Vertex Series SATA II 2.5" SSD

Over the months we have seen many different SSD's pass through and to date Intel's Extreme still maintains the roost and our choice as the top end of choice within workstations.  Whilst newer SSD's have been floating about for some time we have as of yet to meet one that has the agility and performance of the Intel® X25-M Extreme.  

OCZ have been around now for a good period being one of the few that have constantly rising to the challenge to make better, faster and more affordable SSD's to the community.   Along came the OCZ Vertex Series SATA II and we put it through its paces.  

SSD's bring with them many questions to those that are unsure of moving from standard rotational media as many still believe that the WD VelociRaptor still gives a major bang for buck in many areas.  Cost/GB of course still being the primary objective that the SSD makers still have to overcome - but now they are turning this around.     There are other old wives tales about, though take some with a bucket of salt others, ask the question and possibly save you hundreds of bucks.

OCZ Marketing has fired over a few nice bits about their drives, the tools provided and a little insight to the newcomer on the block who has not looked at these drives at all.

All Vertex Series SSD's come backed a leading three year warranty and OCZ’s legendary service and support, giving you added peace of mind for your high performance investment. Additionally, enthusiasts are put at the forefront of cutting edge technology with the available firmware updates and active online SSD community.    The OCZ Vertex Series is the industry-leading flash-based storage solution, delivering the performance and reliability of SSDs at less price per gigabyte than other high speed offerings currently on the market. The OCZ Vertex Series is the result of all the latest breakthroughs in SSD technology, including the first model on the market to use the Indilinx Barefoot controller, blazing read/write speeds, and 64MB of onboard cache.

Performance continuity    Overtime, NAND flash memory is affected by writing actions in the cell. In traditional solid state drives the repeated use of the NAND cell causes a noticeable slower performance. OCZ’s exclusive firmware prevents the performance degradation and keeps it at its peak level. In addition, the SSD is kept in top shape without any assistance from the user.

How does it work?   The optimizer runs in the background during idle-time. It restores the SSD to its original performance, providing peace of mind for the entire life of the drive. In addition, these drives fully support TRIM with the impending Microsoft Windows 7 release, making OCZ SSDs a future-proof investment.

OCZ’s R&D and support.   OCZ continuously invests in R&D, developing the SSD technology to run faster, smoother and give PC’s more stability than ever. With that in mind, the departments ‘Research and Development’ and ‘Customer Support’ are focused on developing new firmware's to keep the OCZ SSD’s at maximum performance.

S.E.T.  As a result of this mind-set, customers can now enjoy a new, unique, tool called; Sanitary Erase Tool. This enables the user to put the drive into its original state and restoring it to the full 100% of its performance.

TRIM / Wiper tool / Garbage Collection   In case the user is hesitant to clean the entire drive, OCZ offers another alternative that is widely known and accepted as the ‘Wiper tool’. With this piece of software the cleaning process can be executed manually and clean the drive from unused data. More information on the different tools and features can be found within the OCZ Forums.

Perfect for notebooks and desktops alike, the Vertex Series is ideal for energy-efficient mobile computing to extend battery life, increase the speed of access time, and provide a durable alternative to conventional hard disc drives with superior shock resistance. High capacities and low power consuming NAND flash technology provide the necessary performance and battery life boosts generated by the proliferation of mobile gaming and new ultra-thin laptops.

The OCZ Vertex drives feature a durable yet lightweight alloy housing, and because OCZ SSD's have no moving parts, the drives are more rugged than traditional hard drives. Designed for ultimate reliability, Vertex Series SSD's have an excellent 1.5 million hour mean time before failure (MTBF) ensuring reliability over the long term.