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OCZ boosts Vertex 4 performance again

by Alistair Lowe on 9 July 2012, 11:21

Tags: OCZ (NASDAQ:OCZ)

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Back in April, we reviewed OCZ's Vertex 4 SSD and claimed that its Indilinx 2 controller had been successful in competing with SandForce, though, not in beating it. In May, however, we announced that OCZ was claiming performance boosts of up to 210 per cent with its latest v1.4 firmware.

It's since been understood that this performance boost wasn't without its drawbacks and, a significant one at that. Since v1.4, the Vertex 4 now operates in one of two modes, 'Performance' or 'Storage'. To be clear, no matter which mode the drive runs in, performance is still on-par with or superior to that found in v1.3. Previously, users were forced to chose between enhanced performance or use of the latter 50 per cent of their drive capacity, transforming the Vertex 4 into a true double-edged sword.

That's right, once a Vertex 4 running v1.4 passes 50 per cent of capacity, performance drops off significantly as the drive switches modes, heading back towards the figures seen in earlier firmwares, presenting quite the difficult choice for users; more space or more performance.

Whilst OCZ does not intend to abandon its dual-mode system any-time soon, it has however re-jigged things in its latest v1.5 firmware, released at the end of last week, boosting general drive performance yet again and reducing the effects of mode-switching to offer much more sweet and far less sour than in v1.4.

New performance claims - v1.4 vs v1.5

128GB 256GB 512GB
Previous Specs New Specs Previous Specs New Specs Previous Specs New Specs
Max Read 550MB/s 560MB/s 550MB/s 560MB/s 550MB/s 560MB/s
Max Write 420MB/s 430MB/s 465MB/s 510MB/s 475MB/s 510MB/s

It's interesting to note that performance on the 256GB and 512GB models is now identical. This indicates an interesting business decision by OCZ. Initially, the firm's drives all shipped with 1GB of DDR3 RAM as a buffer, however, with the intention that this would eventually remain on only the 512GB model, with smaller capacity drives eventually being cost-cut to utilise 512MB chips.

These figures suggest that OCZ perhaps only plans to perform these cost-cutting measures on the 128GB model, which maintains an 80MB/s lower write speed, leaving its upper two models to compete over storage as opposed to performance.

Though the exact cut-off is not known, OCZ has confirmed that it has raised the bar on Performance Mode, allowing users to utilise a greater portion of their drive at full speed, with the drop-off now a more gradual process, with improved performance even in the worst-case scenario.



HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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i shudder to think how this would actually perform on my board - it uses a marvll 9128 controller , and even with slower models of ssd i cant even reach those stated speeds :(

awesome with those ofc not limited by a poor onboard sata 3 :D
Very little reason to bother with this drive over a Vertex 3 - why have the hassle with a Vertex 4
Brewster0101
Very little reason to bother with this drive over a Vertex 3 - why have the hassle with a Vertex 4

because of the issue`s with the sandforce controller on the vertex 3? i myself have had a number bsod and fail , even up to last week , with the latest firmware and latest motherboard bios
I've been using the vertex 4 256gb and I plan to get a 2nd one to raid as my boot drive but I am upgrading my platform to 2011 socket SB-E first, my existing build has the vertex bottlenecked due to only having sata II sockets, I can't give my full opinion on the vertex 4 until I have the new platform up and running.
I'm happy with my Vertex 3. I will be getting some Vertex 4 512's at a later date. I believe “Performance Mode” on the Vertex 4 will be quite nice in an array. This update makes it look even more promising.

……and as for BSOD with Vertex 3 with latest firmware…. whut? Eeerr…. perhaps a motherboard issue? These V3 have been solid on my chipset, and every machine I've touched with them.

Great series of products tbh.