Interesting article on OCZ

[bononos]

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.

Are you even responding to the same post I made? I don't follow the first part of your post. You're going off tangent in rabid manner. Your numerous personal remarks about me having a personal dislike, slant, bullies is ridiculous.

No-one was bullying you or other OCZ advocates in the "New OCZ Vector" thread. In fact it looked like OCZ was going off on the others. In that thread there is clearly one OCZ advocate who receives free goodies for his 'beta testing' without a sig disclosure, and you clearly trumpeted give me free stuff and I'll market the hell out of OCZ.

Nothing I said earlier was controversial about OCZ going through a rough patch and problems about its SSD reliability. Because of the sordid past, there's good reason that they should be walking on eggshells on AT.

 

[Mfusick]

Yeah I'm done talking about this. you have a few valid points but I still think Vertex4 is just a better choice over CrucialM4 even with the OCZ negatives. It's a better product for cheaper price with longer warranty. I'm not at all convinced the Crucial is any more reliable than the Vertex4 as to make it a better choice.

 

[mrpiggy]

I'm not sure how OCZ plans to compete in the enterprise level with the big boys. All the same things that make it difficult to compete in the consumer SSD market still apply to the enterprise storage market, only more so. They still do not make their own NAND, thus getting top tier NAND for enterprise (re: expensive high-end) products is even more difficult and costly. Producers like Samsung, Micron, even Toshiba, can cherry pick production NAND for their own products (which is what eMLC really is, simply the best MLC NAND) and leave the 2nd's for others. And this does not even get into supply of SLC NAND, which is at a much lower volume and higher price.

Enterprise class OEM's like Dell, HP, EMC, etc, (and BTW, very "few" will actually supply anyone with their enterprise stuff for free,which means, each company has to buy their own test lab stuff and is EXTREMELY expensive) still prefer products from company's that have consistent supply (re: make their own NAND). The fact that enterprise OEM enterprise testing is so costly, demanding, and thorough is that customer support comes through the OEM once the product is sold, not through the actual maker of the product. For example, a rebranded LSI disk controller product in a server is supported only though the server's OEM manufacture, even though the controller is basically a standard LSI product with custom firmware.

Now maybe a company like LSI, which already has a top-tier presence name in the Enterprise business can get away with producing enterprise class SSD products. While not being a NAND manufacturer, because of their high-end controller specialty, they already has a foothold in the enterprise class equipment, however I don't see how OCZ plans to do this as they have "0" presence or history in this enterprise market besides a couple of laughable PCIe products that no self-respecting IT person would dare stick in their systems.

While some companies like Micron don't have a large enterprise SS storage presence yet, they have the benefit of complete engineering knowledge and process control all the way down to NAND manufacture and are big enough to be able to afford enterprise lab testing facilities and personnel in the large sizes that OEM's demand. This is a huge plus to a OEM vender who will be supporting these products. Someone like EMC who will be supporting their own enterprise products, cares about what tiers of the production levels they can influence in their product's design and a non-NAND producer company like OCZ cannot provide that.

 

[mrpiggy]

Oops double post..

 

[Hellhammer]

(which is what eMLC really is, simply the best MLC NAND)

eMLC is actually more than just highest binned MLC NAND. eMLC uses lower voltages which causes less stress on the silicon oxide (i.e. enhances endurance) but performance is also worse (lower voltage = longer program/erase times). The data retention time for eMLC is also only 3 months when the P/E cycle count has been reached, whereas standard MLC is rated for 1 year.

 

[AdamK47]

Hellhammer (Kristian Vättö) is an amazing contributor to AnandTech. I've been learning a lot from his posts and articles.

Now, what SSD would you recommend for a 6 x 512GB (3TB RAID-0) SSD array on an ASRock Extreme11?

 

[Mfusick]

That's serious business

 

[mrpiggy]

eMLC is actually more than just highest binned MLC NAND. eMLC uses lower voltages which causes less stress on the silicon oxide (i.e. enhances endurance) but performance is also worse (lower voltage = longer program/erase times). The data retention time for eMLC is also only 3 months when the P/E cycle count has been reached, whereas standard MLC is rated for 1 year.

I agree it's different technically, but for production purposes (or at least for the guys involved on the production floor) it's just fancier NAND. So I was just being overbroad in terms of production considerations.

 

[mrpiggy]

Hellhammer (Kristian Vättö) is an amazing contributor to AnandTech. I've been learning a lot from his posts and articles.

Now, what SSD would you recommend for a 6 x 512GB (3TB RAID-0) SSD array on an ASRock Extreme11?

Off topic, but I'd suggest a different controller if you're going for performance and multiple SSD's. If you can afford that many 512GB SSD's you can afford a real LSI caching RAID controller (like the 9265-8i or or 9270-8i). The LSI 2308 on the ASRock is low end and you won't see much benefit regardless of which SSD's or how many in RAID0. It's like putting two 4-barrel carbs on a small 4cylinder engine, when you actually need a big V8 under them.

 

[zebrax2]

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.

I actually think the sata3 bottleneck might be pretty good for the average consumer since SSD makers will then be forced to improve other metrics on the drive (eg, IOPS, Power consumption, performance consistency, price, etc.) rather than every trying to have the best sequential performance numbers

 

[AdamK47]

Off topic, but I'd suggest a different controller if you're going for performance and multiple SSD's. If you can afford that many 512GB SSD's you can afford a real LSI caching RAID controller (like the 9265-8i or or 9270-8i). The LSI 2308 on the ASRock is low end and you won't see much benefit regardless of which SSD's or how many in RAID0. It's like putting two 4-barrel carbs on a small 4cylinder engine, when you actually need a big V8 under them.

Right, nope.

 

[dac7nco]

Hellhammer (Kristian Vättö) is an amazing contributor to AnandTech. I've been learning a lot from his posts and articles.

Now, what SSD would you recommend for a 6 x 512GB (3TB RAID-0) SSD array on an ASRock Extreme11?

I've heard Plextor's M5P has pretty incredible garbage collection, which may not matter too much in a striped array for 3TB of games (mainly reads), but they're also fast and have a reputation for reliability. Is the 3TB requirement due to the size of your games library? I don't think I could NAME 3TB worth of games. Jebus. I have a 256GB M5P, but running TRIM have no way of testing the GC in a big array.

Daimon

 

[Hellhammer]

Hellhammer (Kristian Vättö) is an amazing contributor to AnandTech. I've been learning a lot from his posts and articles.

Now, what SSD would you recommend for a 6 x 512GB (3TB RAID-0) SSD array on an ASRock Extreme11?

Overall I think the best deal at the moment is Plextor M3. Because you'll be running RAID 0, reliability should be your number one concern and the M3 has been out for over a year and I haven't heard of a single failure (even the one-egg reviews in NewEgg are not about failures). Another important aspect is garbage collection and the M3 is fairly good at that as well. While it relies heavily on idle GC (doesn't really do any active GC), it should be enough if the array is meant for games (will get plenty of idle time since it's not the OS disk). There is simply no other drive that can compete with the M3 at $360.

 

[Mfusick]

I love to see the benchmarks on a 3TB RAID0 array...

 

[AdamK47]

Overall I think the best deal at the moment is Plextor M3. Because you'll be running RAID 0, reliability should be your number one concern and the M3 has been out for over a year and I haven't heard of a single failure (even the one-egg reviews in NewEgg are not about failures). Another important aspect is garbage collection and the M3 is fairly good at that as well. While it relies heavily on idle GC (doesn't really do any active GC), it should be enough if the array is meant for games (will get plenty of idle time since it's not the OS disk). There is simply no other drive that can compete with the M3 at $360.

Thanks for the suggestion. The Plextor M3 has a good listed price, but unfortunately are not in stock. Went to a local Micro Center yesterday and they had a nice pile of 512GB Vertex 4s in stock. I may end up getting six of those.