OCZ Vector 256 GB Review: An SSD Powered By Barefoot 3

[steave_01]

[citation][nom]LordConrad[/nom]I'll stick with Mushkin's Chronos Deluxe, best performance/price I've found in any SSD.[/citation]
[citation][nom]g-unit1111[/nom]It makes me very glad to see companies putting more time and effort into their SSDs rather than letting Sandforce do it for them. I have a Vertex 4 and it's a very impressive drive - I had my doubts about buying one but it's definitely impressed me so far. I am really interested to see what Bigfoot can do.[/citation]
Caution: Users are advised to exercise caution on the views and recommendations posted by user GUNIT IIII, as he is known to post arbitrary and false information for different hardware components without data or validations. Users are requested to do their own complete research before following any advice.

 

[herooftimex]

Let me know when SSD's become 50 cents/Gb with a solid 5 year warranty. sequential and random reads and writes are meaningless to me after 400mb/s. I want an SSD to be a long distance runner not a sprinter.

 

[abbadon_34]

[citation][nom]Dingo07[/nom]So should I buy some of thier stock now...? It can't get much lower than them going out of business from the lawsuits...[/citation]

You should have, they rose 15% the day this was published

 

[LordConrad]

[citation][nom]steave_01[/nom]Caution: Users are advised to exercise caution on the views and recommendations posted by user GUNIT IIII, as he is known to post arbitrary and false information for different hardware components without data or validations. Users are requested to do their own complete research before following any advice.[/citation]
Why did you quote me? I'm not GUNIT III and I have done my research.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]So basically all good SSD's are constrained by the SATA3 interface. I cant wait for the direct PCIE interface(express pcie ?) to become standard.[/citation]

There are a lot of PCIe SSDs. The fastest of them is from OCZ and Marvell and it tops out at something like 12GB/s (it's on PCIe 3.0 x16 and anything less will undoubtedly limit it).

 

[mapesdhs]

Would TRIM function ok on these PCIe models if fitted to a 7-series board?

Ian.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]mapesdhs[/nom]Would TRIM function ok on these PCIe models if fitted to a 7-series board?Ian.[/citation]

That would have to depend on the model, maybe also on its firmware and/or drivers.

 

[acku]

[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]Hmmm.... Neither OCZ nor Indilinx had their own fabricating facilities. Previous versions of the Indilinx controllers were manufactured by Marvell. Has that changed?[/citation]


"The Barefoot 3 controller utilizes our internally-designed Aragon 400 MHz, 32-bit processor, which, for Barefoot 3, was implemented in TSMC's 65-nanometer GP process."

Cheers,
Andrew Ku

 

[acku]

[citation][nom]abbadon_34[/nom]Sad how even a glowing review on a current product still gets tainted by old bigotry and predjudices. Silly me, I thought Tom's and PC's, hell tech in general, were about the best performance at the time. But, Intel made some slow ass 8088's and pathetic P3's once upon a time...[/citation]

Storage is a much slower moving industry and I think there's a bit of a reliability angle that goes into every purchase. With CPUs or graphics cards, DOA is about the worst case or perhaps burn out from OCing, but even then the user is technically the one who induced the failure event.

When it comes to storage, you want to make sure you have fast speeds, sure like anything else tech, but there's this lingering reliability and quality thing that's always to consider, and it's not really as self-evident as performance. I think people have good reason to be at least somewhat skeptical about OCZ's claim for better validation and quality given their track record. At the same time, I have to remind people that OCZ is perhaps the party largely responsible for driving down SSDs prices as fast as they have fallen due to their aggressive pricing strategy. Second, with so many people (particularly enthusiasts) using OCZ drives, I kind of expect more complaints, but statistically, there's simply not enough data though to do a weighed average comparison.

Everyone will agree that getting a cheap fast high-quality anything is ideal, and that's kind of the trifecta that I'd like to see any company aim for.

Let's give them a few months. OCZ may really have turned over a new leaf.

Cheers,
Andrew Ku

 

[mapesdhs]

I agree; btw the Vector is rather a lot here, about 228 UKP; that's 90 more than a Samsung 830, 69 more than a Sandisk
Extreme, Corsair FS3 or Crucial M4, 63 more than a Vertex3, and 60 more than a Vertex4 or Corsair Neutron. Even
the 840 Pro is 31 less than the Vector. Kinda think the Vector's pricing needs to be lower to really compete with existing
models.

Ian.

 

[dingo07]

But isn't OCZ's "aggressive pricing strategy" out of mere necessity to keep profits coming in, because of the litigation against them...? Not at all in relation to competitions' products.

 

[mapesdhs]

"aggressive"? Maybe that's their MO in other locales, but it's certainly not like that in the UK atm, eg. the 830 is
about 14 cheaper than the Vertex3, and about 20 cheaper than the Vertex4. Despite the fact that I own a lot of
OCZ SSDs, atm in this price range I'd recommend an 830 instead, partly because of Samsung's reliability rep.

Ian.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

[citation][nom]acku[/nom]"The Barefoot 3 controller utilizes our internally-designed Aragon 400 MHz, 32-bit processor, which, for Barefoot 3, was implemented in TSMC's 65-nanometer GP process."Cheers,Andrew Ku[/citation]

Andrew - Does that mean OCZ, Indilinx, and PLX did the research and development but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) did the actual fabricating/manufacturing instead of Marvell?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]Andrew - Does that mean OCZ, Indilinx, and PLX did the research and development but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) did the actual fabricating/manufacturing instead of Marvell?[/citation]

That's what he said, so it seems like that is what he meant.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]mapesdhs[/nom]"aggressive"? Maybe that's their MO in other locales, but it's certainly not like that in the UK atm, eg. the 830 isabout 14 cheaper than the Vertex3, and about 20 cheaper than the Vertex4. Despite the fact that I own a lot ofOCZ SSDs, atm in this price range I'd recommend an 830 instead, partly because of Samsung's reliability rep.Ian.[/citation]

It usually is what they're about. They seem to have gotten lax in that and to a great deal...

 

[clonazepam]

[citation][nom]acku[/nom]Second, with so many people (particularly enthusiasts) using OCZ drives, I kind of expect more complaints, but statistically, there's simply not enough data though to do a weighed average comparison.Everyone will agree that getting a cheap fast high-quality anything is ideal, and that's kind of the trifecta that I'd like to see any company aim for.Let's give them a few months. OCZ may really have turned over a new leaf.Cheers,Andrew Ku[/citation]
I'd like to point out a study done by a major computer oem awhile back... dont ask for a link or anything... People have a general tendency to tell 1 person they know about a good experience with a product or service, and will tell 11 people about a bad one. That's it. Your welcome, have a nice day.

P.S. I love updating firmware from a usb stick / linux. Especially, when its all wrapped up and ready to go. I'm lazy.

 

[TheBigTroll]

[citation][nom]LordConrad[/nom]I'll stick with Mushkin's Chronos Deluxe, best performance/price I've found in any SSD.[/citation]

same here. bought it when it was like 74 cents a gig. but that was 8 months ago

 

[Stevemeister]

I have never had any issue with any OCZ products be it RAM, SSD`s or Power Supplies

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Stevemeister[/nom]I have never had any issue with any OCZ products be it RAM, SSD`s or Power Supplies[/citation]

The only OCZ product line (among the many that I've used across their memory, SSDs, and power supplies) that I haven't ever had a real problem with is their Vertex 4 SSDs and I still suspect that to be thanks to the Marvell controller. I still have some old OCZ power supplies and memory in currently running machines, so my experience with them hasn't been totally bad, but it has been sub-par compared to many competitors in each market in many ways.

One thing that I give them serious props for right now is that with Vertex 4, they isn't just sell a very reliable and high performance SSD for usually excellent pricing (can't say that right now, but pricing is usually very good), but their customer service for Vertex/Agility 4 is excellent, at least in my experience with them and that of what I've read about them and heard from others. Vector seems to continue all of this even without Marvell, so if all goes well with it, I think that I may have to give them even more credit for turning things around from generally being a budget brand in terms of reliability to being a top-notch competitor in reliability.

If they turn out worse than current reviews show, well, then that won't happen... But alas, I'm one person and my opinion of them probably won't change much anyway.

 

[willyroc]

Hmm,... competitor to the 840 Series?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]willyroc[/nom]Hmm,... competitor to the 840 Series?[/citation]

840 Pro, not 840.

 

[clonazepam]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]One thing that I give them serious props for right now is that with Vertex 4, they isn't just sell a very reliable and high performance SSD for usually excellent pricing (can't say that right now, but pricing is usually very good), but their customer service for Vertex/Agility 4 is excellent, at least in my experience with them and that of what I've read about them and heard from others.[/citation]
I wasn't going to go into the "I have this... from... and..." but you compelled me to share. I do own some OCZ SSDs (never an issue) and awhile back I bought their high-speed 1200mhz ddr2 ram. They were so helpful on the forums and incredibly patient with me walking me through every possible tweak option to try to get them both at 1200. Each one ran at 1200 by itself, and they could have washed their hands of the issue at that point, but they didn't. The poor motherboard just couldn't get me there. 1173mhz with both was an easy pill to swallow.

 

[SuperAxilla]

Dang! And I JUST got the Samsung 840 Pro 256. Why does this always happen to me? I get the Radeon 7970 and they release the GTX 680 days later. My luck :-(

 

[soundping]

The picture on the box is wrong. The sticker is facing the wrong direction.

 

[Guest]

Dingo07 :
"So should I buy some of thier stock now...? It can't get much lower than them going out of business from the lawsuits"...

LordConrad:
"You should have, they rose 15% the day this was published"

ROFL...From a peak @ around $10.00 a share when their Vertex 3 came out early 2011 to $1.88 a share??
That's hilarious you would even mention that.

The ONLY thing OcZ WAS good at is marketing their products and FOOLING customers (That's a fact).

Also to Andrew Chu.... Nice try defending OcZ BUT, Big FAIL..As you work for them so why the (bleep) would anyone on here believe anything you say?