Interesting article on OCZ

[jhansman]

Found this on Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012...9?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&rpc=76

It will be interesting to see if their strategy will get them competitive with Samsung and Intel.

 

[groberts101]

Looks very promising and I've evn thought about investing in this clearly undervalued stock myself.

I really like the thought of getting away from the lower end type drives and "multiple models with the same controller" market saturation mentality. Been harping on them about that for years now with "can't you guys learn anything from the automakers?" type comments. Glad to hear it.. but time will tell.

 

[Brahmzy]

I hope OCZ kicks some major ass and continues to bring out products that push the envelope and competitition to work their R&D. This is what they've done and I hope it continues in force. I hope my next SSDs will be SATA Express Vector 2's.

 

[Coup27]

OCZ were pretty much the only SSD vendor who hammered out products and had a nearly bewildering array of SSDs. The rest of the competition had a very small product line which enabled them to focus their resources on much fewer drives. It's good that OCZ have realised this is the way forward and you only need <5 drives to cover the market options.

 

[Mfusick]

OCZ were pretty much the only SSD vendor who hammered out products and had a nearly bewildering array of SSDs. The rest of the competition had a very small product line which enabled them to focus their resources on much fewer drives. It's good that OCZ have realised this is the way forward and you only need <5 drives to cover the market options.

Right.

And they rushed to market to lead and be first... which is an aggressive position.

But there is always some hiccups to doing this. Usually in errors and issues.

they paid the price in their reputation being sacrificed because they were feeling the growing pains of a new technology.

This hurt them a lot with the early sandforce issues and Vertex3 I think.

Most of that stuff is corrected- But the result is a lot of people hate OCZ.

 

[Elixer]

I don't think the average joe noticed one way or the other about OCZ.
Sure, in the enthusiasts tech forms the people who had issues tend to be more vocal, but lots of other people had no issues, so they never posted about their OCZ product working fine for them.

I myself had to RMA my Vertex 2 multiple times because it bricked itself (solid red & green LEDs), but, their RMA service was excellent. Had a replacement SSD shipped fedex from Taiwan overnight.
Sure, I rather not had to deal with the RMAs, but as a whole, OCZ still is pretty good.

 

[Mfusick]

I agree. I own 15 OCZ SSDs. Never had issues. I only once bricked a SATAII 60GB Vertex2 and the RMA was fast and easy.

I am very PRO OCZ mostly because they sell for low street prices and have high performance levels.

I am glad some don't view them well.. it allows me to buy the products myself cheaper.

Crucial is the most overated SSD IMO. I just don't understand why people are still buying and more over... actively recommending the M4.

It's a slow dog that sells for more.

 

[bononos]

I agree. I own 15 OCZ SSDs. Never had issues. I only once bricked a SATAII 60GB Vertex2 and the RMA was fast and easy.

I am very PRO OCZ mostly because they sell for low street prices and have high performance levels.

I am glad some don't view them well.. it allows me to buy the products myself cheaper.

Crucial is the most overated SSD IMO. I just don't understand why people are still buying and more over... actively recommending the M4.

It's a slow dog that sells for more.

Maybe other people prioritize reliability higher than pure performance which doesn't sound wrong to me. Crucial may be slower but its not that slow as to make it uncompetitive when you consider other factors.

You made the impression in your first sentence that OCZ's reliability is not an issue for the average end consumer which I would disagree. Theres enough data on this forum+newegg alone to make the reasonable conclusion about OCZ.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/862-7/components-returns-rates-6.html
http://www.behardware.com/articles/881-7/components-returns-rates-7.html

And OCZ's corporate woes are casting a shadow over whether its its warranties can be honored.

 

[Mfusick]

Ok- so lets say OCZ goes out of business and does not exist. Isn't a Samsung just a better choice all around since it's as reliable, offers better performance and sells for the same price?

Plextor?

I mean it's not just OCZ that beats out the Crucial on most important factors. The only way Crucial would make sense is if ALL THE OTHERS went out of business. I doubt that is going to happen.

Common sense says the Vertex4 is a better choice over M4. It's certainly higher performance and it's certainly cheaper. But it uses the same controller from Marvel as the M4 inside- so the reliability should be similar. So far it's proving much better than previous OCZ drives with Sandforce controllers. AND- it comes with a longer and better 5 year warranty.

The only reason not to choose it would be personal dislike of OCZ or a personal brand preference for another brand. That's ok. Just admit why. Don't bash on OCZ to defend a purchase decision.

What brand SSD do you own ?

I can tell your anti OCZ from your slant. But that is not my point. My real point is that Crucial was overated IMO. And even if you subtract OCZ from existence there is little left good about that drive. It's old and slow. For some reason Crucial supporters are "bullies" and like to scare everyone into thinking any non crucial drive is going to be unreliable. That's a silly concept if you ask me. So take away the scare tactic and your left with a drive that doesn't lead on price or performance. Not for me.

 

[rsutoratosu]

I really wanna know what do they do to those ocz rma drives ? like brick ones, is it repairable and sold as refurb ? is it like reflash or replace the firmware that went bad or bad nand chip ?

i currently have 3 ocz drives, 2 were earlier 60gb vertex 2, they did go bad but the rma ones are still good after 1.5 years. vertex4 one doesn't have problems.

i do have other ssd around, 3/9 are ocz. i buy best bang for buck, so whatever is on sale.. last 2 were intel 180/240s

 

[BrightCandle]

I don't want to see OCZ die, I certainly don't hate them. I have had OCZ drives fail but the support has been great and I can't fault that. What I can fault however is their honesty. They have unfortunately lied about the contents of more than 1 SSD. They also have the worst reliability record of all SSD manufacturers and got just silly with the number of firmware updates.

Storage simply needs to be right in a way that isn't true for things like graphics cards, because when it screws up the problem is permanent. If a GPU crashes I just reboot. My SSD has a bug that corrupts a file (on first write or at least before its backed up) and I just lost the last picture I had of Grandma.

While there are competitors out there at the same price, without the drama, I think should they should be avoided. They need to prove they can be trusted and that will take time, but after a decade of lies it seems highly likely they will continue to play with the truth.

Diversifying their NAND supplies may help them deliver but they have a lot further to go before they are reputable.

 

[blastingcap]

competition is good and I want ocz to thrive if possible

 

[Hellhammer]

Ok- so lets say OCZ goes out of business and does not exist. Isn't a Samsung just a better choice all around since it's as reliable, offers better performance and sells for the same price?

If you want my honest answer, yes, Samsung would be better (assuming we're talking about SSD 830).

Common sense says the Vertex4 is a better choice over M4. It's certainly higher performance and it's certainly cheaper. But it uses the same controller from Marvel as the M4 inside- so the reliability should be similar. So far it's proving much better than previous OCZ drives with Sandforce controllers. AND- it comes with a longer and better 5 year warranty.

At one point the m4 was one of the cheapest SSDs around and it was constantly getting cheaper as well. Now others have caught it, so it's not as good as it used to be.

Controller != Reliability

For reliability you need a solid firmware and both Crucial and OCZ have their own custom FWs. On top of that, there are lots of other components such as power delivery circuits that can fail (and these are usually the spots where manufacturers try to cheap out...).

 

[Railgun]

I`m just PO`d I didn`t pick up their stock Tuesday like I told myself to do.

Oh well.

Reliability obviously to be seen long term, I`ve contended in other threads that regardless of what happens to the company, I think either way they`ll be in a good place as far as products are concerned. I can`t see any way that they`ll simply dissolve as their products have been competitive for some time, regardless of whose controller was in use. If there is a buyout, I still see Seagate doing it. If not, then OCZ will be successful in their own right. Either way it`s a win.

 

[lehtv]

Maybe other people prioritize reliability higher than pure performance which doesn't sound wrong to me. Crucial may be slower but its not that slow as to make it uncompetitive when you consider other factors.

However, it's not true the Crucial M4 is slower than OCZ.

M4 vs Vertex 4: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/425?vs=639

M4 is considerably faster than Vertex 4 in average read speeds in both heavy and light workloads, and much faster in sequential reads ranging from 0.5kb to 64kb transfers. OCZ Vertex 4 trumps it in write speeds, but it's clear that read speeds, especially for small files, are more important in determining the effect on your operating system's responsiveness.

M4 vs Vertex 3: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/425?vs=389

M4 again has better sequential read results for small files.

 

[Mfusick]

I think in general it's known the Vertex4 trumps the M4 in general performance. Picking a benchmark crucial might win at is the same as picking a bench the Vertex4 might win. The end user experience is the sum total of it all and the Vertex is tops in that regard.

While vertex4 is a bit newer and faster with optimized firmware I'm not sure basic consumers might tell much difference from one SSD to another.

Vertex4 does seem reasonably reliable and big improvement over previous OCZ models. Adding the 5 year warranty speaks well too...

 

[Sureshot324]

OCZ is still the only company making reasonably prices PCIe SSDs, which I think is the direction the industry needs to go because SATA3 is going to be a bottleneck for a long time.

 

[Mfusick]

It's true that vector and samsung 840pro like SSDs are nearing the SATA 3 bottleneck.

A big 512gb pci SSD card is just beasty.

I think cost and compatibility have held those back thus far

 

[Sureshot324]

It's true that vector and samsung 840pro like SSDs are nearing the SATA 3 bottleneck.

Not nearing, they're at it. They do 500MB/s, which is the SATA3 limit. Every recent SSD controller is made specifically for that speed because there is no point in making a faster one. OCZ's Revodrive 3 uses 2 Sandforce controllers for 1GB/s.

 

[Mfusick]

Not nearing, they're at it. They do 500MB/s, which is the SATA3 limit. Every recent SSD controller is made specifically for that speed because there is no point in making a faster one. OCZ's Revodrive 3 uses 2 Sandforce controllers for 1GB/s.

I wonder if new SSDs will be PCI or there will be a new SATA4 interface ?

 

[Emulex]

both and a hybrid, but what really counts is RAS. They need to keep the reliability up. Using Capacitors doesn't add much cost. IOECC and IOEDC. Spare NAND.

OCZ is known for highest junk return rate. Not sure how they will ditch that reputation.

Samsung (830) is known for world class performance. Extremesystems dude has 6PB written to his which is quite a bit more than expected.

low QD speed - important for home users
random i/o speed - important for everyone

linear read/write -> great for some people and benchmark queens.

Reliability -> #1 over anything. unreliable or malfunctioning firmware makes everything else worthless.

 

[Brahmzy]

SATA Express is the next interface.
SATA2 = 3G
SATA3 = 6G
SATAE = 16G
Better find some seat belts...

 

[Revolution 11]

SATA Express is the next interface.
SATA2 = 3G
SATA3 = 6G
SATAE = 16G
Better find some seat belts...

Can't come out fast enough, I say.

 

[Mfusick]

SATA Express is the next interface.
SATA2 = 3G
SATA3 = 6G
SATAE = 16G
Better find some seat belts...

That's going to be nice. How soon is this going to be coming ?

 

[Rvenger]

Can't wait to see some endurance testing over at XS with the new Vector.