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".
