The Vertex 4 is run off Indilinx's Everest 2 controller, and the first product to be wholly directed by OCZ since its purchase of the company. The hardware may be Marvell, but the firmware is all Indilinx.
Given the delay in seeing a third generation SandForce controller, it seems that the move has paid off for OCZ, with the Vertex 4 providing some tasty numbers indeed.
The M in the title denotes that this version (the VTX4-25SAT3-512G.M) uses Micron NAND instead of the usual Intel, which is used by the rest of the range. At AU$439, it's not a bad deal at all. While there's some forum chatter about Micron NAND being slower than Intel, OCZ's spec sheets are identical between the two.
The Vertex 4 is clearly targeted at the desktop, rather than laptops — the drives are 9.3mm high and come with a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch adapter.
For benchmarking, both CrystalDiskMark and Anvil's Storage Utilities were set to 1GB datasets, using incompressible data.
CrystalDiskMark reads (in MBps)
- Sequential read
- 4K QD32 read
- 4K read
- 589.6300.624.04
Samsung 830 (256GB)
- 508.0346.629.70
OCZ Vertex 4 M (512GB)
- 506.9224.432.42
SanDisk Extreme (480GB)
- 500.0225.037.11
SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
- 474.6233.927.0
Intel SSD 520 (240GB)
- 470.3215.628.89
Intel SSD 335 (240GB)
- 466.4112.823.77
Intel SSD 330 (120GB)
- 360.5184.323.87
Strontium Hawk (120GB)
- 357.7226.820.93
OCZ Agility 4 (128GB)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
CrystalDiskMark writes (in MBps)
- Sequential write
- 4K QD32 write
- 4K write
- 495.5346.085.38
OCZ Vertex 4 M (512GB)
- 404.3131.981.6
Samsung 830 (256GB)
- 332.4267.580.65
Intel SSD 335 (240GB)
- 299.1109.219.62
SanDisk Extreme (480GB)
- 294251.485.47
Strontium Hawk (120GB)
- 287231.677.81
SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
- 276.8275.190.38
OCZ Agility 4 (128GB)
- 241.9201.586.50
Intel SSD 520 (240GB)
- 132.7114.876.61
Intel SSD 330 (120GB)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
AS SSD reads (in MBps)
- Sequential read
- 4K QD64 read
- 4K read
- 511.64211.9624.24
SanDisk Extreme (480GB)
- 508.49209.3619.98
SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
- 506.00333.3626.56
OCZ Vertex 4 M (512GB)
- 500.09289.9821.68
Samsung 830 (256GB)
- 498.24222.7423.42
Intel SSD 520 (240GB)
- 488.91206.5220.26
Intel SSD 335 (240GB)
- 481.37112.2719.1
Intel SSD 330 (120GB)
- 387.84217.9119.3
OCZ Agility 4 (128GB)
- 365.45193.2820.15
Strontium Hawk (120GB)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
AS SSD writes (in MBps)
- Sequential write
- 4K QD64 write
- 4K write
- 478.55311.4361.43
OCZ Vertex 4 M (512GB)
- 365.69119.4859.19
Samsung 830 (256GB)
- 315.36247.6562.23
Intel SSD 335 (240GB)
- 289.44145.5717.17
SanDisk Extreme (480GB)
- 283.30217.6864.34
Strontium Hawk (120GB)
- 274.85215.7761.91
SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
- 256.86227.2060.14
OCZ Agility 4 (128GB)
- 200.33130.160.49
Intel SSD 520 (240GB)
- 110.17128.4460.58
Intel SSD 330 (120GB)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Anvil's Storage Utilities reads (in MBps)
- 4MB sequential read
- 4K QD16 read
- 4K read
- 512.77207.2430.16
SanDisk Extreme (480GB)
- 506.93222.3931.84
SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
- 493.49232.122.52
Samsung 830 (256GB)
- 489.83168.3724.71
Intel SSD 520 (240GB)
- 487.97115.6022.86
Intel SSD 335 (240GB)
- 458.9987.4321.59
Intel SSD 330 (120GB)
- 414.16282.5627.84
OCZ Vertex 4 M (512GB)
- 364.67112.2420.14
Strontium Hawk (120GB)
- 265.77171.0819.68
OCZ Agility 4 (128GB)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Anvil's Storage Utilities writes (in MBps)
- 4MB sequential write
- 4K QD16 write
- 4K write
- 468.86331.9377.89
OCZ Vertex 4 M (512GB)
- 333.22124.8963.07
Samsung 830 (256GB)
- 321.81255.5573.90
Intel SSD 335 (240GB)
- 279.32245.0674.53
Strontium Hawk (120GB)
- 273.50228.4875.61
SanDisk Extreme (240GB)
- 264.67263.8373.31
OCZ Agility 4 (128GB)
- 236.9886.1414.05
SanDisk Extreme (480GB)
- 233.58231.8564.46
Intel SSD 520 (240GB)
- 103.7094.3373.17
Intel SSD 330 (120GB)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
While it's not top dog on sequential reads, it's still very good. Its write speeds are simply untouchable across all our tests, and its queued 4K random read speeds dominate as well. With each new SSD controller and firmware, we seem to get closer to a drive that can do it all. We'd love to see how the 256GB and 128GB editions hold up on our charts in comparison.
OCZ's Everest 2 controller is clearly paying dividends with the Vertex 4 — this is an excellent drive indeed.
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