We continue to be in awe of OCZ's expertise in the SSD space. The Vertex 2 improves upon the unimproveable.
Solid storage is definitely a deluxe product, yet has been hampered by low storage capacity and very high prices – only a few months ago we would’ve seen 100GB go for $500 – though that situation appears to be changing. Through a combination of our very strong economy and mass production of flash storage chips, it’s now possible to buy more than double the flash memory for only $620. This represents a new value of $2.77 per usable gigabyte, compared to the earlier, higher prices of $5.37 per gigabyte.
The base specs of this particular drive are not exactly unique, though the use of a Sandforce controller gives the Vertex 2 3.5in the highest performance afforded through the current (limiting) SATA 2 bus. Physically the drive fills a 3.5in bay, rather than the usual 2.5in, meaning it can be installed in all cases without requiring an adaptor bracket or awkwardly mounting it behind the motherboard tray.
Performance of the drive in HDTach is the highest again in SATA 2 SSD speeds, matching the smaller version of the drive (online here) with an average transfer speed of 236.4MB/s, and a burst of 259.6MB/s. Though performance does drop when the drive is full, to 194.1MB/s average read, TRIM support slowly returns the drive to normal speeds; formatting takes 55 seconds when chockers. CrystalDisk also shows impressive speed, with write speeds very nice.
SSD prices now, more than ever, make the leap to SSD ownership more attractive; and until SATA 3 controllers hit, this is one of the best.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012