OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SATA 3 SSD Review - RAID 0 Becomes Pointless

[The SSD Guy]

A quick search on the internet defines Goliath as being of colossal power or achievement. As much as we are going to introduce you to a new age in solid state drives with this pre-release review of the OCZ Vertex 240GB SATA 3 SSD, the name is as suitable for SandForce as it is for this drive itself. Quite frankly, the results pulled from this SSD were completely unexpected.

The Vertex 3 blew away all of our SSD RAID configuration benchmarks as well as OCZ' own RevoDrive and fared just behind the RevoDrive x2. The reasoning is simple and great news for SSD enthusiasts everywhere; 4KB random performance has hit the sky.

INTRODUCTION

The OCZ Vertex II 240GB SSD is the first client release of several similar oem SSD announcements expected in the next while and is powered by the new SandForce 2281 Client Processor. Specifications describe it as having a maximum read performance of 550MB/s and write at 525MB/s with 4kb random write at an unheard of 60,000 IOPS in a consumer release. You are going to want to pay attention to these 4kb random results because they alone make this drive much more special than the high sequential read and writes which have never been attained previously in a non-RAID SSD. OCZ lists this drive as capable of 20% faster IOPS and 40% faster sequential access thorough-put than their previous generation of Sandforce based solid state drives.



The Vertex 3 SSD contains the SandForce SF-2281VA1-SDC-ES SATA 3 processor and the 240GB version contains 16 modules of Micron 16GB NAND flash (29F128G08CFAAB). This brings the drive to a total capacity of 256GB, however, over provisioning (7%) and firmware gives the end user a final available capacity of 223GB.

SPECIFICATIONS

Performance

• Max Read: 550 MB/s
• Max Write: 525 MB/s
• 4KB Random Write (aligned): Up to 60,000 IOPS
• Achieved on Intel Sandy Bridge platform which is recommended to show full potential of the drive

Key Features

• SATA III / 6Gbps
• Implements SandForce 2281 Client SSD Processor
• Enhanced BCH ECC capability
• Supports SATA-7 Security Erase
• Efficient Write Amplification Factor of less than 1 (4K database transfer workload)
• Significantly improved performance over previous generation
• Delivers 20% faster IOPS, and 40% faster sequential read/write throughputs
• Consumer solution that implements cost-effective2Xnm MLC NAND Flash to deliver an excellent balance of performance and reliability
• MTBF: 2 Million Hours
• 3 Year Warranty

PG1 - INTRODUCTION & SPECIFICATIONS

PG2 - BENCH CONFIGURATION AND TESTING PROTOCOL

PG3 - INITIAL BENCHMARKS

PG4 - CRYSTAL DISKMARK, AS SSD, HDTACH & WIN7 EXPERIENCE INDEX

PG5 - HDTUNE BENCHMARK TESTING

PG6 - PCMARK VANTAGE COMPARISON TESTING

PG7 - CONCLUSIONS

[bdfun]

Great review! Since it is now April I was wondering if you are still running this drive and if so could you do another series of benchmarks to see if it has dropped off like my Patriot Inferno did after a month. Thanks in advance

[groberts101]

as a beta tester for OCZ, I can tell you without doubt that the throttling algorithms have been tweaked quite a bit. GC is much more aggressive as well. Here's a heavy-heavy pounding and throttled state followed immediately by another run showing the controller lifting the throttle.

[Bill Gates]

just saw this bench of the same drive:

maybe you should update your firmware?

[The SSD Guy]

Firmware? Both results are very close and, in fact, our 4ks are higher which I prefer. Regardless, my bet is same firmware and simply different equipment. I can point to a number of reviews where the same tests to result in anything near 90+MB/s 4 k randoms.

[Tiltevros]

i think that the best way to test a new SSD is on a passthrough device like the 9211.. no ICHxR nothing just pure bandwidth

[Bill Gates]

Firmware? Both results are very close and, in fact, our 4ks are higher which I prefer. Regardless, my bet is same firmware and simply different equipment. I can point to a number of reviews where the same tests to result in anything near 90+MB/s 4 k randoms.

just recompared your as ssd to the one i posted which is apples to apples and your drive is slower across the board so im not really sure what you mean. have you seen a faster as ssd than that with the 240gb v3? i havent

[Gooseman]

First run on my 120 Gb V3............



My writes prolly take a hit because the hardware i'm on, but still..... semi-wishing I woulda sprang for the 240. Enjoying my first SSD either way though.

[The SSD Guy]

Your writes take a hit because AS SSD is not intended as an evaluation program for compressed drives.

[groberts101]

Yup. The true OS performance will float much higher than that due to more realistic compression capability.