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POWER CONSUMPTION
For our power consumption testing, we have the drive connected to the system as a secondary drive. To record the wattage, we use an Amprobe AM-270 multimeter connected in line with the 5v power on our SATA power cable to the drive. The multimeter records the min/max amperage draw from the drive over our testing period.
We also record the drive’s sequential and random read and write power draw using Iometer. We then take the values recorded and calculate the wattage of the drive. Some of the results may seem high compared to a standard notebook HDD because as these are peak values under load. When we see average power draw, SSDs are still more power efficient because they only hit max power for a short period of time.
In terms of power consumption, the Vector 180 is decent. Its design focus is on performance and reliability and thus, it has power consumption figures to match. As we can see from quickly glancing over the graph, the 240GB capacity seems to have a slight advantage over the larger capacity options even though all have an almost identical design. Idle power consumption is okay, but not too great, it matches the rated .85W specification. Active power consumption is rated for 3.7W, which makes sense when looking at our recorded values. Matching this with its extra weight vs some of its competitors we must say that this enthusiast SSD isn’t optimized for mobile platforms, but will suit high-end systems just fine.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Throughout testing the OCZ Vector 180 performed like a champ. All capacities seen here today perform pretty much the same, which means that you aren’t going to miss out on anything if you purchase the 240GB or 480GB models over the 960GB model. Sequential reads maxed out at 557MB/s and writes hit 535MB/s, both exceeding their rated values. PCMark Vantage showed some suboptimal results for a top tier SSDs such as this, PCMark 8 on the other hand revealed very good performance consistency that is up there with the best of them. Finally, after taking a look at its power consumption performance, we can say while it does well, it is not optimized for mobile use cases. This enthusiast class product will suit better in a high-end desktop or gaming laptop over a power sipping Ultrabook.
OCZ has been a big name in SSD storage ever since SSDs first hit the mainstream market. However, due to annual money loss and stiff competition from large OEMs, they ran into financial troubles and were forced to file for bankruptcy in late 2013. Toshiba then took advantage of their situation and bought out their assets, a strategic decision that was not only good for Toshiba, but has greatly benefited OCZ’s product line and employees. Toshiba relaunched OCZ Technologies as OCZ Storage Solutions and kept the company’s staff. With Toshiba’s help and the revamped brand image things have only gotten better. If their latest products and our sneak peak of their latest JetExpress controller at CES 2015 are any indication, we can bet that the future is looking even better on their end.
All their current 2.5″ SSD products now come with their ShieldPlus warranty, they all follow a similar design to their brand image, and they all offer great performance. The Vector 180 is their top of the line consumer SSD. It’s an enthusiast’s SSD when it comes to both price and performance. It is up there with the top dogs in benchmarking and is very competitively priced. Because of this, we award the Vector 180 our Gold Seal! If you are in the market for a top performing enthusiast class SSD, be sure to take a look at this one.
How long is it going to be before we forget-
“Friends DON’T let friends OCZ” ??????????
oh yeah, that’s so eighties…
PC Perspective threw an interesting monkey wrench at this device.
“With firmware 1.01 (current as of this writing), the Vector 180 halts every 20 seconds during sustained writes. TRIM operations also result in obvious stalls in subsequent host writes.”
Our final outlook of this SSD is determinate of all tests, the most demanding of which is PCMark 8. PCMark 8 puts the SSD through 18 hours of the most grueling activity, and well above consumer demands. The best part of independent testing is that there is always more than a single review to rely on. Obviously, we had a great respect for this SSD with the firmware on hand.
Why is the Mushkin Reactor in the consistency bandwidth charts with these drives when it is low to middle tier and the rest are top of the line ssds? Why not show the top of the line Mushkin Striker comparison instead?
I included the reactor to show a comparison to how an entry level SSD stands against the top tier SSDs. We also do not have a mushkin striker to compare.
Ok sounds good. Could you test an compare some of the new top brand ssds ? Mushkin Striker, Pny cs2111, Patriot Blaze, Corsair Neutron XT? I would like to see consistency bandwidth comparisons for these ssds. This way we can see how the new controllers stack up against each other. I hope you get some soon!
It is nice to see a company provide 3 different capacities to review at the same time.
The PFM is interesting but as stated it does not protect the data itself. You won’t have a bricked SSD but you’ll have corrupted data (and a full restore on your hands) if power is lost and the cache is holding write data. Supercaps are the only thing that will prevent that. Crucial showed that with the M500 series. Wish more companies jumped on that bandwagon.
How long will it take to forget-“Friends don’t let friends OCZ”