About a year ago OCZ released the Vertex 2 solid state drive, a major follow up to their popular Vertex series. The drive hit the market to become one of the first to make use of the yet unheard of SandForce SF-1222 controller. OCZ was quick to jump on this new controller and they were happy to sample pre-production versions to get the word out quickly.
Shortly after the Vertex 2, there were countless other SSDs using the same SandForce controller, and yet for many the Vertex 2 remained the best as OCZ led the pack with firmware updates and warranty support.
With this sudden initial success, SandForce announced the SF-2000 series in early 2011. The consumer-level performance controller known as the SF-2281 includes support for the SATA 6Gb/s interface, while boasting read and write speeds of 500MB/s+, a mind blowing figure when compared to the previous generation chip. The Vertex 2's SF-1222 controller was limited to SATA 3Gb/s and offered read and write speeds of less than 300MB/s.
Even though OCZ recently acquired Indilinx, another well-known memory controller maker, the company has wasted no time jumping on SandForce's latest SF-2281. As was the case with the Vertex 2 series, OCZ sent us a pre-production version of the Vertex 3 for a hands-on evaluation of what's to come.
Although this version of the drive is technically a beta unit, we believe it will be very close to the real thing, which started shipping to retail outlets just recently. We will update our results with a production version of the drive in a couple of weeks as needed, but in the meantime we can anticipate today's results will give you a perfect idea of what to expect from the final product.
Before we proceed to testing, a word on pricing. For now it appears solid state drives will continue to get faster, but not any cheaper. OCZ has set the list price for the Vertex 3 120GB version at $249, while the 240GB version will cost $499. Compared to the current Vertex 2 models - 120GB ($229) and 240GB ($429) - it translates in a small price premium for the smaller drive while the larger model is getting hit a bit harder for a noticeable performance increase.
Vertex 3 240GB Features & Design
The Vertex 3 series is aimed at performance buffs with initial SF-2281-based models offering capacities of 120GB, 240GB and 480GB. The Vertex 3 has a slim 2.5" design, measuring 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm and weighing just 77 grams. The drive consumes two watts of power when in use and just 0.5 watts in standby, which is the same as the Vertex 2 series.
The 120GB model packs read and write speeds of 550MB/s - 500MB/s while the larger 240GB version is slightly faster with 550MB/s reads 520MB/s writes. The largest model offers 480GB of storage and is actually the slowest, rated at 530MB/s reads and 450MB/s writes.
Naturally, using the SATA 6Gb/s interface is essential to achieving those speeds. The only issue with this is that Intel's new Sandy Bridge platform is the only one to provide native SATA 6Gb/s support -- and it does so with only two ports.
Third party embedded solutions such as the Marvell 88SE9128 can provide motherboards with SATA 6Gb/s support, but offer very poor results compared to Intel's implementation. That said, there is a new Marvell 88SE9182 controller that can mimic the performance of Intel's 6 series chipsets, so support for the 6Gb/s SATA is improving.
All three Vertex 3 models are loaded with MLC NAND (25nm) flash memory. Our review sample has sixteen 16GB Micron 29D128G08CFAAB NAND ICs for a total capacity of 256GB. The reason this is marketed as a 240GB SSD is because 16GB is reserved for data parity (8GB for RAISE), garbage collection, and block replacement.
Once formatted in Windows, the original 240GB drops to 224GiB, meaning you lose roughly 7% from the GB to GiB conversion. With an MSRP of $499, the Vertex 3 240GB costs $2 per gigabyte, which is actually pretty decent for SSD standards.
Like the original SF-1222 controller, the second-generation SF-2281 uses data compression technology called DuraWrite. This technology is designed to help lower write amplification and extend the drive's life by using fewer program-erase cycles. The upside is that this doesn't require a memory buffer, while the downside is that it uses more storage space on the drive.
The same Tensilica DC_570T CPU we mentioned in our Vertex 2 review is being used in the SF-2281. Although the CPU remains the same, the compression engine has improved. The second-generation SandForce controllers have a bigger block of silicon dedicated to DuraWrite technology while the garbage collection algorithms have also been improved.
OCZ has given the Vertex 3 the same two-million-hour MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rating as the Vertex 2 series. This figure essentially means nothing to the consumer and we really have no idea how reliable these drives are going to be in the very long run.
However, the Vertex 3's three-year warranty should let customers sleep comfortably at night knowing they're covered for a reasonable timeframe. We'd like to drop a friendly reminder here that this won't protect your data, so be diligent about backups.
How We Test, System Specs
The OCZ Vertex 3 and Crucial RealSSD C300 were tested using SATA 6Gb/s, requiring us to use the Sandy Bridge (LGA1155) platform. All other 3Gb/s drives were tested on our older LGA1366 platform but this shouldn't affect the results. A few select SATA 3Gb/s drives were tested on our newer LGA1155 test system to check for testing accuracy, both synthetic and real-world performance was much the same.
In addition to our featured storage devices, the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM hard drive has been included for comparison's sake. Other SSDs used for comparison feature controllers such as the SandForce SF-1200, JMicron JMF616, Intel PC29AS218A, Marvell 88SS9174, Toshiba TC58NCF618GBT and Samsung S3C29MAX01. Our testing suite consists of four synthetic benchmark programs and our own file copying and load time tests.
As you should know by now, while manufacturers claim impressive peak I/O performance out of the box, this performance can diminish over time. Unlike a conventional hard drive, any write operation made to an SSD is a two-step process: a data block must be erased and then written to. Obviously if the drive is brand new and unused there will be nothing to erase and therefore the first step can be bypassed, but this only happens once unless the drive is trimmed.
Considering this, we'll test how much performance you can expect to lose from each SSD over time. We'll test all drives in their clean unused state, and then run the HD Tach full benchmark several times which fills the entire drive. This simulates heavy usage and gives us a clear indication of how performance will be affected in normal long-term use.
All drives in this roundup support the Windows 7 TRIM function, which is meant to counteract these negative effects.
SATA 6Gb/s System Specs
- Intel Core i7-2600K (LGA1155)
- x2 2GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill (CAS 8-8-8-20)
- Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67)
- OCZ ZX Series (1250w)
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
- OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
- Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
- Nvidia Forceware 270.51
SATA 3Gb/s System Specs
- Intel Core i7-965 EE (LGA1366)
- x3 2GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill (CAS 8-8-8-20)
- Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58)
- OCZ ZX Series (1250w)
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
- Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 256GB
- Kingston SSDNow V 100 256GB
- OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB
- OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB
- OCZ Vertex 120GB
- Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB
- Samsung 470 Series 256GB
- Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB
- Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
- Nvidia Forceware 270.51
Benchmarks: File Copy Test
Although the SandForce controllers struggle with compressed files like what's used in our 6GB ISO test, the Vertex 3 240GB is still remarkably fast. It was 37% faster than the Samsung 470 256GB and outpaced the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB by 45%. With a throughput of 157.8MB/s, the Vertex 3 240GB was also more than twice as fast as the original Vertex 2 Pro 100GB in this test.
The program copy test is comprised of many small non-compressed files (6104 files totaling 2.75GB). As you can see, the Vertex 3 prefers uncompressed data, becoming 24% faster when compared to the 6GB ISO test. This made OCZ's new drive 77% faster than the RealSSD C300 256GB and 50% faster than the new Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB.
The game copy evaluation is a mixture of small and large, compressed and non-compressed files. There are 1336 files in this test for a total size of 2.70GB. Interestingly, the Intel 320 Series 300GB, Samsung 470 Series 256GB and Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB became much faster, while the Vertex 3 lost speed over the previous test. Again, we believe the compressed files are slowing the Vertex 3 down.
Benchmarks: Real-World Applications
The Windows 7 boot time test is measured from the moment the OS loading screen appears to the time the Windows desktop is fully loaded.
The Vertex 3 is extremely fast to load Windows 7, clocking 8.8 seconds from an average of three runs. In fact, OCZ's new drive didn't let us see the Windows logo in full on the load screen -- we just saw four dots, what a shame.
For the application load test, we launch the following applications on Windows' startup: Internet Explorer, Outlook 2007, Access 2007, Excel 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Publisher 2007, Word 2007 and Photoshop CS4. The test starts when the Windows 7 startup sound loads to the time the final application is loaded.
All the SSDs perform exceptionally well here and there is very little difference between them. The OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB is the fastest SSD we have clocked from an average of three runs taking just 4.7 seconds. The new Vertex 3 240GB was equally impressive taking 4.8 seconds, while the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB took 5.1 seconds.
This test measures the time it takes to launch Adobe Photoshop CS4. This used to be an excellent test for SSDs in the early days, but with so many drives loading in roughly one second it's hard to tell them apart now. The OCZ Vertex 3 240GB matched the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB and Samsung 470 Series 256GB.
The next batch of results was recorded while loading the last level of StarCraft II's single player campaign. The test begins as the loading screen appears and stops once the "click to play" message appears.
Whereas a typical hard drive takes around 24 seconds, most SSDs only get this time down to around 20 seconds, such as the new Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB drive. The OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB and Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB managed to pull the trick in 18 seconds each, while the Samsung 470 Series 256GB took 16 seconds.
We were stunned to see that after three test runs the Vertex 3 240GB took an average of just 9.5 seconds to load the same StarCraft II level. That's unbelievably fast as the drive was able to load the level in half the time it took the RealSSD C300 256GB.
Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0
The CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write results go a long way in uncovering why the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB was so blindingly fast in some of our transfer and application tests. The sequential read throughput topped 493.6MB/s making it 43% faster than the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB and 77% faster than the Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB.
With a write throughput of 301.3MB/s the Vertex 3 was 17% faster than the Samsung 470 256GB, which is always fast in its own right. When compared to the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB it was 35% faster -- a significant performance jump.
When running the CrystalDiskMark random 512K test we still found the Vertex 3 to be extremely fast, particularly when measuring read performance. Here it was 44% faster than the Crucial RealSSD C300 and more than twice as fast as the old Vertex 2 Pro.
Although not as impressive as when reading data, the Vertex 3 still provided strong write results. This time it was 16% faster than the Samsung 470 and roughly 28% faster than the Intel SSD 320 Series and the Crucial RealSSD C300.
Finally, we have the CrystalDiskMark random 4K-QD32 test and again the Vertex 3 240GB is at the top of its class. The read throughput reached 292.7MB/s making it 25% faster than the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB and more than twice as fast as the new Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB drive.
The write performance was also very strong reaching 250.7MB/s making it 24% faster than the RealSSD C300 256GB and well over twice as fast as any other SSD tested.
Benchmarks: AS SSD Benchmark
The AS SSD Benchmark gave us similar sequential read/write results. The Vertex 3 broke the 500MB barrier with a read throughput of 510.6MB/s, making it 46% faster than the Crucial RealSSD C300 and 90% faster than the Intel SSD 320 Series. The write performance was also impressive despite only reaching 277.7MB/s -- it was 19% faster than the RealSSD C300.
The AS SSD Benchmark 4K-64 Thread test saw the Vertex 3 once again outperform the RealSSD C300 when measuring both read and write performance, but both were considerably faster than anything else tested.
Access time is one aspect where SSDs have always crushed standard disk drives. Read access times of the Vertex 3 were slightly quicker than the Samsung 470 Series and slightly slower than the Intel SSD 320 300GB.
Interestingly, the write access time was quite slow next to competing SSDs. Whereas the Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB and Samsung 470 Series 256GB were both under the 0.100ms mark the Vertex 3 240GB took 0.246ms.
Benchmarks: Atto Disk Benchmark
The Atto Disk Benchmark was used to measure 1K, 2K, 8K, 32K and 128K data performance. The 1K performance of the Vertex 3 240GB was surprisingly low with a throughput of just 35MB/s whereas the Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB reached 46MB/s and the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB 98MB/s.
The 2K performance was much the same as the Vertex 3 reached 69MB/s while the 320 Series was faster with a throughput of 84MB/s and the RealSSD C300 managed 183MB/s. The Vertex 3 was still trailing behind the Intel and Crucial drives for the 8K test while it finally caught up in a big way once the data size reached 32K.
Finally at 128K the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB almost hit full stride with a throughput of 471MB/s which was unmatched by RealSSD C300's 344MB/s. Although we generally don't test 512K and don't include these results in the graph above, we thought it would be worth noting that the Vertex 3 reached its full speed of 520MB/s at this size.
The Vertex 3 was more competitive when measuring write performance with smaller data samples. The 1K test saw it deliver a throughput of 31MB/s which made it a fraction faster than the Intel SSD 320 Series yet slower than the 47MB/s produced by the Crucial RealSSD C300. The 2K test saw the Vertex 3 match the RealSSD C300 with 62MB/s while it raced ahead in the 8K test with a transfer speed of 318MB/s versus Crucial's 183MB/s.
By the time we reached 128K sample data the OCZ Vertex 3 was racing along at 518MB/s -- more than twice the speed of Intel and Crucial's offerings.
Benchmarks: HD Tune Pro
In the HD Tune Pro random read 512 bytes test, OCZ's latest SSD delivered mediocre performance with a throughput of 7.1MB/s, making it slower than the Samsung 470 Series and Intel SSD 320 Series.
OCZ reclaimed its lead with a transfer speed of 455.5MB/s in the random 1MB test, which was considerably faster than the Crucial RealSSD C300's 328.5MB/s.
Again, the Vertex 3 provided the best performance with a throughput of 404.9MB/s followed by the Crucial RealSSD C300 drive with 313.4MB/s in the HD Tune random read, random file size test.
We found that the Vertex 3 delivered about average random 512 bytes performance with a throughput of 8MB/s, which was slower than the Intel SSD 320 Series and Samsung 470 Series.
When it came to random 1MB write performance, OCZ's Vertex 3 blitzed the competition with a throughput of 472.1MB/s followed by 244.8MB/s from the Samsung 470 Series.
The last write test looks at random file size performance and again the Vertex 3 is well in front of the competition with a throughput of 391.8MB/s, making it considerably faster than any other 2.5" SSD we have tested.
Final Thoughts
Although it's still early in the year and we anticipated it was going to get busy with new generation solid state drives, the OCZ Vertex 3 is going to be the one to beat. The Intel SSD 320 series is limited to SATA 3Gb/s and therefore stands no chance in the performance department, while the highly regarded Crucial RealSSD C300 simply looked outdated. We'll have to check out Crucial's new m4 before we can pass final judgment on where the company stands, and we plan to do so in the coming weeks.
OCZ is reportedly shipping the final Vertex 3 drives to retailers as we publish this, though most stores appear to be out of stock. If we could get the Vertex 3 120GB down to the suggested $249 list price any time soon, that drive would be a steal when you consider that Intel's SSD 320 120GB is currently selling for $239. Based on reviews we've seen elsewhere, Crucial's m4 doesn't offer much of a performance gain over the existing RealSSD C300 and its 128GB model is also meant to sell for $250.
There's one thing we know for certain: you shouldn't even consider the Vertex 3 unless you have a quality SATA 6Gb/s controller, otherwise its performance will be severely hampered. Folks with new Intel Sandy Bridge-based machines will be able to fully utilize the drive, as will those who have recently purchased a motherboard that features the updated Marvell 88SE9182 controller.
After suffering the pains of hard drive upgrades that offered modest performance bumps, say when going from 7,200 RPM to 10,000 RPM HDDs (and still paying a ton for the luxury), it seems incredible to think that in just one year SandForce has updated its controller to roughly double the performance of its predecessor.
Outstanding product: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
Solid state drive technology is still far from becoming mainstream, but the introduction of faster SATA 6Gb/s drives will surely help to push down the price of slower products like the Vertex 2. Previous generation 3Gb/s drives still provide considerable performance gains over hard disk drives and as we've been saying for years, they're the single best upgrade you can make for improving all-around performance.
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