Review SSD OCZ Vertex 3: SandForce 2 is Here!

PCMark Vantage

PCMark Vantage is included to see how much storage speed affects overall system performance. In this older version of the benchmarking software, RevoDrive seems to edge out the Vertex 3. How about PC Mark 7 then?

PCMark 7

Vertex 3 stole the lead in PC Mark 7. Here, Vertex 3 performs better than the RevoDrive, although not overly so.

File Transfer Test

That’s it for the synthetic benchmarks, let us move on to real-world file transfer test! For this scenario, We copied 6 GB worth of small files from the SSD to the test platform’s primary storage drive and vice versa. Then, we repeated the procedure using large files that amount to the same size of 6 GB. Results are presented in seconds.

Vertex 3 leads the pack here, scoring significantly faster file copy time compared to the RevoDrive. The mechanical hard drive, on the other hand, falls behind of the competition.

TRIM Test

As promised, we also measured how successful the TRIM functionality on each SSD is in recovering the Vertex 3’s performance. It would be interesting to see if SandForce has finally solved the “compressed file problem” on the SF-2000. We used 12 GB of picture files transferred directly to the SSD, after formatting the drive with TRIM disabled.

The above picture shows Vertex 3’s peak performance after the data inside is wiped using Secure Erase.

We formatted the drive and filled the first 12 GB with compressed (JPEG) picture files. This action reduced the SSD’s performance, as shown by the slight decline on the left side (first 12 GB of the memory) of the blue graph in the above picture.

Then, TRIM is turned back on and a full drive format operation which should trigger the drive’s TRIM functionality is executed. As it seems, the bug does disappear. Data transfer speed climbed back up. However, the SSD did not fully recover its performance. After this test, Vertex 3’s data transfer rate is reduced by 5 MB/s, as seen from the blue graph above, which has been lowered down a bit compared to the first one when the SSD was at its peak performance. Even then, such marginal decline in performance is unnoticeable in daily usage.

Conclusions

An SSD could help you increase the overall performance of your systems. OS load time, application loading, and everything else related to storage speed will be significantly improved. With the Vertex 3, you can be sure that you own one of the fastest storage solutions available today.
This SSD is so fast, its transfer rate is just slightly below SATA 6 Gbps maximum bandwidth. With that kind of speed, pretty much every file write/ read operation could be done in the least amount of time, at least until an even faster media comes along.
SandForce has also managed to fix the TRIM functionality in its SF-2000 controller. Vertex 3, therefore, is able to recover its performance after deletion of compressed files, albeit not 100% back to its original state. Users need not worry about adding compressed files (MP3s, MP4s, JPGs, ZIPs, etc.) to the SSD. Well-functioning TRIM allows Vertex 3 to maintain its performance level.
Vertex 3 is suitable for professionals or enthusiast users who need super-fast data transfer rate. Large multimedia files can be transferred quickly, while application load times will become significantly shorter compared hard drives or even previous-generation SSDs.

Pros:

+Fast

+ Fixes TRIM functionality bug with compressed files

Cons:

– TRIM does not fully recover performance

Technical Data

Manufacturer	OCZ
Info	http://www.ocztechnology.com/
Price	–
Distributor in Indonesia	Spectrum
Phone	021 612 5505
Memory Type	Multi Level Cell
Capacity	240 GB
Interface	SATA 6 Gbps