OCZ today officially introduced the Vertex 4 SATA III SSD
series featuring the company's Indilinx Everest 2
controller platform - developed in-house.
The Vertex 4 promises to deliver the industry's highest
input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance for
SATA-based drives across a wide variety of application
workloads. OCZ claims that the new SSD provided
consistent performance regardless of whether the data
streams are in compressed or uncompressed formats.
The Vertex 4 features sequential bandwidth up to 535
MB/s, maximum random performance up to 120,000 IOPS, and
with hard to manage incompressible data, delivers 95,000
4K random read IOPS and 85,000 random write IOPS. In
comparison to OCZ's previous generation Vertex 3 SSD,
rated at 60,000 sustained 4K random write IOPS, the
Vertex 4 doubles typical transactional performance. The
Vertex 4 also generates an as low as 0.04 ms latency for
read operations and 0.02ms for write operations,
delivering an improvement of approximately 80 percent
over the Vertex 3. In typical use case scenarios, the
Vertex 4 outperforms the Vertex 3 by as much as 400
percent.
| OCZ SSDs |
| |
OCZ Vertex 4 |
OCZ Vertex 3 |
OCZ Octane |
OCZ Vertex 2 |
| Current NAND |
25nm IMFT MLC |
25nm IMFT MLC |
25nm IMFT MLC |
25nm IMFT MLC |
| Capacities |
128, 256, 512GB |
60, 90, 120, 240, 480GB |
128, 256, 512GB, 1TB |
60, 120, 240GB |
| Controller |
Indilinx Everest 2 |
SF-2281 |
Indilinx Everest |
SF-1221 |
| Max Seq Read |
535 MB/s |
550 MB/s |
480 MB/s |
285 MB/s |
| Max Seq Write |
475 MB/s |
500 MB/s |
330 MB/s |
275 MB/s |
| Max Random Read |
95K IOPS |
60K IOPS |
26K IOPS |
- |
| Max Random Write |
85K IOPS |
85K IOPS |
35K IOPS |
50K IOPS |
| AES-256 Encryption |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| OCZ Vertex 4 |
| |
512GB |
256GB |
128GB |
| NAND |
16 x 32GB 25nm Intel sync NAND |
16 x 16GB 25nm Intel sync NAND |
8 x 16GB 25nm Intel sync NAND |
| DRAM |
2 x 512MB DDR3-800 |
2 x 512MB DDR3-800*
|
2 x 512MB DDR3-800* |
| Controller |
Indilinx Everest 2 |
Indilinx Everest 2 |
Indilinx Everest 2 |
| Max Seq Read |
535 MB/s |
535 MB/s |
535 MB/s |
| Max Seq Write |
475 MB/s |
380 MB/s |
200 MB/s |
| Max Random Read |
95K IOPS |
90K IOPS |
90K IOPS |
| Max Random Write |
85K IOPS |
85K IOPS |
85K IOPS |
| MSRP |
$699 |
$349 |
$179 |
Powered by its new Indilinx Everest 2 controller
platform, featuring a dual core architecture and 400 MHz
clock speeds, the Vertex 4 eliminates the need for
internal data compression - met in Sandforce-based
controllers - further enhancing drive reliability. This
controller architecture also includes key features such
as an advanced error correction code (ECC) engine,
dynamic wear-leveling, auto encryption, and Indilinx's
next generation Ndurance 2.0 NAND flash management
technology, enabling OCZ to support the Vertex 4 SSD line
with a 5-year warranty.
Ndurance 2.0, embedded within the Everest 2 platform,
overcomes NAND flash memory shortcomings to extend NAND
flash life well beyond the manufacturer rated program and
erase cycle specifications. It ensures that the Vertex 4
can be reliably used in a wide range of computing
environments over an extended lifetime. This NAND flash
management suite not only radically extends NAND flash
memory life, but provides enterprise-class endurance even
when commodity-grade NAND flash is used.
The Vertex 4 SSD will be available this month through
OCZ's global channel in 128 GB to 512 GB capacities with
MSRPs of $179, $349 and $699 respectively, stacking up
well against Intel's 520 series. According to the reviews
published online so far, the general feedback is that the
Vertex 4 is reliable and indeed excels in certain key
benchmarks like random write performance. On the other
hand, read performance and some other real-world
benchmarks were less earth-shattering.