Indilinx (OCZ) Arowana reviews?

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Tanclearas

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May 10, 2002
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Ok, so OCZ announced this supposedly amazing firmware for Indilinx drives back in May. OCZ drives with this new firmware are shipping, and in fact Newegg ran a promo on those drives which sold out.

So... the drives are out there, but no reviews? I found out that the drive I purchased last year is one of the models likely to be able to use the Arowana firmware, so obviously I am curious. :)
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Go look up any old generation 1 Vertex review, and add a few percent to the speeds. Thats about it. The OCZ forum has numerous poster's results before and after the firmware upgrade (on older drives).

Edit: It looks like I'm mixing up "Vertex Turbo" and "Vertex Plus." My post above refers to the turbo, not necessarily the Arowana drives. Oops.
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Don't forget that this new firmware can be applied to many of the old Gen1 Vertex drives. It's a destructive flash that can also bring "dead" drives back to life. I upgraded a 120 with no issues.

Edit: It looks like I'm mixing up "Vertex Turbo" and "Vertex Plus." My post above refers to the turbo, not necessarily the Arowana drives. Oops.
 
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Tanclearas

Senior member
May 10, 2002
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Binky said:
Go look up any old generation 1 Vertex review, and add a few percent to the speeds. Thats about it. The OCZ forum has numerous poster's results before and after the firmware upgrade (on older drives).
Click to expand...

The arowana firmware is not yet available to previous Vertex drives. Firmware 1.7 is not arowana. Vertex Turbo is not arowana. The most up to date info seems to be here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...rowana-FW-when&p=672258&viewfull=1#post672258.

EarthwormJim said:
Reviews of the Vertex Plus should indicate the kind of performance to expect.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4020/ocz-vertex-plus-preview-introducing-the-indilinx-martini
Click to expand...

That drive does not use the arowana firmware.

Insomniator said:
My 120GB drive arrived on Monday and I get exactly the results shown here in as-ssd:

http://www.ocztechnology.com/res/manuals/OCZ_Vertex_Plus_Product_sheet.pdf
Click to expand...

Sweet! Thanks!
 
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Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,046
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Tanclearas said:
The arowana firmware is not yet available to previous Vertex drives. Firmware 1.7 is not arowana. Vertex Turbo is not arowana. The most up to date info seems to be here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...rowana-FW-when&p=672258&viewfull=1#post672258.
Click to expand...
It appears that you are correct. I edited my posts to avoid confusion. The "turbo" firmware appears to be used on the older Vertex1 drives, while the arowana (and Maritni I assume) is generally used on the newer Intel 34mm Intel nand drives.
 
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Tanclearas

Senior member
May 10, 2002
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EarthwormJim said:
It's the same firmware, just under it's older name. That's not a review, that's a preview btw.
Click to expand...

Fine. Let me try to clarify even more. That is a preview of pre-release Martini firmware from November 2010, and not a review of a production model with Arowana firmware. It's odd that you are the one stressing that it is a preview, but also making an argument that it is valid for determining results of production firmware.

If you would like to assume the results will be identical, that is your choice. I wanted to see results from actual production models, and Insomniator was kind enough to share his experience.
 
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groberts101

Golden Member
Mar 17, 2011
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being a beta-tester for OCZ.. I have it on pretty good authority that Arawona is just rebadged Martini firmware. The main difference with this new drive is that the previous Martini firmware would have been released with 34nm nand implementation, whereas this newer Vertex Plus will be utilizing 25nm.

I feel this leaves the "potential" for users of older 34nm drives to actually achieve slightly better performance than the Vertex Plus models simply because of the slight performance benefit of the older 34nm nand. I've got 8 drives(that weren't applicable to the Turbo update) just waiting to be updated to Arawona.

And it seems like it usually takes a few weeks to a month for all the benchmarks screens to be posted in sufficient quantity to easily find them.
 
EarthwormJim

EarthwormJim

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Oct 15, 2003
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Tanclearas said:
Fine. Let me try to clarify even more. That is a preview of pre-release Martini firmware from November 2010, and not a review of a production model with Arowana firmware. It's odd that you are the one stressing that it is a preview, but also making an argument that it is valid for determining results of production firmware.

If you would like to assume the results will be identical, that is your choice. I wanted to see results from actual production models, and Insomniator was kind enough to share his experience.
Click to expand...

Judging by previous previews of SSDs, it is fairly valid to assume that performance results will be nearly identical. Go back and look at other previews if you don't believe me. I would trust that anandtech preview more so than random as-ssd benchmark results on a forum.

The main difference between pre-production and production firmware are bug fixes, not performance enhancements.

The drives are still new, there really aren't new reviews. Since you seem to have an attitude, here's a link for you: OCZ Vertex Plus Review
 
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Tanclearas

Senior member
May 10, 2002
345
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71
EarthwormJim said:
Judging by previous previews of SSDs, it is fairly valid to assume that performance results will be nearly identical. Go back and look at other previews if you don't believe me. I would trust that anandtech preview more so than random as-ssd benchmark results on a forum.

The main difference between pre-production and production firmware are bug fixes, not performance enhancements.

The drives are still new, there really aren't new reviews. Since you seem to have an attitude, here's a link for you: OCZ Vertex Plus Review
Click to expand...

Attitude? I ask about reviews (it's even the thread title). You come in providing a link to a preview (yourself implying it is a review), which I mistakenly refer to as a review, and you ever so kindly point out is a preview. You insult and demean the one person that provided at least some information relevant to the the original request. Then you send LMGTFY (for which I had actually previously done, but you have clearly not).

Yeah. I have an attitude. :rolleyes:

Once again, I want to thank Insomniator for the information he provided, and thank groberts101 as well. You must have drives to spare to be willing to be a beta tester for hard drive firmware. :)
 
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