Anand's OCZ Vertex 4 review is up

[Grooveriding]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5719/ocz-vertex-4-review-256gb-512gb

What say you ?

 

[ArchAngel777]

What say you ?

Not that impressed to be honest. At least, not as a low queue depth desktop user. I have never been that excited about super fast random writes. I care mostly about random read (which is really good for this drive) and sequential read (which is really abysmal at low queue depth). So, I consider this 'meh' for me personally.

With that said, it is a great drive if you use them for more than I do...

 

[KingFatty]

The review appears to predict that the sequential performance will naturally be improved by firmware. Not sure if that's based on pure speculation or what, but the reviewer seems to talk about it like it's going to happen, at least that's the impression I get. Not sure if due to bias or positive thinking...

 

[Grooveriding]

I keep looking at the new drives that arrive and can't see the benefit for a home user, even home 'enthusiast' user, to upgrade to one. I'm waiting to see something to make it look worthwhile to actually buy a new SSD if you already have one.

I was using an original Vertex 120GB up until a few months ago when it died. Moved to a Crucial M4 and absolutely no difference noticed at all unless I ran a disk benchmark :whiste: I realize there are uses for these drives where more performance can make some impact, but I think it's the minority who are going to see those benefits, not the majority.

And, of course, with any new SSD - I wouldn't buy one of these until 6 months in with time to find out what bugs are waiting in the wings. I've never seen any SSD that did not have some issues, some worse than others. Still today buying an SSD has an inherent gamble to it in terms of reliability.

 

[nanaki333]

i really liked this tidbit

Confidence in reliability is at an all-time high with the Vertex 4 as it ships with a 5-year warranty, up from 3 years with the Octane, Vertex 2 and Vertex 3.

 

[ArchAngel777]

i really liked this tidbit

I am sure they also 'negotiated better pricing with UPS' their RMA department is gonna need it.

I kid, somewhat... Increasing the warranty doesn't indicate it will be more reliable. It just means this company has accepted that RMA is a part of their business.

So now you can pay $300 for a drive, and RMA it 5 times over its life instead of 3... Again, I am not saying this won't be more reliable - I simply don't take the 5 year as evidence that it will be.

 

[woolfe9999]

Meh, I'm tired of "next gen" SSD's being better in some respects than the previous generation but worse in others. And the pricing stays the same. I recall being told in some reviews early last year that it was OK that random performance went down because it was past a noticeable difference and now sequential was all that mattered. Now we have a drive with greatly boosted random and crappy sequential. Whatever. With the technology seeming to go sideways and the pricing in stasis, it's hard to get excited about new SSD's these days.

- wolf

 

[razel]

It's been years since Allyn Malventano, the SSD expert over at pcper has been on this forum, but it looks like Anand had labelled his TRIM test the 'Malventano method.' I'm glad that two true SSD gurus Anand and Allyn are jovial to each other.

For those that forgot pcper was the site years ago that exposed a near irrecoverable corner case that the G1 Intel's had. What I find shocking now is how a similar corner case exists in nearly all Sandforce 2nd gen controllers, but it just gets reduced to one sentence and no re-emhasised in the conclusions making it seem to most that things are fine with Sandforce controllers. Oh well.

 

[meloz]

What say you ?

While the performance is improved, the fundamental problem with OCZ SSDs is that they seem to be stuck in this perpetual 'beta' state.

They are -yet again- shipping a new product with some issues unresolved, and promises that future firmware upgrades might resolve these issues.

Is it possible to upgrade the firmware on Vertex 4 while retaining the integrity of data stored on the SSD?

Anyway, I hope this OCZ SSD has better long term reliability than other OCZ products in recent past. Have read too many horror stories, I can fully understand why Anand still recommends the Samsung or Intel drives. More performance is always good to have, but reliability is crucial.

 

[wpcoe]

(From review
The Everest 2 controller is flanked by a 512MB Micron DDR3-800 DRAM. Another 512MB chip exists on the flip side of the PCB bringing the total to a whopping 1GB of DDR3 memory on-board. OCZ makes no effort to hide the DRAM's purpose: Everest 2 will prefetch read requests from NAND into DRAM for quick servicing to the host. When serviced from DRAM, reads should complete as fast as the interface will allow it – in other words, the limit is the 6Gbps SATA interface, not the SSD.

Do other SSDs also use onboard DRAM for data read/write caching? I thought the onboard DRAM was used for maintenance-type duties like data tables, write-leveling and garbage collection?

 

[greenhawk]

using RAM as a write cache will always have the issue of being lost in a power cut. A read cache does not have that issue, but then you could spend a large amount of time reading data that is never used, so power and overhead processing time would be up slightly (if that matters given the low power and dedicated task of a SSD).

Some SSD controllers have DRAM but have to be careful the data is writen in a power loss situation. The sandforce 2 I think had some DRAM inbuilt to keep costs down overall, but I can not remember.

The Performance Pro and one other has 512MB of cache, the samsung 830 uses 128 or 256MB cache, no idea on the rest. Going to 1GB is not that large of a step up as I see it, but then still reading the review

 

[Avalon]

Minus the sequential reads, it looks really good. It's very competitive in random reads, and dominates in sequential writes and random writes. If there is to be a firmware update by the end of this month that will make the sequential reads at low queue depths competitive, I think the V4 is a winner.

 

[bryanW1995]

If they could have maintained overall dominance with the cool new firmware update, they probably would have waited to get it right before announcing the new drive. OCZ is nothing if not aggressive, but at some point as a consumer you must decide if you want to be a beta tester. It's amazing to me that the samsung 830 is still getting such a strong recommendation.

 

[Coup27]

It's amazing to me that the samsung 830 is still getting such a strong recommendation.

Why do you think that?

 

[Cerb]

I keep looking at the new drives that arrive and can't see the benefit for a home user, even home 'enthusiast' user, to upgrade to one. I'm waiting to see something to make it look worthwhile to actually buy a new SSD if you already have one.

Unless you have a reasonably "ancient" Barefoot, there likely isn't a good reason to upgrade from one you already own, unless it acts funny, or you want more capacity. Even then, you'd be upgrading to get diminished returns from your original HDD-to-SSD upgrade. Even today, the Intel 320 series can be strongly recommended as a brand new drive, if the prices are right where you live.

However, enthusiasts will be enthusiasts, and always want the next high performance part around the corner. It helps drive technology development that those who want more reliability, security (in the sense of having made a quality purchase), and/or lower cost, in the future, without forcing the developers themselves to sacrifice profits until that day when it is finally, "ready."

 

[taltamir]

At first I was "ugh, 1 week after I spend 350$ upgrading my 80GB intel G2 to a 240GB intel 520"...
But then again, I wouldn't be buying this beta drive for at least a year until they solved all the bugs anyways.

 

[bradley]

My theory has always been how Sandforce's instability problems were caused mainly by compression trickery. So the Vertex 4 looks great as far as incompressible data is concerned.

Though I don't know why anyone would chance a new Indilinx/OCZ controller (with OCZ's current reputation) when the Marvell 88SS9174 is already a proven performer. The Corsair Performance Pro and Plextor M3S and M3P still look more tuned to my preferences and better overall drives.

 

[Coup27]

At first I was "ugh, 1 week after I spend 350$ upgrading my 80GB intel G2 to a 240GB intel 520"...
But then again, I wouldn't be buying this beta drive for at least a year until they solved all the bugs anyways.

With that logic you would probably never buy an OCZ drive. With sensible companies like Intel, Samsung and Crucial, you know that if you buy a drive soon after release it will be their current offering for about a year.

How pissed would I be if I bought an Octane and 5 months later a newer drive based largely on my hardware has been released? Raises another question of exactly how much testing and validation they even have time for before releasing a drive.

I know their Octane was released months before their Linux updater so the only way to update the drive was connect it as a storage drive in a secondary system running MSAHCI as their toolbox didnt support RST. Sorry but that's just not good enough for me.

 

[taltamir]

With that logic you would probably never buy an OCZ drive.

Most likely, unless OCZ changes

 

[Topweasel]

How pissed would I be if I bought an Octane and 5 months later a newer drive based largely on my hardware has been released? Raises another question of exactly how much testing and validation they even have time for before releasing a drive.

Not only that but didn't it also 2 months after release have to have a firmware update that wiped the drive. I know its easy to get around with backups, but that isn't an option for everyone, and even for those that can, it is still taking a 5 minute process and making it an hour long process.

Problem is no one is ever going to recommend an OCZ drive if they don't A.) work out the worst bugs before release and B.) Let a drive simmer for a little bit before replacing it so people don't think they are walking into another bear trap. Hopefully the move to internal controllers will smooth out the process for them, but then again if they are doing this with drives made of the same controller (100 million different options), then what is to stop them from having a million different versions of the controllers themselves.

OCZ if you are listening. Slow it down and show enthusiasts that your drives are actually ready for prime time, before resetting the clock.

 

[Burner27]

I don't get the same scores as Anand for my M4:

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Seems good. OCZ is bad when it comes to initial reliability, though, so I'd wait some months and after new firmware releases are out.

 

[groberts101]

I don't get the same scores as Anand for my M4

Likely due to hardware, power mgmt settings, and even drivers used. Spec's?

 

[semo]

Seems good. OCZ is bad when it comes to initial reliability, though, so I'd wait some months and after new firmware releases are out.

I don't see the logic there. OCZ proves time and time again that they are not a pleasant company to deal with. Do you remember when OCZ's CEO was angry at Anand for exposing the OCZ Core's terrible random performance?

As far as I'm concerned Intel, Samsung, Crucial and even Corsair have a much better track record. Why do we need to keep giving OCZ more chances and beta test their products at a cost of full a retail price?

 

[Obsoleet]

Judgement still stands.

Samsung 830 is the way to go.