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OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD review

by Parm Mann on 30 March 2011, 08:45 4.5

Tags: OCZ (NASDAQ:OCZ)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa5c2

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Specification and Test Methodology

OCZ Vertex 3 SSD technical specifications
Capacity 120GB 240GB 480GB
Price £215 £430 £1,500
Processor SandForce SF-2281
NAND flash components 25nm NAND Flash Memory multi-level cell
Interface Compatible with SATA 3Gbps and SATA 6Gbps
Max read (SATA 6Gbps) 550MB/s 550MB/s 530MB/s
(SATA 3Gbps) 280MB/s 280MB/s 280MB/s
Max write (SATA 6Gbps) 500MB/s 520MB/s 450MB/s
(SATA 3Gbps) 260MB/s 260MB/s 260MB/s
4KB random read 20,000 IOPS 40,000 IOPS 50,000 IOPS
4KB random write 60,000 IOPS 60,000 IOPS 40,000 IOPS
Seek time 0.1 ms
Form factor 2.5 inch industry standard form factor
Dimensions 99.8mm x 69.6mm x 9.3mm
Weight 77g
Power consumption Idle: 1.65 Watts Active: 3 Watts
Operating temperature 0°C ~ 55°C
Storage temperature -45°C ~ 85°C
Shock resistance 1500G
Life expectancy 2 million hours Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
Product health monitoring Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.)

Comparison drives

  Capacity Controller Firmware Interface RAID mode TRIM support Cost* Cost per GB
G.Skill Phoenix Pro 40GB SandForce SF-1222 2.1 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £80** £2
Crucial Real SSD C300 64GB Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 002 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £85 £1.3
Crucial Real SSD C300 64GB Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 002 SATA 6Gbps - Yes £85 £1.3
Corsair Force Series F80 80GB SandForce SF-1222 1.1 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £145 £1.8
G.Skill Phoenix Pro (x2) 80GB SandForce SF-1222 2.1 SATA 3Gbps RAID 0 Yes £160** £2
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SandForce SF-1222 1.11 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £160 £1.3
Patriot Inferno 120GB SandForce SF-1222 320A13F0 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £160 £1.3
Intel 510 Series 120GB Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 PPG2 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £220 £1.8
Intel 510 Series 120GB Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 PPG2 SATA 6Gbps - Yes £220 £1.8
OCZ RevoDrive 120GB SandForce SF-1222 (x2) 1.20 PCIe x4 RAID 0 (internal) No £225 £1.9
Corsair Force Series F80 (x2) 160GB SandForce SF-1222 1.1 SATA 3Gbps RAID 0 Yes £290 £1.8
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SandForce SF-2281 1.11 SATA 3Gbps - Yes £430 £1.8
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SandForce SF-2281 1.11 SATA 6Gbps - Yes £430 £1.8
OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB SandForce SF-1222 (x4) 1.20 PCIe x4 RAID 0 (internal) No £460 £1.9
Samsung HD103SJ HDD 1TB N/A, hard-disk 1AJ100E4 SATA 3Gbps - N/A £40 £0.04
Samsung HD103SJ HDD (x2) 2TB N/A, hard-disk 1AJ100E4 SATA 3Gbps RAID 0 N/A £80 £0.04
*Approximate price, correct at time of writing
**Discontinued model, no longer available

Test bench

CPU Intel Core i5 2500K (3.3GHz, 6MB L3 cache, quad-core, LGA1155)
Motherboard Intel DP67BG
Memory 8GB Corsair Vengeance (9-9-9-24-2T @ 1,600MHz)
Host hard drive Crucial 256GB RealSSD C300 (SATA 6Gbps)
Storage controllers Intel P67 PCH (SATA 6Gbps, AHCI)
Graphics card AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB
Power supply Corsair AX750
Operating system Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, 64-bit

Benchmarks

ATTO Disk Benchmark The freeware ATTO benchmark provides basic sequential speed results for both read and write operations. Using the default queue depth of four, we record read and write speeds during 1MB transfers.
CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark provides various storage benchmarks, but we're interested in the returned 32-thread 4K performance numbers to see how well the drives fare when tasked with numerous small transfers.
AS SSD

Another freeware benchmark, AS SSD is designed primarily for testing solid-state storage. We run the benchmark and record the drive's overall read and write scores. The final numbers take into account sequential speeds, input/output performance and access time.

Iometer Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement tool originally developed by Intel. To measure a drive's I/O performance, we set the benchmark to utilise 4KB transfers in a random spread. Read and write distribution is set to 50 per cent, and queue depth at 32. The test is run for two minutes and we record the total I/Os per second.
PCMark Vantage Emulating real-world use, PCMark Vantage spits out a bunch of data on the relative speed of the drives when undertaking common tasks. We record Windows startup, application load time and gaming performance.

Notes

We're testing a pre-production sample of the 240GB Vertex 3 drive, but readers should note that OCZ expects "performance of the final retail version to be in line with this pre-production sample".