OCZ Vertex 2 with 25nm NAND flash reported slower

[Numenorean]

Screw it, returning the drive, ordered an Intel.

Do it before I can't do it anymore.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OCZ makes crap RAM, crap PSUs, and now, crap SSDs.

 

[F1shF4t]

Screw it, returning the drive, ordered an Intel.

Do it before I can't do it anymore.

Good choice. Have 4 intel SSDs and not a single issue. (Well besides the old G1 being slow sometimes)

I've been staying off sandforce drives since all the Vertex LE issues, looks like I will continue to do so. Thats too bad for them, was throwing around the idea to get a 60gig vertex 2 to try it out and replace the X25-V in desktop.

 

[OS]

so less usable capacity, slower, shorter device life

fail

 

[frostedflakes]

There's nothing yet to suggest the drives have lower lifetime. 25nm MLC can handle fewer P/E cycles, which is why the Sandforce controller requires more over-provisioning. The extra over-provisioning is supposed to compensate for the lower P/E cycles, higher error rate, etc. of the 25nm flash.

That's the trade-off, Sandforce has said many times that this is the direction they think SSDs are heading, more over-provisioning will become necessary. But in the end you still should come out way ahead. For example the shrink from 34nm to 25nm provides twice the storage for the same cost, but at the expense of 4% more over-provisioning. So in the end, for the same price you're still getting a lot more space with 25nm (this is assuming that IMFT and SSD manufacturers decide to pass the savings onto consumers, which hasn't happened yet, but hopefully will start to soon).

 

[Anexate]

Intel; Toshiba and other players in the SSD market have decided to postpone the market launch of the new smaller (25nm) cells for SSD till they mitigate the problem with the durability.
The producers are in doubt whether they will be able to keep the warranty time.
34nm-5000 write cycles
25nm-max. 3000 cycles
SandForce drives are less heavy (better distribution) on the durability issue+more reserve cells should enable to launch 25nm products.

Still the producers are hesitating to shower the market till they further improve the whole package.

Only OCZ decided to quietly replace the 34nm with 25nm in their Vertex 2 drives; they kept the final price and pocketed the 50% price difference of NAND flash.

 

[Nebor]

Only OCZ decided to quietly replace the 34nm with 25nm in their Vertex 2 drives; they kept the final price and pocketed the 50% price difference of NAND flash.

Outrageous if true.

I'm never buying another OCZ product again. I've always been Corsair loyal on RAM, looks like I'll stay that way. Intel for SSDs from now on.

 

[Anexate]

Outrageous if true.

I'm never buying another OCZ product again. I've always been Corsair loyal on RAM, looks like I'll stay that way. Intel for SSDs from now on.

A week ago it was all over German speaking forums; lots of customers got enraged.

I got the first shipment of Intel G2 and I must say that the drive still performs exactly as on the first day (2009).

 

[frostedflakes]

Intel; Toshiba and other players in the SSD market have decided to postpone the market launch of the new smaller (25nm) cells for SSD till they mitigate the problem with the durability.
The producers are in doubt whether they will be able to keep the warranty time.
34nm-5000 write cycles
25nm-max. 3000 cycles
SandForce drives are less heavy (better distribution) on the durability issue+more reserve cells should enable to launch 25nm products.

Still the producers are hesitating to shower the market till they further improve the whole package.

Only OCZ decided to quietly replace the 34nm with 25nm in their Vertex 2 drives; they kept the final price and pocketed the 50% price difference of NAND flash.

And 50nm could handle 10000 cycles, but I don't remember people screaming that the sky was falling when Intel and others transitioned to 34nm.

Decrease in P/E cycles before the cell begins to degrade is just the reality of shrinking NAND flash. This is nothing new, good controllers should be able to compensate, and since this allows for larger drives, it also means more cells for wear to be spread over (for example, everything else being equal, a 160GB drive should be twice as durable as 80GB since it has twice the number cells available for wear leveling).

The bolded does kind of bug me, though. I think people would be a lot more forgiving about the slightly lower capacity and performance of these new drives if OCZ had dropped the price of them by 40% or something like that. But I'm not going to be too quick to point fingers at OCZ, 25nm might not even be that much cheaper for them to purchase than 34nm. In theory the shrink cuts the cost of NAND flash by half, but IMFT has said before that they aren't really interested in passing savings onto consumers but instead would let the market determine prices. NAND flash is a commodity that's in high demand and it may very well be that 25nm memory isn't significantly cheaper yet for companies like OCZ than 34nm was.

Just seems like there's a lot of speculation and finger pointing so far and not much solid info. I'm waiting for Anand or some other authority on the matter to chime in and provide some good info on exactly what the transition to 25nm means for consumers.

 

[Anexate]

And 50nm could handle 10000 cycles, but I don't remember people screaming that the sky was falling when Intel and others transitioned to 34nm.


The bolded does kind of bug me, though. I think people would be a lot more forgiving about the slightly lower capacity and performance of these new drives if OCZ had dropped the price of them by 40% or something like that. But I'm not going to be too quick to point fingers at OCZ, 25nm might not even be that much cheaper for them to purchase than 34nm. In theory the shrink cuts the cost of NAND flash by half, but IMFT has said before that they aren't really interested in passing savings onto consumers but instead would let the market determine prices. NAND flash is a commodity that's in high demand and it may very well be that 25nm memory isn't significantly cheaper yet for companies like OCZ than 34nm was.

Just seems like there's a lot of speculation and finger pointing so far and not much solid info. I'm waiting for Anand or some other authority on the matter to chime in and provide some good info on exactly what the transition to 25nm means for consumers.

The price difference 50nm/34nm was such that we were ready to forgive lots of things. No to mention, that the durability was still acceptable.

As far as OCZ goes it'S about fair customer practices; they can sell 25nm flash at the price they wish, just write it plainly on the product. The customer is there to make the decision what to buy; 35nm or 25nm.
To change the specifications under the desk limits on fraud.
The only thing I'm asking is to be informed. Is that too much for OCZ?

 

[frostedflakes]

I can't disagree with you on that, between the differences in performance and capacity, these drives should have been given new SKUs and sold as separate products than the 34nm SSDs. If they were functionally identical to the 34nm drives it would make sense to silently upgrade them, but that isn't the case. OCZ really dropped the ball on this and didn't handle it well at all.

 

[Anexate]

As the info go, OCZ ordered a truck load of 25nm NAND and it's sitting on them.
The only thing they can do now is make that chips golden.
(by frying them in oil).
http://www.lorenz-snackworld.de/content/en/01brands/010crunchips/index.php?isPrintable=1&noFlash=1

OCZ's doing is on the verge of customer fraud.
They are invited to sell 25nm flash when they like at any price they like; just write it on the package, clearly and plainly.
It's up to the customer to decide what, why and for how much.
OCZ took an excellent Vertex2 drive and silently changed the internals, leaving only the box unchanged.

 

[Old Hippie]

The price difference 50nm/34nm was such that we were ready to forgive lots of things. No to mention, that the durability was still acceptable.

OCZ's doing is on the verge of customer fraud.

Ya hit the nail right on the head! :thumbsup:

Coupled with the SF controller's compression "trick" I can see why others here consider them "sleezy"......and I agree.

 

[Voo]

Coupled with the SF controller's compression "trick" I can see why others here consider them "sleezy"......and I agree.

I didn't have any problems with their compression, because at least you knew what you would get and there were enough benchmarks to show you the performance for 100% random workloads.

But changing the internals of an existing drive which reduce size of the drive and performance by a pretty large amount and selling it as the same drive, that's just fraud..

 

[ksec]

Yeah, finally the world notice NAND dont scale. 1 or 2 more die node shrink we will reach the tipping point where you put a lot more space for over-provisioning. Because life expectancy and error rate has reach rocket high.

Then we are back to basic with SLC again. Which should last another die shrink.

 

[Old Hippie]

I didn't have any problems with their compression

I do.

Not necessarily because of the compression itself but because of the inflated numbers they push/advertise when in actuality the drives are no better than most.

It's a sleazy move to sway those that are uneducated in the matter and it's looking like I shouldn't expect anything else from OCZ.

 

[Numenorean]

Good choice. Have 4 intel SSDs and not a single issue. (Well besides the old G1 being slow sometimes)

I've been staying off sandforce drives since all the Vertex LE issues, looks like I will continue to do so. Thats too bad for them, was throwing around the idea to get a 60gig vertex 2 to try it out and replace the X25-V in desktop.

I still have a 34nm one in my desktop which is running great. Going to keep that one.

 

[Adam8281]

Glad the one I picked up from Newegg's Shellshocker 2 weeks ago was 34nm.

 

[watzup_ken]

OCZ makes crap RAM, crap PSUs, and now, crap SSDs.

To be honest, I don't like the brand only because from where I come from, the distributor is very out of the way for me. And to be objective, I think they did the SSD market a great favor by sourcing for good controllers like the Barefoot and Sandforce. I think to date, Intel SSDs still gives the least problem I think.

 

[watzup_ken]

I still have a 34nm one in my desktop which is running great. Going to keep that one.

Better take good care of it man. You never know what you going to get back when all transits to 25nm. :sneaky:

 

[czesiu]

To change the specifications under the desk limits on fraud.

they did not change any of the specs and used additional space and sandforce to keep the 2 million hours MTBF...
I would love to know if the changes in some benchmarks have any effect on normal usage speeds

 

[Old Hippie]

To be honest, I don't like the brand only because from where I come from, the distributor is very out of the way for me.

Pretty much irrational thinking and it sounds like a Newegg review. I'll give you one Egg.

I would love to know if the changes in some benchmarks have any effect on normal usage speeds

I guess I'm failing to see what perception has to do with benchmarks.

Some think SSDs offer little improvement over mechanical drives while others think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Many purchase directly from the benchmarks and that's what matters in this situation.

SF drives are a popular bang-for-the-buck type of drives and that's what drives their sales.

Of course the lower stats will lower normal usage speeds but whether the user perceives the difference is a moot point.

 

[czesiu]

Of course the lower stats will lower normal usage speeds but whether the user perceives the difference is a moot point.

from what I've seen atto scores do not change at all so it might be more complicated...

 

[Voo]

from what I've seen atto scores do not change at all so it might be more complicated...

Uh, having about 35mb/s sequential write speed (or about a fourth of a modern 5.4k rpm drive) sure as hell can limit usage. And not just the "copy large stuff to drive" benchmarks, but also using the drive for photoshop and similar things

 

[Old Hippie]

from what I've seen atto scores do not change at all so it might be more complicated...

Oh, I see, it's just the normal, everyday, uncompressible data that makes it look bad.

I wouldn't let that minor fact dissuade me from purchasing that drive.

This ATTO/compressible/uncompressible has been discussed many times in the past.

I've been thru 9 SSDs (Intel, OCZ, GSkill, & Crucial) and beside the first generation GSkill the OCZ Vertex 2s were the worst of the lot.