OCZ Vector SSD Review – Indilinx Barefoot 3 Becomes Reality

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)

You may not see this for long (and it’s definitely not common) but you get a freebie simply for reading!  Over the last little while, we have been assisting with beta testing new benchmark software called Anvil Storage Utilities which is an absolutely amazing SSD benchmarking utility.  Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.

The characteristics of performance are all shown in Anvil Storage Utilities and appear very strong.  As much as we like seeing quick disk access, the transfer speeds and IOPS are excellent although IOPS are still a bit lower than specs.  Lets increase the 4K queue depth to see if we can match specifications:

blankblankOnce again, we are just under the listed specs of 100,000 IOPS read and 95,000 IOPS write performance.

PCMARK VANTAGE X64 HDD SUITE

The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:

  • Windows Defender In Use
  • Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
  • Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
  • Starting the Vista Operating System
  • Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
  • Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as XBox
  • Cataloging a music library
  • Starting applications

OCZ VECTOR 6GBPS 256GB SSD VANTAGE PERFORMANCE

The OCZ Vector pulled through PC Vantage testing with a Total Score of 74096 and a high transfer speed of 429MB/s when testing in Media Player.  This is the second highest score we have seen yet and is just behind the recently reviewed Samsung Pro which pulled off a score of 75589.  Below we have the actual result which details individual transfer speeds:

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Our SSD Hierarchy Chart displays the top 25 rated SATA 3 SSDs with respect to their final Vantage Total Score only.  If you have been following through our reviews through the last few years, you might find that this chart is actually a good indication of how SSD technology has progressed.  The OCZ Vector is the second highest SSD we have tested to date.

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25 comments

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    Excellent as always, Les! Can’t wait to get mine in for testing!

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    I am very excited about this drive! Maybe it will be my next ssd.

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    Geeze, SandForce is getting kicked to the curb with this one. Do you think this will send toggle NAND to the sidelines for good?

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    What about this V. OCZ Vector Turbo

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    Les, I took a chance and bought the 512GB from your Amazon link! I hope I like this drive!

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      You will and thanks! Need any help at all, send me a note as you have my email! Congrats…the long wait is finally over!

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        Yes, I just had a feeling about this drive. Bought a few shares of OCZ yesterday as well. They are very cheap 🙂 But I am betting that this drive keeps them as a major player. And like you, I believe SSD’s are a HUGE market. And I always thought them buying Indilinx was a great idea. And this drive is the culmination of that.

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        Ya…shares are a pretty safe bet at this point…too bad I couldnt jump on that train.

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        Well, I only got 85 shares. Becasue I blew all my other $$$ on… AMD! Which I really hope makes a comeback 🙂 I am really betting that OCZ learned from their earlier mistakes. It did take awhile for this drive to appear. It is also my first 512GB drive.

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        I bought 350 more shares of OCZ. I am betting that this drive is going to be a BIG winner. I hope I am right.

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        Got the disk today. Cloned it with no issues. Seems to be working just fine. Cannot seem to find the toolbox software online. Seems to top out at the Vertex drive.

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    Les halo! First post here. Excellent review. Well i still side with 840 pro but OCZ did some serious job here. One question do you disable LPM before testing? Any opinion on that?

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    Check this link. https://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Solution-C300-Disk-Freeze-ups-in-Windows-7-solved-for-me/td-p/38766

    It looks like an important performance factor ignored by many. Maybe a note for the optimization guide? Trust me i felt embarassed more than once from your knowledge of ssd’s! Lol I’m a gpu knowhow guy. Your name is not wikipedia after all!

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    Hello Les, tanks for the review! Great as aways! I would like to know what SSD do you recommend between the Samsung 840 Pro 250GB and the OCZ Vector 240GB? I don’t understand so much about technical specifications, but I wan’t the very best available on the market at this moment! I’ll buy two SSDs to use on RAID 0, because of that I can’t do the wrong choice, since I’ll spent a good amount of money on this.

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      Neither of these drives could be he wrong choice and I haven’t settled on a favorite just yet as they are so close in performance and both have five year warranties. Either is the right pick for your needs.

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        Hi Les! Just bought two of those for RAID0! I’m in love with this SSDs ehe but I’m having a little problem. The write-back cache on IRST can’t be enabled =( Do you have any ideas to help me to enable that? The IRST version is 11.7.0.1013. One more thing: can I enable the TRIM function with this version of IRST? (if yes, how can I do that?)Thanks a lot!

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    Hello Les, it is very good review but what about the DRAM Controller and two of the DDR3 256MB DRAM. Cache? how it it work? what is the advantage of this function?

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    How good is the IOPs with SATA 3Gb/s? That would be good to know for people that have older laptops and want to buy the Vector for their old laptop but want to eventually upgrade their laptops.

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      Pretty much any SATA III spec’d SSD will saturate the SATA II bus. Real world performance will float around 230MB/s . If you’re on a SATA II limited system, you can either save $ by buying a lower end SSD like an Agility 3 or know that with a 5 year warranty this SSD will be waiting with a performance jump when migrated to a newer system.

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    Its been 3 months, the Samsung Pro can be had for 100.00USD less than the Vector in the 512gb flavor. No contest Samsung every time. If both prices were equal, I would probably have a harder time deciding.

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