OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex Series SATA II Solid State Drive (Black) OCZSSD2-1VTX60G

by OCZ

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.9 x 2.7 x 0.4 inches ; 2.7 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001NPCTBE
• Item model number: OCZSSD2-1VTX60G
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 12, 2008

Product Description

Offering your system the incredible performance of flash-based technology, The OCZ Vertex Series delivers the performance and reliability of SSDs at less price per gigabyte than other high speed offerings currently on the market. The OCZ Vertex Series is the result of all the latest breakthroughs in SSD technology, including new architecture and controller design, blazing 200MB/sec read and 160MB/sec write speeds, and featuring up to 64MB onboard cache. OCZ continues to place solid state technology within reach of the average consumer, and delivers on the promise of SSDs as an alternative to traditional hard drives in consumer targeted mobile applications. Perfect for notebooks and desktops alike, the Vertex Series is ideal for energy-efficient mobile computing to extend battery life, increase access time, and provide a durable alternative to conventional hard disc drives with superior shock resistance. High capacities and low power consuming NAND flash technology provide the necessary performance and battery life boosts generated by the proliferation of mobile gaming and new ultra-thin laptops. With fast access and seek times combined with excellent reliability, the OCZ Vertex Series SSDs are the answer for consumers demanding this latest storage technology.The OCZ Vertex drives feature a durable yet lightweight alloy housing, and because OCZ SSDs have no moving parts, the drives are more rugged than traditional hard drives. Designed for ultimate reliability, Vertex Series SSDs have an excellent 1.5 million hour mean time before failure (MTBF) ensuring peace of mind over the long term. All Vertex Series SSD drives come backed a two year warranty and OCZ¿s legendary service and support.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent choice, no stuttering at all, April 5, 2009

By 

Rustam Bunyatov - See all my reviews

This review is from: OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex Series SATA II Solid State Drive (Black) OCZSSD2-1VTX60G (Personal Computers)

I would not compare it to G-Skill Titan, OCZ Apex or any SSDs that use JMicron controller, because Vertex uses ARM based controller with 32MB and 64MB caches. If I'm not mistaken all JMicron based controllers on SSD have only 32KB cache, KB! Though performance might be somewhat similar to listed above, Vertex has one core difference: no stuttering. But, of course it is my personal experience with this drive, and you might want to read more reviews. I would probably compare Vertex to Intel X25 series, and Vertex surely wins here with its price. I think OCZ finally made it with it's Vertex series by offering excellent performance, stuttering free SSD for still reasonable price per MB.

I've read a lot about SSD stuttering, slow writes and etc. and reviewed this product very thoroughly before buying it. I'm using it for a few weeks and didn't notice any "bad" behavior yet.

Vertex has 32MB cache for 30GB and 60GB versions (120 and higher versions have 64MB cache). In any case even 32MB cache is more than in any 2.5'' HDD that comes with most laptops.

I used it to upgrade hp mini 2140. ATTO benchmark shows up to 130MB/s reads and 120MB/s writes even though I didn't make all recommendations listed in OCZ forum. It is more than enough for me now.

Please note that you need to make some OS optimizations, because XP and Vista OS's were not developed with SSD in mind, and optimized for HDD instead. So to get best results with SSD you might need to:

1. align it properly
2. disable pagefile
3. disable hibernation
4. disable defragmentation
5. disable Windows Search (indexing) service

ocz forums also recommend:

1. disable prefetch
2. disable superfetch
3. disable 8.3 filenames

IMPORTANT, UPGRADE FIRMWARE TO 1275 version, factory firmware is relatively old and has some known bugs, as well as performance issues. There is a well documented procedure to update firmware, you can find all technical details at ocztechnologyforum.com.

Yes, it is cooler than HDD but not cold, and it uses less power. I've noticed some improvement in battery life after upgrade (15-30 minutes, but didn't make exact benchmarks).

Overall, excellent product.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing performance!, May 22, 2009

By 

Peter Schellenbach (Tujunga, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex Series SATA II Solid State Drive (Black) OCZSSD2-1VTX60G (Personal Computers)

I installed this drive in a new machine I built a month ago (ASUS P6T MB, I7 CPU, 6GB ram). The drive is my Windows system drive - I am using regular hard drives for my data. I installed Windows 7 beta without any problems. Windows 7 seems to handle the alignment automatically, and I did the other recommended optimizations: disabled hibernation, indexing & defrag, and I moved the pagefile to a different drive. Basically the drive only has Windows and applications, and it runs FAST! I have not observed any stuttering or other problems. Using CrystalDiskMark to compare performance:

OCZ Vertex 60GB SATA:
Sequential Read : 198.350 MB/s
Sequential Write : 94.885 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 153.026 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 78.200 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 27.266 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 8.036 MB/s
Test Size : 1000 MB

Seagate Barracuda 120 GB 7200rpm drive:
Sequential Read : 59.359 MB/s
Sequential Write : 59.145 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 31.750 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 33.705 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.562 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.931 MB/s
Test Size : 1000 MB

So far, I'm really pleased with this drive!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect upgrade for quiet/performance systems, March 26, 2010

By 

D. Matheny (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: OCZ Technology 60 GB Vertex Series SATA II Solid State Drive (Black) OCZSSD2-1VTX60G (Personal Computers)

I bought one of these OCZ 60GB drives in March of 2009 and have been using it in a media center PC since that time. Originally, that system was running Windows Vista; but it is now upgraded to the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

When I originally bought this drive, my main concern was avoiding the stuttering problem that many/most people run into with the JMicron controllers. It seemed like my best options were either this OCZ drive or an Intel drive that cost quite a bit more. I'm happy to report that my experience with this OCZ drive has been excellent, so I'm happy to have saved the money:).

If you are going to run this drive using Vista or earlier, then you should check the OCZ forums for a list of optimizations that can be done to improve performance. Foremost among those optimizations is disabling the disk defrag feature for the SSD drive since that will lead to degraded performance over time.

When running under Windows 7, it is basically plug-n-play since the OS handles everything from correct partition alignment to disabling the defrag feature automatically.

As far as the installation goes, this drive has a standard SATA interface just like any other hard drive. The problem for desktop PCs is that it is a 2.5" drive and all the bays in a typical case are 3.5". You can buy an adapter to convert a 3.5" bay to 2.5"; but I just put some velcro on this SSD and velcro'd it into my case:). The velcro works great since this drive runs so much cooler than a typical HDD and I haven't had any problems at all in more than a year.

Anyway, once you get used to one of these, you are going to want one in all your PCs since the performance is so much better than a standard hard drive. Here is a quick rundown of the things I like about it:
1) It runs completely silent. This is great for a media center PC or any other system where you want it to be quiet. I use a server for the data storage, so there are no moving HDDs in my media center system.
2) It is cooler than a typical HDD. There is still some heat generated, but it is nothing like a standard HDD. This also helps to keep the system quiet since it requires fewer fans for cooling.
3) The boot-up and application launch speeds are just amazing. I can fully boot in just a few seconds and the system is immediately ready to go instead of spinning the hard drive for another couple of minutes.
4) I can do a full install of Windows 7 on this drive in just about 10 minutes!
5) The instant performance of this drive makes my media center feel more like an appliance rather than a PC attached to a TV.

The main things to keep in mind are:
1) You want to do a full HDD erase instead of a standard format when re-installing. This will keep the performance of the drive at top notch. I use a program called HDDErase to do this.
2) Whenever you reformat, check for new firmware from OCZ. They've done a good job of releasing newer/better firmware periodically and some versions have made a real difference.

Overall, I highly recommend this drive. It's one of those game-changers for PC performance; so I suspect this is all anyone will use in a couple of years once the capacity increases and the price comes down.