Review SSD OCZ Vector – a novelty based on Indilinx Barefoot 3: Specs| Hashrate

Solid state drive enthusiasts are likely to know that OCZ should unveil the SSD Vector line before the end of the quarter. To be more precise, the announcement is scheduled for November 27. By this time, this material was being prepared. Let’s get down to business without unnecessary water.

Theory

As it was previously known, the novelty is based on the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller. The previous flagship, the Vertex 4 with the Everest 2 controller, was actually based on the Marvell chip, but with its own exclusive firmware. This time, the “purebred” Indilinx is announced, as in the first Vertex and Agility. Let me remind you that this company became part of OCZ in March 2011.

Barefoot 3 is technically an ARM-based eight-channel SATA 6Gb / s controller with a proprietary 32-bit RISC coprocessor. Unlike SandForce, no compression is used, the performance is constant on any data type.

OCZ claims that unlike many other manufacturers, it does not just combine SandForce / Marvell / Jmicron controller and Samsung / Toshiba / Micron / Hynix memory chips, but owns a full production cycle, including controller architecture development, firmware creation and packaging of flash chips. … The exception is the production of the flash memory crystals themselves, which are purchased from Micron.

It is worth adding that, as far as I know, OCZ has not been producing semiconductors for quite some time. The cache memory is used “micron”, and the crystals of the controllers (if you believe
xbitlabs
) are manufactured at TSMC facilities according to the 65 nm process technology.

If I am not mistaken, only Toshiba and Samsung have an absolutely complete and independent production cycle. The first produces only enterprise-class solid-state drives, while the second SSD is almost impossible to buy in Russia. Until recently, Intel was the leader in this direction, but then it stopped developing its controllers, and sold NAND chip factories to Micron.

When it comes to reliability, OCZ mentions a five-year warranty. However, as always, there is a small print asterisk.

It states that the drive is designed to write 20 GB per day for five years. The warranty is five years or 36.5 TB of recorded data, whichever comes first. To be honest, this is a ridiculous volume. If we assume that the drive will always be 90% full, and wear balancing will only occur at the remaining 10%, then ~ 25 GB (for a 256 GB model) will only be ~ 1500 erase cycles. It is known that 25 nm memory is guaranteed to withstand twice as many cycles, but in practice this value can be 5, 10, or 20 thousand. Strange limitation for premium SSDs. My Vertex 3 MI used less than 2 TB in a year, but everyone is different. If suddenly, in the event of a breakdown, stores refuse to accept goods, referring to these 36 TB, it will be unpleasant.

But more to the point. The “old” flagship of the same manufacturer Vertex 4, which participated in this article, was taken as a competitor for this testing.

Specification: OCZVector and OCZ Vertex 4

Practice

In addition to the drive itself, the box contains a 3.5 ”bay mount, an“ I love OCZ ”sticker, and a piece of paper with an Acronis True Image HD activation code. Unlike Plextor, OCZ does not accompany its product with a distribution kit, but offers to download it from its website. Apparently, it is assumed that all SSD buyers have Internet access.

The millimeter-thick metal case with full-area sticker looks sturdy and stylish. The weight turned out to be a record – 116 g versus 92 for the Vertex 4. On the back of the disc there was a sticker with general information, which contains one trifle: the ending “_PR” in the serial number. This means “for the press”, but, according to the developer, technically the model does not differ from the serial one.

Under the lid are the familiar from Vertex 4 flash chips M2502128T048SX22 with the OCZ logo, DDR3 cache manufactured by Micron with the marking 2DM77-D9PFJ, one unsoldered pad next to it and a controller covered with a thermal seal.

IDX500M00-BC – this is the name of the new creation of Indilinx. The Everest 2 in the Vertex 4 had very similar markings, except with the number 4 instead of 5.

On the back of the board are eight memory chips and another cache chip. In total, two out of three microcircuits are obtained. OCZ confirmed that the older model will receive 1 GB of cache, but it is not yet known whether this will be an asymmetric configuration based on the 256 + 256 + 512 principle or something else.

CrystalDiskInfo 5.1.0 RC1 does not define a good half of the parameters.

Last time there were wishes not to skip the topic of updating SSD firmware. OCZ has a proprietary toolbox for this purpose. There are, of course, no updates yet.

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