The OCZ Vertex 2 series is completely taking advantage of the capabilities of the Sandforce 1222 controller, to offer a great write and read performance. Our benchmarks showed that the drive is able to reach transfer rates up very close to the promised 285MB/s for read and 275MB/s for write, while it also delivers more than 40K IOPS for 4KB random reads and writes. The drive comes in a 2.5″ format and a SATA II interface. With such an increased performance, running two of these drives in RAID 0 would almost bottle neck an ICH10R 3.0GBps controller. In addition, with the supported TRIM function under Windows 7, you will get the best performance and keep your SSD running good as new with little user interaction.

Compared to the OCZ Agility 2 60GB offering, which is available at the same price tag, the Vertex 2 60GB is offering a little bit higher small file random write performance, so generally choosing any of these drives will most probably not make significant performance difference, as least for desktop users. Still, if you have a workload that demands it, the Vertex 2 doesn't disappoint.

Spending $130 for 60GB of storage is generally to much, but that's the situation in the SSD market. So under the currently available SSD options and if your PC is not equipped with a 6GBps SATA interface, the Vertex 2 is a good buy in order to boost your PC's performance.

Enthusiasts with more patience could also wait for the first SSDs that will be equipped with the upcoming Sandforce SF-2000 controllers, who are promising to deliver 500MB/s sequential reads and writes and up to 60K IOPS for 4KB random reads and writes. OCZ is expected to release the Vertex 3 series based on SandForce’s SF-2582 controller later this year.

Positive

• Very fast reading/writing
• 3 years warranty
• Very active forums and constant support with firmware upgrade
• Good price
• Native TRIM Support
• Up to 50,000 IOPS in random 4K aligned writes
• Includes the 3.5" desktop adapter
• Upgradable firmware via OCZ Toolbox