OCZ Vertex 460 SSD Review (240GB) – Enterprise Performance With an Amazing Price

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.

OCZ Vertex 460 SSD CDM

Once again, we get a look at the drives available capacity after formatting (224GB) and these Crystal Disk Mark results are just a bit lower than expected, although strong in their own right.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.6

Up until recently, AS SSD was the only benchmark created specifically for SSD testing and it uses incompressible data.  AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the ‘worst case scenario’ in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data and many enthusiasts like to AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

OCZ Vertex 460 SSD AS SSD BenchOCZ Vertex 460 SSD AS SSD IOPSWith a Total Score of 1010 and high sequential performance above 500MB/s, things are looking better for the Vertex 460.  This carries on with three strong copy results in the Copy Benchmark seen here:

OCZ Vertex 460 SSD AS SSD Copy Bench

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)

You may not see this for long (and it’s definitely not common) but you get a freebee 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.

OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD Anvil Incompressible

Not too much stands out in our Anvil results in this case and it does a great job of confirming much of what we have seen thus far…and actually may be just a bit low.  We did try to pull the IOPS up a bit closer to spec but wouldn’t really be concerning ourselves as we will be seeing enough of IOPS in steady state and mixed load testing soon enough.

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 VERTEX 460 SSD  PCMARK VANTAGE RESULTS

With a PCMark Vantage Total Point Score of 72385, we are starting to see much similarity between this and the Vector 150 SSD we reviewed some time ago.  This SSD fared very well with 6 of the 8 Vantage tests in the SATA 3 range and a high transfer speed of 422MB/s when testing in Windows Media Center:

OCZ Vertex 460 Vantage 72K

A quick look at our PCMark Vantage Hierarchy Chart displays how the OCZ Vertex 460 places amongst its peers.  These results depict only those above the 70000 plateau, all of which are classed as upper tier SSDs.

Vertex 460 Vantage Chart

11 comments

  1. blank

    Les,

    Can you elaborate on that edge connector opposite the SATA one? Doesn’t look like M.2 but is suspiciously close. Testing connector?

  2. blank

    20GB per day?. Didnt You write about 5TB to the disk during tests? (crystaldiskinfo ). it means You almost used this disk for 8 monts. this is a toy not real SSD disk. medicore ssd need at least 0,5-1 DWPD. Good – professional SSD 5-10 DWPD. this is less than 0,1 DWPD. something is wrong with controller and write amplification, something is wrong with flash memory or OCZ just builds bad SSD

  3. blank

    I know I should just ignore it, but it still bugs me when I read things like “we get a look at the drives available capacity after formatting (224GB)”. As if formatting is reducing the size from 240GB to 224GB. When the difference is just between Gigabytes (base 10) and Gibibytes (base 2). Drive manufacturers (not just SSDs) report size in base 10 while Windows reports size in base 2.

    • blank

      There is no as if. The capacity after formatting is just that. We are not responsible for the way you interpret. We keep it simple. Thanks ahead.

      • blank

        I am afraid Billy is correct although there was no need for him to be whiny.

        In the article you say that formatting reduces the capacity which is factually incorrect. The difference lies in the way operating systems calculate capacity and the way manufacturers calculate capacity. There have been serveral lawsuits against drive manufacturers because of this oversight on their part:
        https://gizmodo.com/183980/western-digital-settles-hard-drive-capacity-lawsuit
        https://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=1817

        Cheers!

      • blank

        Very familiar with your point and quoted articles but couldn’t disagree more. This same argument is always raised by, what I like to call the ‘storage bean counters’ who like to impart their knowledge time and time again about how space is calculated. Unfortunately, most are so tied up in the technical side of the story, that they have trouble with the simplest of statements. Regardless of how you look at it, an advertised 240 GB capacity SSD is reduced when only 224 GB is available to the end user. Different people understand things in different ways and we form our articles to the vast majority who will be reading this article….the typical consumer.

      • blank

        The problem is it’s misleading. I’ve seen customers give disk drives bad ratings because the capacity was “not as advertised”. Actually, it was as advertised. They quoted it in SI units just like every other disk drive manufacturer. It’s the operating system that is incorrect, technically. It should really use the “Gi” prefix. On Linux and Mac OS X, you should see the capacity as 240 GB.

        What would be best is if people were aware of the difference.

      • blank

        The average reader isn’t technically sound enough to grasp what you are asking; they simply want to know what is availale to them, at the end of the day.

        We would definitely welcome your submission for such an article though.

  4. blank

    I have to say, Les has a point. In a way, it’s false advertisement when you consider that every 1TB drive will only ever yield 931GB. And with SSDs, you have further reductions in size, depending on how much it is over-provisioned for longevity’s sake, but the same dissimilar advertising capacity and actual capacity applies.

    That said, I think a lot (if not most) consumers have simply come to accept this. I know I have. Add to that the fact that storage is dirt cheap.

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