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Product DetailsSize: 512 GB
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Product Description
Size: 512 GB
Amazon.com
As the fourth generation of the legendary Vertex SSD family, the Vertex 4 Series pushes storage performance to the max and redefines the modern day computing experience. Vertex 4 SSDs are innovatively engineered to deliver industry-leading file transfer rates and superior system responsiveness, all while providing a more durable, reliable, and energy efficient storage solution compared to traditional hard drives.
The OCZ Vertex 4 2.5-inch SSD (view larger).
|
Designed to take full advantage of the SATA III interface, the Vertex 4 unleashes ultimate productivity, gaming, and multimedia applications. This model of the 2.5-inch Vertex 4 SSD (VTX4-25SAT3-512G) offers 512 GB of storage capacity, a 510 MB/s maximum sequential write speed, and 120,000 IOPS maximum I/O performance. It's backed by a 5-year limited warranty.
Excelling in Performance, No Matter the File Type
Mirroring real-world performance scenarios over a broad spectrum of consumer desktop and mobile applications, Vertex 4 SSDs are designed to provide a superior user experience and extreme performance over the other current solutions available on the market.
With the cutting-edge Indilinx Everest 2 platform, Vertex 4 is optimized for consistently high speeds with the complete spectrum of file types and sizes including both compressible and incompressible data for balanced performance like no other drive you've experienced.
Key Features
Industry's Highest IOPs
You'll get incredible performance in workstation and heavy-duty environments with multiple data threads and performance up to 120,000 IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second, pronounced eye-ops).
No Compression-Related Performance Limitations
Better performance with "real world" data streams of varying "compressibility" as well as fully incompressible data such as videos and multimedia files, encrypted data, archive files such as .ZIP files, and software.
Indilinx Infused Everest 2 Platform
Its leading-edge, dual-ARM controller architecture enables faster performance like nothing else you've experienced.
Fast Boot Times and Ultra-Low Latency
Boot up in as little as 9 seconds, and industry-low latencies of .04 reads and .02 writes enable superior multitasking and flawless performance.
Ndurance 2.0 Technology
Advanced suite of NAND Flash management to increase durability and reliability to expand the NAND's lifespan.
Industry-Leading Warranty
Limited 5 year warranty backed by OCZ's renowned service (with toll-free tech support and 24-hour online forum support) for ultimate peace of mind.
Which OCZ Vertex 4 SSD is Right for You? | |||||
| VTX4-25SAT3-64G | VTX4-25SAT3-128G | VTX4-25SAT3-256G | VTX-25SAT3-512G | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | |||||
| Capacity | 64 GB | 128 GB | 256 GB | 512 GB | |
| Sequential Reads | 460 MB/s | 560 MB/s | 560 MB/s | 560 MB/s | |
| Sequential Writes | 220 MB/s | 430 MB/s | 510 MB/s | 510 MB/s | |
| Random 4k Read IOPS | 70,000 IOPS | 90,000 IOPS | 90,000 IOPS | 95,000 IOPS | |
| Random 4k Write IOPS | 50,000 IOPS | 85,000 IOPS | 85,000 IOPS | 85,000 IOPS | |
| Maximum IOPS | 85,000 IOPS | 120,000 IOPS | 120,000 IOPS | 120,000 IOPS | |
| Physical | |||||
| NAND Components | 2Xnm Synchronous Multi-Level Cell (MLC) | ||||
| Interface | SATA III / 6 Gbps (backwards compatible with SATA II / 3 Gbps) | ||||
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch | ||||
| NAND Controller | Indilinx Everest 2 | ||||
| DRAM Cache | Up to 1 GB | ||||
| Dimensions | 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm | ||||
| Weight | 83g | ||||
More Specifications
Designed with a superior user experience
and extreme performance (view larger).
and extreme performance (view larger).
Reliability/Protection
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): 2 million hours
- Data Path Protection: ECC corrects up to 128 random bits/1KB
- Data Encryption: 256-bit AES-compliant, ATA Security Mode Features
- Product Health Monitoring: Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) Support
Compatibility
- Serial ATA (SATA): Fully compliant with Serial ATA International Organization (Serial ATA Revision 3.0) and ATA/ATAPI-8 Standard Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
- Operating System: Windows XP 32-bit /64-bit; Windows Vista 32-bit / 64-bit; Windows 7 32-bit / 64-bit; Linux; Mac OS X
Additional Features
- Performance Optimization: TRIM (requires OS support), dynamic and static wear-leveling, background garbage collection, Indilinx nDurance 2.0 Technology to extend SSD lifespan
- Other Performance Features: Ndurance 2.0 Technology (reduced write amplification without compression, advanced multi-level ECC, adaptive NAND flash management)
- Service & Support: 5-year warranty, toll-free tech support, 24 hour forum support
The SSD Advantage
Whether you're refreshing an older laptop or trying to maximize the potential of the latest platform, SSDs provide substantial benefits over traditional hard drives.
Greater Durability
Solid State Drives feature a non-mechanical design of NAND flash mounted to circuit boards, shock resistant up to 1500g. Hard disk drives consist of various moving parts making them susceptible to shock and damage.
Faster Performance
SSDs have 100 times greater throughput and instantaneous access times for quicker boot-ups, faster file transfers, and overall snappier performance than hard drives. HDDs can only access the data faster the closer it is from the read/ write heads, while all parts of the SSD can be accessed at once.
Less Power Consumption, Silent Operation, and Lightweight
SSDs use significantly less wattage at peak load than hard disk drives--less than 2W versus 6W for an HDD--delivering longer battery life in notebooks, less power strain on system, and a cooler computing environment. With no moving parts, SSDs run virtually silent in your notebook or PC case to eliminate distracting noises during gaming or entertainment. And SSDs won't weigh down your laptop, netbook, or tablet PC when you're on the go.
 SSDs run much cooler than hard disk drives... |  ...and much quieter, too. |
Product Description
OCZ Technology 512GB Vertex 4 Series SATA 6.0 GB/s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) With Industry's Highest 120K IOPS And 5-Year Warranty - VTX4-25SAT3-512G
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
133 of 137 people found the following review helpful
By Argyris
Size Name:128 GB|Amazon Verified Purchase
UPDATE 9/5/12
A month since the last update and still going strong! Zero problems so far, still have 100% drive life remaining (according to S.M.A.R.T.), and I've stopped even considering the possibility that anything bad is going to happen to this drive. My notebook may be heavy and chunky compared to today's ultrabooks, but with my Vertex 4 in it it's a true road warrior and I've been commuting with it to campus now that school has started up again.
I'll see you again at the six month mark if all goes well!
UPDATE 8/6/12
It's been over a week since installation and I haven't had a single problem. Any issues I mentioned in my review seem to have been one-offs and have not repeated themselves. As a result, and as promised, I'm bumping my rating up to 5 stars. I've also changed the title from "Solid but not overwhelming improvement in my system" to "Solid improvement in my system", along with a few references to the title in the review itself.
I notice the price of this drive decreased by about 13% (my inventive way of indicating a price shift without getting filtered by Amazon) since I bought it about ten days or so ago. I'm not surprised since Samsung's 840 Series drive at this same capacity recently dropped in price to where this Vertex 4 is now. The SSD market is highly competitive, and as drives get ever cheaper there's less and less of an excuse not to pick one up.
In the past week I got around my instrument loading problem by switching to a mode that allows me to only load the attack portion of each sample to RAM and stream the remainder from the drive. Since SSDs excel at rapid access times (around 0.2 ms read access for the Vertex 4, versus around 9 ms for a standard desktop HDD) and random reads, this works far better than it did with any HDD I tried it on and gives me performance parity with simply loading the entire huge file into memory. Since I couldn't have reasonably done this before I got my Vertex 4 I can't in honesty say I have any complaints about my new drive.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
Note that I just received and installed this drive several days ago, and that this review is based on that experience. I plan on updating this space as time goes on.
EXPECTATIONS & GOALS
I bought this drive, after over a week of intensive research, so that I could hopefully load virtual instruments (VSTs) in my DAW faster. On a standard notebook HDD this can take over a minute depending on the instrument. Apart from that, I was interested in the usual benefits commonly associated with SSDs:
-Faster bootup
-Faster program launches
-Snappier performance (e.g. smoother multitasking, better UI responsiveness, etc)
-Faster Internet page loads
-Faster program installation
-An overall feeling of improved feedback and responsiveness (kind of everything listed above rolled together)
We'll explore how well the Vertex 4 accomplishes all these points.
MY SYSTEM
I'm using this drive in a 2009-era HP dv6-1355dx, which came with the following:
-4 GB of DDR3 RAM (updated concurrently with the drive to 8 GB)
-2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor
-500 GB Fujitsu 5400 RPM 2.5" HDD
-Intel 4 Series Express chipset
-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
This system is definitely a bit long in the tooth, but it's probably typical of what a lot of folks might have, and it should give a good indication what kind of improvement can be expected from a SSD.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
The Vertex 4 comes nicely packaged, with the drive seated in a protective layer of thick foam. In the box you'll find a 2.5"-to-3.5" adapter plate, four mounting screws, a quickstart guide, a fun "My SSD is faster than your HDD" sticker, and of course the drive itself, sealed in a stiff translucent plastic wrapper. If your box didn't come with all this, assuming OCZ hasn't changed its packaging for this drive, you might want to check with OCZ or the seller to make sure everything is okay.
Installation was simple. I had no trouble swapping the Vertex 4 for the HDD, and I was done in a little over a minute. The system POSTed with the drive installed, so all was well.
SETUP
Here's where I met my first wrinkle. OCZ provides two separate utilities for updating the firmware on their drives: The OCZ Toolbox, which runs from within Windows, and OCZ Tools, which is a bootable Linux-based tool. Since I planned to do a clean install of Windows 7, I had already burned the OCZ Tools utility to a disc before I began. Loading this utility worked fine, but for some reason it couldn't connect to OCZ's server to download the latest firmware. Confusingly, it stated that there was no newer version available, when I knew very well that this was not true. The drive shipped with firmware 1.4.3, and the latest version (as of this writing) is 1.5.
Once I had Windows installed, updated, and had all my hardware configured properly, I attempted again, this time with the OCZ Toolbox. It also couldn't update, producing a generic "file not found" type error. Several hours later I tried again, and this time I succeeded. I can understand servers being down. It happens. But I think OCZ should make it a little clearer in their utilities when it's an issue with accessing and downloading the file, instead of confusingly stating that no newer file is available or generically stating that the file can't be found.
Before we continue, let me explain why I was so adamant about updating the firmware. SSD makers in general and OCZ in particular often release updates that radically improve performance or stability or both. SSDs are still a young technology, and it's difficult at this stage to get it right the first time with the hardware. Over time these sorts of things settle down, but for the time being pay attention when your SSD manufacturer updates your drive's firmware. As we'll see in just a moment, it can be very important.
GENERAL IMPRESSIONS IN WINDOWS
As my title suggests, I have seen a solid improvement in my overall system performance. My own informal benchmarking shows that the drive itself is performing as well as I could expect on an SATA II interface (my laptop was made before SATA III was adopted). Let's go through the list.
Bootup speed is noticeably improved. The Starting Windows animation often doesn't even complete before the Login screen pops up. Benchmarking reveals that the startup time to the login screen is 9 seconds, with an additional 8 seconds between login and a fully loaded desktop. I'm happy with this result, though it's not quite the blazing startup time others have claimed from SSDs in general. No doubt a new system would unleash unused potential.
Program launches are a mixed bag. Overall nothing launches slower than before, and in the case of Firefox and Thunderbird the reductions are around 5 seconds apiece. However, if you're expecting instant launches for all your programs, that might be a little over optimistic. Also, my music program, Foobar2000, seems to hang on occasion when launching, though this is likely a specific program issue. EDIT: This seems to only happen the first time the program is launched after a reboot or if it hasn't been used in a while.
Responsiveness improvements scale with workload. I can load up all the programs in my Taskbar at once, fire up Windows Update, play some music in Foobar2000, and load some websites all at once, and while the individual tasks might take longer than they do separately, the UI remains responsive throughout, which is a clear improvement. When single-tasking or only doing a few things at a time, I don't notice too much of a difference from before.
Aside from loading tabs faster, Internet browsing in general is noticeably improved. This could be for a variety of reasons, one of which being that page caching is now more effective since an SSD will load stored information more quickly than a HDD and will do so regardless of what else it's doing at the time, thus eliminating a bottleneck. Also, SSDs are much faster than HDDs on small, random writes (~4-128 kb), which is the majority what your browser is creating when you surf the Internet.
Program installation is difficult to quantify. I'm inclined to say there was an improvement here, except that most of my programs are reasonably small and already installed fairly quickly on a standard HDD. Windows updates seem to complete faster, except for the infamous .NET updates, which seem to take forever regardless of what hardware you have. I certainly didn't see anything that would indicate that I lost performance here.
Finally, loading virtual instruments might be the only real disappointment I've had. EDIT: After my first review update, this is no longer an issue. See the update at the top for details. (I've left the original text for full disclosure.)
As I keep saying, there is a noticeable improvement--load times seem to be cut by around half--but it's not quite what I was hoping for. I'm not going to blame the Vertex 4 too much for this, as I had (incorrectly, I suppose) assumed that the instruments were big, monolithic files (for example, all the samples in my largest instrument are packaged in a single container file) that would benefit from the high sequential read throughput SSDs are famous for. Whatever. The load time has gone from interminable to nearly bearable, and I'll take what I can get.
CONCERNS
Remember when I said that firmware updates are important? Well, when after using the drive for a few hours I got the first BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) I've ever seen in my life, I was reminded of this fact. That was when I was still stuck on firmware 1.4. Read more ›
A month since the last update and still going strong! Zero problems so far, still have 100% drive life remaining (according to S.M.A.R.T.), and I've stopped even considering the possibility that anything bad is going to happen to this drive. My notebook may be heavy and chunky compared to today's ultrabooks, but with my Vertex 4 in it it's a true road warrior and I've been commuting with it to campus now that school has started up again.
I'll see you again at the six month mark if all goes well!
UPDATE 8/6/12
It's been over a week since installation and I haven't had a single problem. Any issues I mentioned in my review seem to have been one-offs and have not repeated themselves. As a result, and as promised, I'm bumping my rating up to 5 stars. I've also changed the title from "Solid but not overwhelming improvement in my system" to "Solid improvement in my system", along with a few references to the title in the review itself.
I notice the price of this drive decreased by about 13% (my inventive way of indicating a price shift without getting filtered by Amazon) since I bought it about ten days or so ago. I'm not surprised since Samsung's 840 Series drive at this same capacity recently dropped in price to where this Vertex 4 is now. The SSD market is highly competitive, and as drives get ever cheaper there's less and less of an excuse not to pick one up.
In the past week I got around my instrument loading problem by switching to a mode that allows me to only load the attack portion of each sample to RAM and stream the remainder from the drive. Since SSDs excel at rapid access times (around 0.2 ms read access for the Vertex 4, versus around 9 ms for a standard desktop HDD) and random reads, this works far better than it did with any HDD I tried it on and gives me performance parity with simply loading the entire huge file into memory. Since I couldn't have reasonably done this before I got my Vertex 4 I can't in honesty say I have any complaints about my new drive.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
Note that I just received and installed this drive several days ago, and that this review is based on that experience. I plan on updating this space as time goes on.
EXPECTATIONS & GOALS
I bought this drive, after over a week of intensive research, so that I could hopefully load virtual instruments (VSTs) in my DAW faster. On a standard notebook HDD this can take over a minute depending on the instrument. Apart from that, I was interested in the usual benefits commonly associated with SSDs:
-Faster bootup
-Faster program launches
-Snappier performance (e.g. smoother multitasking, better UI responsiveness, etc)
-Faster Internet page loads
-Faster program installation
-An overall feeling of improved feedback and responsiveness (kind of everything listed above rolled together)
We'll explore how well the Vertex 4 accomplishes all these points.
MY SYSTEM
I'm using this drive in a 2009-era HP dv6-1355dx, which came with the following:
-4 GB of DDR3 RAM (updated concurrently with the drive to 8 GB)
-2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor
-500 GB Fujitsu 5400 RPM 2.5" HDD
-Intel 4 Series Express chipset
-Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
This system is definitely a bit long in the tooth, but it's probably typical of what a lot of folks might have, and it should give a good indication what kind of improvement can be expected from a SSD.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
The Vertex 4 comes nicely packaged, with the drive seated in a protective layer of thick foam. In the box you'll find a 2.5"-to-3.5" adapter plate, four mounting screws, a quickstart guide, a fun "My SSD is faster than your HDD" sticker, and of course the drive itself, sealed in a stiff translucent plastic wrapper. If your box didn't come with all this, assuming OCZ hasn't changed its packaging for this drive, you might want to check with OCZ or the seller to make sure everything is okay.
Installation was simple. I had no trouble swapping the Vertex 4 for the HDD, and I was done in a little over a minute. The system POSTed with the drive installed, so all was well.
SETUP
Here's where I met my first wrinkle. OCZ provides two separate utilities for updating the firmware on their drives: The OCZ Toolbox, which runs from within Windows, and OCZ Tools, which is a bootable Linux-based tool. Since I planned to do a clean install of Windows 7, I had already burned the OCZ Tools utility to a disc before I began. Loading this utility worked fine, but for some reason it couldn't connect to OCZ's server to download the latest firmware. Confusingly, it stated that there was no newer version available, when I knew very well that this was not true. The drive shipped with firmware 1.4.3, and the latest version (as of this writing) is 1.5.
Once I had Windows installed, updated, and had all my hardware configured properly, I attempted again, this time with the OCZ Toolbox. It also couldn't update, producing a generic "file not found" type error. Several hours later I tried again, and this time I succeeded. I can understand servers being down. It happens. But I think OCZ should make it a little clearer in their utilities when it's an issue with accessing and downloading the file, instead of confusingly stating that no newer file is available or generically stating that the file can't be found.
Before we continue, let me explain why I was so adamant about updating the firmware. SSD makers in general and OCZ in particular often release updates that radically improve performance or stability or both. SSDs are still a young technology, and it's difficult at this stage to get it right the first time with the hardware. Over time these sorts of things settle down, but for the time being pay attention when your SSD manufacturer updates your drive's firmware. As we'll see in just a moment, it can be very important.
GENERAL IMPRESSIONS IN WINDOWS
As my title suggests, I have seen a solid improvement in my overall system performance. My own informal benchmarking shows that the drive itself is performing as well as I could expect on an SATA II interface (my laptop was made before SATA III was adopted). Let's go through the list.
Bootup speed is noticeably improved. The Starting Windows animation often doesn't even complete before the Login screen pops up. Benchmarking reveals that the startup time to the login screen is 9 seconds, with an additional 8 seconds between login and a fully loaded desktop. I'm happy with this result, though it's not quite the blazing startup time others have claimed from SSDs in general. No doubt a new system would unleash unused potential.
Program launches are a mixed bag. Overall nothing launches slower than before, and in the case of Firefox and Thunderbird the reductions are around 5 seconds apiece. However, if you're expecting instant launches for all your programs, that might be a little over optimistic. Also, my music program, Foobar2000, seems to hang on occasion when launching, though this is likely a specific program issue. EDIT: This seems to only happen the first time the program is launched after a reboot or if it hasn't been used in a while.
Responsiveness improvements scale with workload. I can load up all the programs in my Taskbar at once, fire up Windows Update, play some music in Foobar2000, and load some websites all at once, and while the individual tasks might take longer than they do separately, the UI remains responsive throughout, which is a clear improvement. When single-tasking or only doing a few things at a time, I don't notice too much of a difference from before.
Aside from loading tabs faster, Internet browsing in general is noticeably improved. This could be for a variety of reasons, one of which being that page caching is now more effective since an SSD will load stored information more quickly than a HDD and will do so regardless of what else it's doing at the time, thus eliminating a bottleneck. Also, SSDs are much faster than HDDs on small, random writes (~4-128 kb), which is the majority what your browser is creating when you surf the Internet.
Program installation is difficult to quantify. I'm inclined to say there was an improvement here, except that most of my programs are reasonably small and already installed fairly quickly on a standard HDD. Windows updates seem to complete faster, except for the infamous .NET updates, which seem to take forever regardless of what hardware you have. I certainly didn't see anything that would indicate that I lost performance here.
Finally, loading virtual instruments might be the only real disappointment I've had. EDIT: After my first review update, this is no longer an issue. See the update at the top for details. (I've left the original text for full disclosure.)
As I keep saying, there is a noticeable improvement--load times seem to be cut by around half--but it's not quite what I was hoping for. I'm not going to blame the Vertex 4 too much for this, as I had (incorrectly, I suppose) assumed that the instruments were big, monolithic files (for example, all the samples in my largest instrument are packaged in a single container file) that would benefit from the high sequential read throughput SSDs are famous for. Whatever. The load time has gone from interminable to nearly bearable, and I'll take what I can get.
CONCERNS
Remember when I said that firmware updates are important? Well, when after using the drive for a few hours I got the first BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) I've ever seen in my life, I was reminded of this fact. That was when I was still stuck on firmware 1.4. Read more ›
157 of 169 people found the following review helpful
By Technologist
Size Name:128 GB
OCZ's new Vertex 4 drive is probably the fastest current SSD under most common consumer usage purposes. It is blazing fast and has none of the blue screen of death (BSOD) issues of previous drives using Sandforce controllers. OCZ is now using a new Marvel/Indilinx controller with 25nm MLC NAND flash memory. Therefore, OCZ is confident enough to give this drive a 5 year warranty. This is my second SSD and it blows the previous one out of the water. Be aware that almost all of the negative reviews on this drive are from before the 1.5 firmware update (which is now preinstalled).
Right now, the top three SSDs (best selling and best reviews) on Amazon are the OCZ Vertex 4, Samsung 830, and the Crucial M4. The Passmark benchmark scores are as follows: 3589 for the Vertex 4, 3230 for the Samsung 830, and 2409 for the best Crucial M4. Passmark averages all submitted test samples so it is not very sensitive to outliers.
The Vertex 4 has an amazing 120k input/output operations per second which is 30-40% higher than almost all other drives and it has great access times. The sequential write which was a weakness is no longer so due to the firmware updates (it is actually now a strength). But keep in mind that 95+% (perhaps 99+%) of the time you will be reading from the drive and the read speed, in particular random read, is where you'll see almost all of the speedup. Even if you write on the drive often, there are almost no sources you can draw from that will use up all of the write speed of any newer generation drive. If you are downloading from the internet (even if you are on a 100Mpbs T3 line) you won't come close to the write speed of a standard hard drive. Alternatively, if you are writing to the SSD from a big data hard drive, the SSD write speed will definitely not be the bottleneck. The only time you will see speedups is with SSD to SSD writes (but how often do you do that?) or more specialized operations such as data generation.
The thing that the OCZ Vertex 4 excels at above and beyond all other drives is its performance on incompressible data (think videos and pictures). Sandforce based drives attain most of their speed with clever compression algorithms but tend to do poorly on incompressible data.
OCZ always had the lowest prices and fastest drives before but reliability was a significant issue. I'm glad they finally figured it out. You can now buy one of the cheapest drives out there (prices are comparable to Vertex 3) with speed and reliability. SSD's sure have come a long way.
-----------------------------------
Update 5/7/12
My drive still works perfectly and I just installed the new firmware so that the write speed more than doubled! The read speed also received a significant boost. This is the first time that I have become even happier with a purchase a few weeks in.
The new specs are:
550 MB/s read, 420 MB/s write for the 128 GB model
550 MB/s read, 465 MB/s write for the 256 GB model
550 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write for the 512 GB model
It seems like the SATA 3 interface is the limiting factor on the read speeds now. Because the firmware is so aggressive, it is destructive so that you must install it before you install your operating system or install it when the SSD is the slave drive.
The drive still blows away the competition on the IOPS and the random reads and writes on incompressible data which is almost an order of magnitude faster.
-----------------------------------
Update 9/8/12
My drive still works perfectly and the new firmware increased the speed even a bit more (see product info). With the myriad models of the newest generation of drives, it is hard for the average consumer to choose. All the drives now have outstanding read and write speeds (in excess of 400 MB/s) so the real world speed differences come from access time and IOPS (both of which the Vertex 4 excels at). It scores over 50% higher than the Crucial M4 on the PassMark hard drive benchmark.
Right now, the top three SSDs (best selling and best reviews) on Amazon are the OCZ Vertex 4, Samsung 830, and the Crucial M4. The Passmark benchmark scores are as follows: 3589 for the Vertex 4, 3230 for the Samsung 830, and 2409 for the best Crucial M4. Passmark averages all submitted test samples so it is not very sensitive to outliers.
The Vertex 4 has an amazing 120k input/output operations per second which is 30-40% higher than almost all other drives and it has great access times. The sequential write which was a weakness is no longer so due to the firmware updates (it is actually now a strength). But keep in mind that 95+% (perhaps 99+%) of the time you will be reading from the drive and the read speed, in particular random read, is where you'll see almost all of the speedup. Even if you write on the drive often, there are almost no sources you can draw from that will use up all of the write speed of any newer generation drive. If you are downloading from the internet (even if you are on a 100Mpbs T3 line) you won't come close to the write speed of a standard hard drive. Alternatively, if you are writing to the SSD from a big data hard drive, the SSD write speed will definitely not be the bottleneck. The only time you will see speedups is with SSD to SSD writes (but how often do you do that?) or more specialized operations such as data generation.
The thing that the OCZ Vertex 4 excels at above and beyond all other drives is its performance on incompressible data (think videos and pictures). Sandforce based drives attain most of their speed with clever compression algorithms but tend to do poorly on incompressible data.
OCZ always had the lowest prices and fastest drives before but reliability was a significant issue. I'm glad they finally figured it out. You can now buy one of the cheapest drives out there (prices are comparable to Vertex 3) with speed and reliability. SSD's sure have come a long way.
-----------------------------------
Update 5/7/12
My drive still works perfectly and I just installed the new firmware so that the write speed more than doubled! The read speed also received a significant boost. This is the first time that I have become even happier with a purchase a few weeks in.
The new specs are:
550 MB/s read, 420 MB/s write for the 128 GB model
550 MB/s read, 465 MB/s write for the 256 GB model
550 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write for the 512 GB model
It seems like the SATA 3 interface is the limiting factor on the read speeds now. Because the firmware is so aggressive, it is destructive so that you must install it before you install your operating system or install it when the SSD is the slave drive.
The drive still blows away the competition on the IOPS and the random reads and writes on incompressible data which is almost an order of magnitude faster.
-----------------------------------
Update 9/8/12
My drive still works perfectly and the new firmware increased the speed even a bit more (see product info). With the myriad models of the newest generation of drives, it is hard for the average consumer to choose. All the drives now have outstanding read and write speeds (in excess of 400 MB/s) so the real world speed differences come from access time and IOPS (both of which the Vertex 4 excels at). It scores over 50% higher than the Crucial M4 on the PassMark hard drive benchmark.
90 of 97 people found the following review helpful
By J. Cole
Size Name:128 GB|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this for my early 2011 macbook pro and mid 2009 mbp and it works great but there are some steps to getting the drive up to date and working.
**UPDATE** works great with Mountain Lion 10.8
Here are some instructions on what to do for people who want to know about making this drive work with the mbp.
0. Backup all data you want from your old drive because you wont have it anymore after you remove it
1. take out old drive and replace with your new SSD (look for youtube videos on how to do this)
2. power on the laptop while holding the "option" key
3. connect the the internet and choose internet recovery
4. when you get into the install screen open disk utilities and select the drive
5. create a new (1 partition) and format your new drive as Mac OS Journaled
6. close disk utility and install Lion onto the drive
ok great now your drive is working and the OS is installed, but the drive is NOT updated to the latest firmware (helps to drive work at its best)
(just a warning this is more advanced)
7. goto OCZ's website for the latest vertex 4 firmware (please read all their instructions on how to update, below is my self-experienced abridged version)
8. download their OCZ Tools utility and burn it to a disk (dvd or CD, i used toast to do this but you can use disk utility also-> for help google "burn iso image osx")
9. restart computer holding option key again and choose to boot from the disk
10. wait for computer to reboot, your touchpad and Wifi wont work... so you need to plug in a USB mouse and connect via ethernet (MUST have net for this to work)
11. click the mac update tool on the bottom bar
12. make sure it is asking to update the vertex 4 (will say y/n)
13. say yes to setting to AHCI and do a normal update
14. after it is done it will ask you to press "S" and repeat the process 1 time as of 6/26/12 (start back @ step 9)
15. if everything is updated and everything is clear on being completed, shutdown the tool and restart the computer normally
16. YOU DID IT!!! easy right? enjoy instant loads and a now much cooler (temp.) and nearly silent laptop
The product itself is a 5 star product, just the installing and updating is not easy for a casual user hence the -1 star
**UPDATE** works great with Mountain Lion 10.8
Here are some instructions on what to do for people who want to know about making this drive work with the mbp.
0. Backup all data you want from your old drive because you wont have it anymore after you remove it
1. take out old drive and replace with your new SSD (look for youtube videos on how to do this)
2. power on the laptop while holding the "option" key
3. connect the the internet and choose internet recovery
4. when you get into the install screen open disk utilities and select the drive
5. create a new (1 partition) and format your new drive as Mac OS Journaled
6. close disk utility and install Lion onto the drive
ok great now your drive is working and the OS is installed, but the drive is NOT updated to the latest firmware (helps to drive work at its best)
(just a warning this is more advanced)
7. goto OCZ's website for the latest vertex 4 firmware (please read all their instructions on how to update, below is my self-experienced abridged version)
8. download their OCZ Tools utility and burn it to a disk (dvd or CD, i used toast to do this but you can use disk utility also-> for help google "burn iso image osx")
9. restart computer holding option key again and choose to boot from the disk
10. wait for computer to reboot, your touchpad and Wifi wont work... so you need to plug in a USB mouse and connect via ethernet (MUST have net for this to work)
11. click the mac update tool on the bottom bar
12. make sure it is asking to update the vertex 4 (will say y/n)
13. say yes to setting to AHCI and do a normal update
14. after it is done it will ask you to press "S" and repeat the process 1 time as of 6/26/12 (start back @ step 9)
15. if everything is updated and everything is clear on being completed, shutdown the tool and restart the computer normally
16. YOU DID IT!!! easy right? enjoy instant loads and a now much cooler (temp.) and nearly silent laptop
The product itself is a 5 star product, just the installing and updating is not easy for a casual user hence the -1 star
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
BEST OF THE BEST
I purchased this Great item as a recommendation of a friend of mine whom fixed my laptop after it crashed. Read more
Published 8 hours ago by Carlos E Vasquez
5.0 out of 5 stars
Performance +
All benchmarks ran post installation were above site listing. Make sure to have the correct SATA driver and use a controller that takes full advantage.
Published 2 days ago by Sean
5.0 out of 5 stars
Works as expected!
Installed without any problem and provided a significant speed increase over the previous spinning HD.
I would recommend any day of the week.
I would recommend any day of the week.
Published 3 days ago by Dale A. Tompkins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent SSD
I'm using this SSD right now and it's very fast. I currently run an i7 sandybridge, along with this SSD, 16 gigs of memory and dual gtx 560ti and Windows 7 professional; I load my... Read more
Published 4 days ago by James Lee
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Fast
I have these baby's in raid 0 and they run superfast . I would def recommend these to anybody so easy to install and work
Published 4 days ago by Anthony Loprete
3.0 out of 5 stars
Works great, should come with the sata cable
SATA cable is not included in the package, factor that into the price before purchasing it. I have done any speed test to comment on the IO performance.
Published 5 days ago by Srinivasa Burugapalli
5.0 out of 5 stars
Computer is now lightning fast
If you haven't upgraded your PC with an SSD, you must do it. Just leave a HDD for massive storage purposes and install the OS, software and games in the SSD. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Andrés Arias
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brought my old laptop back to life
Now it boots way faster and seems to have more battery life. Drive is smaller than the original but I bought a small very inexpensive enclosure for that so now I used it as a USB... Read more
Published 8 days ago by William A. Henning
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ordered this for my boyfriend
I ordered this for my boyfriend and he loves me a million times more than before. He says compared to his last one this keeps his computer running cooler and faster! So I am a fan!
Published 11 days ago by Kasey Woodcock
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good drive
Works as it should. Cloned my boot 128 3GB/s SSD drive with no problem. Had to add a 6GB/s driver card to my computer to get enough bandwidth.
Published 14 days ago by jaspar
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