Hardware OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/05/15/ocz-vertex-ssd-review/1

SSDs might have high read speeds covered, but writing data, especially random write speeds, has held many back. Today we look at OCZ's latest high speed SSD, the Vertex, to see if the addition of onboard cache and an ARM processor can allow SSDs to fulfil their true potential.

 

I think when 100Gb+ SSD drives start hitting the £100 sweet spot many consumers are happy to spend on storage, we'll see the move away from mechanical drives. At the moment, I feel even though the drive is clearly very capable, £300 on storage is an awful lot for your average consumer to swollow.

 

Very true.

But it's finally a damn good product that works, as an SSD and as a replacement for a hard drive. If you're serious above performance - this is the bottleneck for many systems.

 

Sweet. Give it a few more years when all the bugs have been ironed out and (most importantly) the price has come down, then I'll buy one.

 

i have a feeling i will buy one of these early next year

 

Still too rich for my blood,I'm never in that much of a rush from cold boot.These are the way to go,no doubt about that but,for now mechanical disk drives will suffice.Those of you who must be at the bleeding edge,go for it if you have the cash burning a hole in your pocket.

 

Nice article - looks like an awesome device.

This doesn't seem to match the graph, which suggests there is effectively nothing to separate them (0.3s). Can you clarify?

 

a very well done review, must have take ages to process all the bench tests. But rational thinking about the benefit of SSD verses costs;
Is it really that long to wait for a OS to start up or a game to load? No it is not, we doing it for years and those 20 seconds extra wont kill us.
is 120gb SSD cheap compared to the 1TB mechanical drives? No its not. If you are in a store and have to choose between a 327 pounds 120GB or a 100 pounds 1TB drive. We all will choose the 1TB without a doubt.

 

Thanks for the spot, that's my mistake. The result commentary was based on results we retested and found to be incorrect. The revised numbers were added into the review, but I missed editing the commentary. fixed!

 

Once you've used a decent SSD like the Vertex for an extended period of time, going back to a sluggish HDD seems like the difference between running and walking. Everything seems more response, especially in the legendarily slugish Vista, applications and programs open noticeably faster, browsing files and folders is quicker, the whole operating system experience is improved.

While it's not really possible to test this increased responsiveness, booting off of the SSD just made the whole system feel faster and more responsive. Is £300 a lot to pay for 120GB? Certainly, but you get a lot more than faster boot and game loads for your money.

 

Great review and it's awesome to finally see a company sort out the controller side of things. As others have said, when I can get an OS size (100GB) or larger drive for £100 that'll be the tipping point for me to get one. By then performance should be absolutely eclipsing mechanical drives.

 

Imagine switching from a 7,200 RPM SATA2 drive back to a 5,400 RPM PATA drive. The difference is very noticeable, believe you me! Also, while there's little or no difference between the early 10K Raptor drives and the newer 7.2 K SATA 2 drives there really was when they first came out. I haven't tried an SSD yet but it's definitely up there on the list of hardware to buy.

 

I'll agree that boot times on an SSD are impressive and while a decrease of 7 seconds to load a level in Crysis is nothing to sneeze at... the decrease in boot times is far more impressive than the load times of Crysis. 30 seconds? 37 seconds? Honestly, I'm not too bothered about seven seconds in game loads... although cutting OS boot times down by 50% would be very nice indeed.

When SSDs reach the 'sweet spot' of £1/GB, then I'll bite for a boot drive. Hell, if a drive of performance like this reaches £1.50-2/GB I might bite.

Also, while it's not really feasible, it would be good to have a '12 months later' review on these SSDs, to show that after 'normal' usage for 12 months, performance degrades... or not.

I think I'd be crying if I was booting from that Seagate 7200.10, though.

 

Don't worry - I am!

 

Update the US price, now $369.99 on ZZF... so tempting

 

It's listed as price as reviewed.

 

I think you mean sequential write speed? The graph indicates that you're testing write speeds.

Otherwise, very nice article. If only I could justify one..

 

Can you actually use these 2.5" desktop SSDs in laptops, or are they slightly too big or power hungry?

This/these do seem rather good though. Interesting that the speed decreases with the new firmware in the Random Read Response Time (Maximum) graph, I really wouldn't have expected that as the newer one is faster in seemingly everything else.

Also, silly bit-tech with your screw drivers mishaps, I would have expected better from you!

 

random access times page 4 remove the hard disks from the chart or put the numbers out side the bars as your software that makes them is not very smart (back to reading now page 5)

 

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