellent and can completely mirror an internal mechanical drive for simple swap out, without losing any data.

The Vector 2.5 inch Solid State Drive is only 7mm thick and will fit perfectly inside the smaller, current generation of super portable ultrabook laptops. You will notice the new design for the drive, the sticker covers the complete top of the drive, which is very attractive.

Removing the chassis is very easy, although we don't recommend you do this yourself, as it will void the warranty. That is why we are here after all !

The new Indilinx controller ships with a thermal pad on top, which connects to the aluminum chassis. This cleverly acts as a passive heatsink, helping to reduce temperatures. The ‘IDX500M00-BC' is the latest Barefoot 3 controller and surrounding it are eight 25nm IMFT NAND flash chips. Another eight of these memory chips are on the other side of the PCB.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.

For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. We try to use free or easily available programs and some real world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.

This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.

Main system:
CPU: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooler: Thermaltake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Memory: ADATA DDR3 2000mhz 9-11-9-24
PSU: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: Sapphire HD6950 Flex Edition
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit Enterprise
Monitor: Dell U2410

Other Drives (used in Core i7 2700k system above):
Corsair Neutron 240GB
Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB
Visiontek Racer Series 120GB
Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB
Mushkin Chronos 240GB
Kingston HyperX 3k 120GB
OCZ Vertex 4 512GB
OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD Review (firmware 1.4 update)
Transcend SSD720 128GB
Kingston SSDNow V+200 90GB
OCZ Octane 512GB (V1.13 fw)
Mach Xtreme MX-DS Turbo 120GB
Corsair Performance Pro 256GB
Samsung 830 Series 512GB
Patriot Pyro SE 240GB
Patriot Wildfire 240GB
MemoRight FTM Plus 240GB SSD
Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD
OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB
Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD
OCZ Agility 3 240GB
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 240GB
ADATA S511 240GB
Corsair F100 100GB
Crucial Real SSD C300 64GB
MemoRight FTM.25 115GB SSD
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB

PCMark 7 system:
Processor: Core i7 3960 X Extreme Edition @ 4.4ghz
Cooler: Antec 920 H20
Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case

PCIe drives test system:
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB HDD/SSD &
OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB

Test System:
CPU: Intel Core i7 990x @ 4.8ghz
Cooler: Corsair H100 Performance Liquid Cooler
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Black Edition
Memory: 12GB Kingston DDR3 @ 1600mhz 9-9-9-24
PSU: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: Nvidia GTX580
Chassis: Lian Li X2000F
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit Enterprise
Monitor: Dell U2410

Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalMark
AS SSD
PCMark 7
IOMeter
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call Of Pripyat

All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0.1 x64.

Overall performance is superb, especially when we look at the default test, which deals only with incompressible data. 4KQD32 read performance is class leading.

We have switched to the 0x00 test, which deals with compressible data. Much like the previous OCZ Indilinx Everest 2 controller, these results are impressive strong in both modes.

Above, some included compares from other leading solid state drives which we have reviewed this year.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

The drive scores exceptionally well in the ATTO Disk Benchmark test – right up there with the Sandforce 2281 powered drives.

Some comparison results from other leading products available on the market today.

AS SSD is a great free tool designed just for benching Solid State Drives. It performs an array of sequential read and write tests, as well as random read and write tests with sequential access times over a portion of the drive. AS SSD includes a sub suite of benchmarks with various file pattern algorithms but this is difficult in trying to judge accurate performance figures.

These results have knocked the OCZ Vertex 4 off the top slot, and are clearly class leading in 2012. Fantastic results in this incompressible data only benchmark.

Some other comparisons from leading manufacturer drives, which we have tested in recent months.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

A good score in PCMARK 7, achieving 5,395 points.

IOMeter is another open source synthetic benchmarking tool which is able to simulate the various loads placed on hard drive and solid state drive technology.

We test with both random read and write 4k tests, as shown above. There are many ways to measure the IOPS performance of a Solid State Drive, so our results will often vary between the manufacturer's quoted ratings.

Our findings are close to the OCZ quoted speeds, although our test parameters are slightly different. OCZ don't often ‘fudge' their quoted ratings and we do credit them for that. Our results are fantastic and some of the best we have achieved to date.

We recorded close to 95,000 IOPS in the 4kb random read test and around 90,000 IOPS in the random write test. These are better than any other standard 2.5 inch SSD we have tested to date.

It doesn’t matter how good any of the synthetic suites are, the real meat of the testing has to be under absolute real world conditions. This proves difficult as to record results we have to narrow down fluctuation. Therefore while we would say these are the most useful results to get from this review, there is always going to be a slight margin for error – its not absolutely scientific.

Firstly we installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit Edition onto each of the drives and performed a clean update from Microsoft with all patches and security fixes. We then install a basic suite of software, such as Office, Firefox and Adobe Design, then we install AVG free antivirus. We used a digital watch for this startup and repeated the test five times for each drive – once we had these five results we averaged the results and took that for the final figure.

The drive scores 22 seconds in this test, which is as good as you are likely to get with a single 2.5 inch drive handling the duties.

Amazing results from this drive in our STALKER load test, beating the Vertex 4 1.4fw unit by a second. Difficult to notice the results in the ‘real world', however as a parameter of measuring performance, there are clear improvements over the last generation.

OCZ are seen as the pioneers of the Solid State Drive sector and there is no doubt that their Indilinx platform is leading the way. When OCZ released the Vertex 4 earlier this year I was extremely impressed with the performance, especially when factoring in both compressible and incompressible data throughput.

If you are in the market now for a new Solid State Drive there are certainly no shortage of options. There are literally hundreds of Sandforce 2281 powered drives which basically have a different company sticker on them. There is no doubt that these are generally very fast drives however when dealing with incompressible data they can take a large performance hit.

Furthermore, it is impossible to ignore the firmware and reliability issues in the past which subsequently inflicted high profile problems for several of the top enthusiast companies. It is no coincidence that many of these companies are now focusing on other controllers for their flagship products.

The latest Indilinx Barefoot 3 is truly an exceptional controller and the Vector drive is a worthy successor to the Vertex family. The drive is equally capable with incompressible and compressible data, delivering class leading results. The Vertex 4 was outperformed in our tests, which is a noteworthy achievement.

The Vector also produces fantastic IOPS performance, ahead of the previous generation of drives. We recorded between 90,000 and 100,000 IOPS in our random 4k tests, meaning this drive would be ideal for a myriad of intensive demands, not just simple boot duties.

I have been extremely impressed with this drive on all levels. As I am writing this, we have no indication of pricing, however we expect the Vector to have a slight premium over the last generation. It is a competitive market however, so OCZ need to get the price right. As a performance option, this is without question a ‘MUST HAVE' product.

EDIT: Aria are stocking the 256GB Vector drive for £227.99 inc vat.

Pros:

• Stunning performance.
• IOPS performance leader.
• incompressible data and compressible data performance
• fast boot drive.

Cons:

• The SSD market is flooded with products.

Kitguru says:  A stunning, well balanced performer that claims the Number 1 spot.

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