OCZ Vertex 450 256GB SSD
RRP: $219.99 | Website: www.ocztechnology.com
W
hen I wrote this review,
OCZ Technology was facing
some serious financial
troubles. In fact, I was unsure of
what the future held for OCZ and
perhaps this review was not worth
it at all. However as it stands the
drives are still selling and they
so happen to be amongst the best
drives money can buy currently.
(Eventually Toshiba will acquire
all of OCZ’s assets)
Prior to this, my favorite SDD was
the OCZ Vector. It was released
half a year ago or a little bit more.
Since then, OCZ has given us the
Vertex 450 and the Vector 150.
When I received this drive from
OCZ, I was unsure of where exactly
it would place itself in the OCZ
family. The Vector was clearly the
fastest drive to come from the firm
and the Vertex 4 was perhaps just
below that. Presented with the
Vertex 450 and testing it, I found it
to be relatively close to the Vector
in performance so as to make the
differences academic more than
anything else.
They both use the Barefoot 3
controller, but the Vertex 450 uses
the M10 version which along with
42 The OverClocker Issue 27 | 2013
the use of the larger 25nm NAND
would account for the performance
differences between the two drives.
I measured sequential read and
write performance at 480 and 511
MB/s respectively. The only other
drive that I’d measured better
numbers on is the Vector which
delivered 524Mb/s for both reads
a nd writes. IOPS performance
though was there, the drives
separated themselves with the
vector delivering 66,937.34 IOPS
while the Vertex 4 managed 10K less
at 56,975.82. IOPS in the practical
sense or at least in the context of
gaming machine or overclocking
makes no difference at all. So you’ll
have to decide for yourself if these
differences are worth paying the
price premium for when it comes to
the Vector drive.
Warranty differences aside
(3-years for the Vertex 450 and
5-years for the Vector) the Vertex
450 represents to the mid to high
end performance segment of SSDs
on the market. At this price, there
aren’t’ many drives that can claim
to be better, in fact in my humble
opinion, this drive may be a little on
the cheap side, especially given just
how well it performs.
As with all modern day SSDs, OCZ
includes in the package, Acronis
True Image software which you
can use to migrate your current OS
installation to the new drive. The
value of this software is debatable
especially when there are less
convoluted ways to go about this,
however it doesn’t hurt having the
software, if only to create even more
value to the drive.
As with the last SSD I looked at
in Issue 26 of the magazine, SSDs
for the most part have reached a
point where it’s only in the synthetic
numbers where they differ. The
Vector 450 could deliver exactly
half its performance as measured
and it would be hard to tell in
everyday usage. As such, despite
the impressive performance, I can’t
help but feel this performance will
mostly go unrealized. With that
said, you’re paying 85c a GB which
obviously isn’t magnetic disk pricing,
but its fantastic none the less. Add
that to the great performance and
you have a very capable driver here.
Certainly one of the best money can
buy currently.
[ The Overclocker ]