OCZ's Vertex 2 Pro Preview: The Fastest MLC SSD We've Ever Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 31, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Words
SandForce started work on its controllers back in 2007. The late start meant a late arrival to the party. Even today we’re looking at another 1 - 3 months before we see widespread availability of SSDs based on the SF-1200 or SF-1500. I guess it’s more fashionably late than anything else, because this thing is good.
The OCZ Vertex 2 Pro is the fastest single-controller MLC SSD I’ve ever tested, and it’s not even running final firmware. It’s quite telling that SandForce decided to make its first public showing with OCZ. Perhaps all of the initial hard work with Indilinx in the Vertex days paid off.
The controller and product both look very good. The only concern for the majority of users seems to be price. For the enterprise market I doubt it’ll be much of an issue. The Vertex 2 Pro should come in cheaper than Intel’s X25-E in a cost per GB sense, but for high end desktop and notebook users it may be a tough pill to swallow. Especially for a controller whose reliability will only be proven over time. I’m curious to see what the cheaper SF-1200 based SSDs will perform like. I’m hearing that they offer the same sequential read/write speed, but have lower random write performance.
OCZ says they will continue to work with Indilinx to bring out new products based on its controllers. SandForce simply adds to the stack.
Then there's Intel. Current roadmaps put the next generation of Intel SSDs out in Q4 2010, although Intel tells me it will be a "mid-year" refresh. For the mainstream market the capacities are 160GB, 300GB and 600GB. I'm guessing we'll see 160GB down at $225, 600GB at $500+ and the 300GB drive somewhere in between. The X25-E also gets a much needed upgrade with 100GB, 200GB and 400GB capacities.
Competition is a good thing. We need companies to not only keep Intel aggressive on price, but competitive on features as well. Indilinx did the former and it looks like SandForce is going to do the latter.
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fertilizer - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
First of all, my complements to a great article!It provided me with great insight!
It seems to me that SSD manufacturers are spending a lot of time complying to the world of HDD based Operating Systems.
Would'nt it be time to get OS's to treat a SSD differently than a HDD?
j718 - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
the ocz vertex ex is an slc drive, not mlc as shown in the charts.j718 - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - link
whoops, sorry, it's just the anandtech storage bench charts that have the ex mislabeled.Donald99 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Any thoughts on potential energy use in mobile environment? Compared to intel MLC. Still better energy efficiencey than a traditional drive?Performance results seem uber.
cliffa3 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Anand,Great article, will be an interesting technology to watch and see how mature it really is.
Question on the timeline for the price drop: When you said 'we'll see 160GB down at $225', were you talking about the mid-year refresh or the end of year next-gen?
MadMan007 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Is it just me or is it inaccurate to mix GB and GiB when calculating overprovisioning at the bottom of page 5? By my reckoning the overprovisioning should be 6.6% (64GB/60GB, 128GB/120GB) not double that from using (64GB/55.9GiB etc)vol7ron - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Anand, the right column of the table should be marked as GiB.The last paragraph should take that into consideration. Either the second column should first be converted into GiB, or if it already is (and hard to believe it is), then you could do direct division from there.
The new table:
Adv.(GB) Tot.(GB) Tot.(GiB) User(GiB)
50 64 59.6 46.6
100 128 119.2 93.1
200 256 238.4 186.3
400 512 476.8 372.5
The new percentages should be:
(59.6-46.6) / 59.6 x 100 = 21.8% decrease
(119.2-93.1) / 119.2 x 100 = 21.9% decrease
(238.4-186.3) / 238.4 x 100 = 21.9% decrease
(476.8-372.5) / 476.8 x 100 = 21.9% decrease
And the second table:
Adv.(GB) Tot.(GB) Tot.(GiB) User(GiB)
60 64 59.6 55.9
120 128 119.2 111.8
240 256 238.4 223.5
480 512 476.8 447
The new percentages should be:
(59.6-55.9) / 59.6 x 100 = 6.21% decrease
(119.2-111.8) / 119.2 x 100 = 6.21% decrease
(238.4-223.5) / 238.4 x 100 = 6.25% decrease
(476.8-447) / 476.8 x 100 = 6.25% decrease
Note, I did not use significant figures, so all numbers are approximated, yet suitable - the theoretical value may be slightly different.
vol7ron
vol7ron - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Anand, the right column of the table should be marked as GiB.The last paragraph should take that into consideration. Either the second column should first be converted into GiB, or if it already is (and hard to believe it is), then you could do direct division from there.
The new table:
Adv.(GB) Tot.(GB) Tot.(GiB) User(GiB)
50 64 59.6 46.6
100 128 119.2 93.1
200 256 238.4 186.3
400 512 476.8 372.5
The new percentages should be:
(59.6-46.6) / 59.6 x 100 = 21.8% decrease
(119.2-93.1) / 119.2 x 100 = 21.9% decrease
(238.4-186.3) / 238.4 x 100 = 21.9% decrease
(476.8-372.5) / 476.8 x 100 = 21.9% decrease
And the second table:
Adv.(GB) Tot.(GB) Tot.(GiB) User(GiB)
60 64 59.6 55.9
120 128 119.2 111.8
240 256 238.4 223.5
480 512 476.8 447
The new percentages should be:
(59.6-55.9) / 59.6 x 100 = 6.21% decrease
(119.2-111.8) / 119.2 x 100 = 6.21% decrease
(238.4-223.5) / 238.4 x 100 = 6.25% decrease
(476.8-447) / 476.8 x 100 = 6.25% decrease
Note, I did not use significant figures, so all numbers are approximated, yet suitable - the theoretical value may be slightly different.
vol7ron
Guspaz - Sunday, January 3, 2010 - link
Your pricing estimates for Intel's refreshes worry me, and I worry that you're out of touch with SSD pricing.Intel's G2 x25-m 160GB drive currently sells for $500-550, so claims that Intel will be selling 600GB drives at the same price point raise some eyebrows.
kunedog - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
I couldn't help but roll my eyes a little when I saw that Anand was again making Intel SSD pricing predictions. Even the G1 X-25Ms skyrocketed above his predictions for the G2s:http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=36...">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=36...
And the G1s are still higher at Newegg (the G2s are still a LOT higher). Anand has never acknowledged the stratospheric X-25M G2 pricing and how dead wrong his predictions were. He's kept us updated on negative aspects like the firmware bugs, slow stock/availability of G2s, and lack of TRIM for G1s, but never pricing.