OCZ Vertex 4 SSDs receive BIG boost with firmware v1.4RC

When we reviewed OCZ's first Indilinx-powered Vertex SDD, the Vertex 4, back in April, we applauded OCZ for its great job in moving away from SandForce controllers, whilst producing an heir true to the Vertex-series title. Our reviews found that synthetically, the Vertex 4 generally came out on-top, featuring great IO performance, however, was a little weak when it came real-world benchmarks with misaligned data; variants with less storage also featured inferior write speeds, taking some of the competitive edge away from affordable sub-256GB offerings.

However, an announcement yesterday from OCZ of a new firmware release candidate, V1.4RC, demonstrates some of the advantages in utilising home-grown controllers, with quick and closely managed firmware development cycles. The new firmware claims a significant boost in speeds across the range, with the most notable a 210 per cent increase in write performance for the 128GB Vertex 4 variant.

Of course it's not all about sequential read and write speeds, however. Thankfully, the storage enthusiasts over at StorageReview have been playing around with v1.4RC on a 512GB Vertex 4 and have posted initial benchmark results. Findings show that whilst synthetic benchmarks remain fairly consistent, IO performance in IOMETER, which focuses on simulating real-world load scenarios, sees an increase anywhere from 16 right up to 75 per cent.

Likewise, real-world benchmarks involving measurement of throughput show performance gains from 15 per cent under a HTPC-like workload, with gains of up to 61 per cent when gaming, which has a heavier demand on drive read performance. In all real-world instances, throughput, IOps and average latency showed significant increases in performance.

Whilst we await the final release of firmware V1.4, perhaps OCZ should give itself a pat on the back for a job well done.