The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Perhaps the thing I have always liked about OCZ is their willingness to push ahead, and more often than not, in the face of adversity. Their journey has not always been the smoothest, but the OCZ name has been synonymous with SSD innovation and they have advanced SSD technology further ahead than many might believe. This is evident in the fact that OCZ has more SSD firsts than any other manufacturer in the industry.
With the very sudden departure of Ryan Petersen, new CEO Ralph Schmitt brings with him a dynamic work ethic and a ‘buck stops here’ attitude that just might bring that opportunity to succeed much closer.
Many might think that the Vector was in play well before his arrival, however, we might suggest that its late date of arrival is a huge first step for OCZ and is the result of a great deal of validation and justly so.
The Vector is Ralph’s first up at bat and this SSD becoming a hit is so much more than the success or failure of a single product; it is a huge step forward for the new OCZ business model.
Performance for the OCZ Vector is one of the highest we have tested to date. It’s transfer speeds are both well in excess of 500MB/s and IOPS are only a hair short of the listed 100,000 IOPS spec. Add to this a five-year warranty, along with a guarantee that each SSD out the door is subject to a mandatory burn in period and the Vector just may command some respect. Sustained performance along with an endurance guarantee are not much spoken of in the consumer SSD arena.
The only hiccup we can see might be that of the manufacturers suggested retail pricing model and that may be taken care of by the time we see the Vector released today, ‘suggested’ being the key word. The only real competition for the Vector now is the Samsung Pro and both of these drives run neck and neck in performance and warranty. Samsung may have the slight advantage of owning the fab and being able to control their final pricing a bit more but OCZ has made steps forward themselves and this just may be the making of great ‘storage wars’.
A sincere congrats to Ralph Schmitt, Indilinx, PLZ and OCZ as the teamwork is obvious in the composition and performance of the Vector. As such, we are awarding the OCZ Vector our Editor’s Choice Award!
Excellent as always, Les! Can’t wait to get mine in for testing!
I am very excited about this drive! Maybe it will be my next ssd.
Geeze, SandForce is getting kicked to the curb with this one. Do you think this will send toggle NAND to the sidelines for good?
What about this V. OCZ Vector Turbo
Eh?
Les, I took a chance and bought the 512GB from your Amazon link! I hope I like this drive!
You will and thanks! Need any help at all, send me a note as you have my email! Congrats…the long wait is finally over!
Yes, I just had a feeling about this drive. Bought a few shares of OCZ yesterday as well. They are very cheap 🙂 But I am betting that this drive keeps them as a major player. And like you, I believe SSD’s are a HUGE market. And I always thought them buying Indilinx was a great idea. And this drive is the culmination of that.
Ya…shares are a pretty safe bet at this point…too bad I couldnt jump on that train.
Well, I only got 85 shares. Becasue I blew all my other $$$ on… AMD! Which I really hope makes a comeback 🙂 I am really betting that OCZ learned from their earlier mistakes. It did take awhile for this drive to appear. It is also my first 512GB drive.
I bought 350 more shares of OCZ. I am betting that this drive is going to be a BIG winner. I hope I am right.
Got the disk today. Cloned it with no issues. Seems to be working just fine. Cannot seem to find the toolbox software online. Seems to top out at the Vertex drive.
Congrats Dave!!!
Les halo! First post here. Excellent review. Well i still side with 840 pro but OCZ did some serious job here. One question do you disable LPM before testing? Any opinion on that?
LPM as in CStates? I feel a bit embarassed that I dont know the definition eheh. If it is power management, check out the results in our forums here AFTER I disabled the C States…Actually I am going to give you the whole thread as my benches were only the first!!!
https://www.thessdreview.com/Forums/ocz/3131.htm
LPM is SATA “Link Power Management”. Just registered btw.
Well looks like a strong boost with c states! On par with the 840pro. Well i won’t cancel my order for the sammy though!
Check this link. https://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Solution-C300-Disk-Freeze-ups-in-Windows-7-solved-for-me/td-p/38766
It looks like an important performance factor ignored by many. Maybe a note for the optimization guide? Trust me i felt embarassed more than once from your knowledge of ssd’s! Lol I’m a gpu knowhow guy. Your name is not wikipedia after all!
Hello Les, tanks for the review! Great as aways! I would like to know what SSD do you recommend between the Samsung 840 Pro 250GB and the OCZ Vector 240GB? I don’t understand so much about technical specifications, but I wan’t the very best available on the market at this moment! I’ll buy two SSDs to use on RAID 0, because of that I can’t do the wrong choice, since I’ll spent a good amount of money on this.
Neither of these drives could be he wrong choice and I haven’t settled on a favorite just yet as they are so close in performance and both have five year warranties. Either is the right pick for your needs.
Hi Les! Just bought two of those for RAID0! I’m in love with this SSDs ehe but I’m having a little problem. The write-back cache on IRST can’t be enabled =( Do you have any ideas to help me to enable that? The IRST version is 11.7.0.1013. One more thing: can I enable the TRIM function with this version of IRST? (if yes, how can I do that?)Thanks a lot!
Hello Les, it is very good review but what about the DRAM Controller and two of the DDR3 256MB DRAM. Cache? how it it work? what is the advantage of this function?
How good is the IOPs with SATA 3Gb/s? That would be good to know for people that have older laptops and want to buy the Vector for their old laptop but want to eventually upgrade their laptops.
Pretty much any SATA III spec’d SSD will saturate the SATA II bus. Real world performance will float around 230MB/s . If you’re on a SATA II limited system, you can either save $ by buying a lower end SSD like an Agility 3 or know that with a 5 year warranty this SSD will be waiting with a performance jump when migrated to a newer system.
Its been 3 months, the Samsung Pro can be had for 100.00USD less than the Vector in the 512gb flavor. No contest Samsung every time. If both prices were equal, I would probably have a harder time deciding.