OCZ Vertex Series SATA II 2.5" SSD - 120GB

So today we are testing OCZ's vertex SSD. As stated in our introduction, OCZ stepped away from JMicron controllers inside that SSD and has now made a move to Indilinx which can utilize 64MB cache memory. If memory serves me right that's a spinoff company from Mtron.

Explaining controllers is surprisingly boring but suffice to say, the choice of using an Indilinx controller brings several advantages to the Vertex SSD in terms of overall speed and performance thanks to some additional bandwidth, reducing latency and overall throughput. Now the trick is that this controller will be tied to an SDRAM buffer, 64MB to be precise, and that my friends would help massively in tackling the small write access issues.

In the above photo we see the SSD all nekked. To the right the Samsung flash memory chips, to the upper left the Indilinx Barefoot controller chip and just below it 64MB cache memory from Elpidia. The Vertex is a SATA II 2.5" SSD. This series SSD drives are available in capacities of 30, 60, 120 and 250GB, with a cost of roughly 80 to 100 USD per 32GB.

The flash memory NAND type is MLC, as explained on the previous page.

The drives are advertised at an incredible 250 MB/s read and 180 MB/s write speed, at theoretical maximum. Continuing, the seek time on these puppies is even more amazing; at less than 1ms, actually 0.1ms as we actually can measure. The average seek time for a traditional HDD is roughly 9ms. Do the math.

These factors combined are important. The speed will increase your overall PC experience as the vertebrae of overall system speed and performance is your boot drive. Also storage performance like this would, for example, greatly enhance load times of games.

Not bad for a product weighing 77 grams. Here are some features:

Features:

• Available in 30GB, 60GB, 120GB, 250GB capacities*
• 64MB Onboard Cache
• Seek Time: <0.1ms
• Slim 2.5" Design
• 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm
• Lightweight 77g
• Operating Temp: -10C ~ +70C
• Storage Temp: -55C ~ +140C
• Low Power Consumption: 2W in operation, 0.5W in standby
• Shock Resistant 1500G
• RAID Support
• MTBF 1.5 million hours
• 2 year warranty
• Read: Up to 250 MB/s
• Write: Up to 180MB/s

OCZ labels the product a MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) of 1.5 million hours. I mentioned this a couple of times already but that really is a highly statistical figure and I just wish SSD manufacturers would just drop this value.

It would be more interesting to see a value in terms of lifespan. E.g. if you write 10GB of data per day, how long would it take before a drive would wear out completely. Some numbers say with average daily usage, the MLC drives will last ten years. But only the future will tell really. Heck, a traditional HDD can die within 2 years just as well.

The OCZ Vertex drive we are testing today will cost you the pretty sum of roughly 349 USD / 300 € and it is armed with a two year warranty. On the topic of warranty, the one thing I'd like to see improved is warranty, we say 5 years would be a very plausible term in this price range.