Vertex 4 128gb firmware. Performance, real-world tasks

Solid state drives (SSDs) are becoming increasingly popular. This is due to their constant cost reduction and, of course, faster work with files. If you do not go into details, then an SSD is a kind of flash drive, only thanks to more advanced technologies of significantly larger volume and significantly higher read and write speeds. At the moment, replacing a traditional hard drive with an SSD will give a good performance increase (the most noticeable is high performance when an SSD is connected to SATAIII), in particular, the operating system will boot many times faster, programs will open faster, files will be copied at a faster speed. But to experience the beauty of your SSD, the first thing to do is update the firmware on it. Why do I need to update the firmware? - you ask, in order to get rid of the problems that the manufacturer noticed after the mass release of the SSD, and fix them with the new firmware.

In this article, I will describe step by step the process of updating the firmware on an SSD. OCZ Vertex 4 but for SSD OCZ Vertex 3, OCZ Agility 4, OCZ Agility 3, OCZ Vector, OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS, OCZ Vertex Plus R2 the firmware update process is absolutely identical.
For a successful firmware update, there are several factors to consider:
1) Before updating the firmware of your SSD, you need to copy any data you may need to another medium. Most likely nothing will happen to them, but a failure is possible and you may lose all data.
2) You must connect the SSD drive as an additional drive, and not the main one (on which the system is installed). It is also necessary to take into account that you will need a computer on which you can connect an SSD via SATA, if you hope to update the firmware on a laptop / computer by connecting it using a SATA-USB adapter

I can disappoint you, with the help of these devices, nothing will work, the program will not "see" your SSD, there will be an inscription No Supported Drivers Found.

3) For successful flashing of your OCZ, the SATA controller in BIOS must be set to AHCI mode. In this regard, I want to add that if you have Windows XP installed on your computer, you will not be able to update the firmware, because if you change the mode to AHCI, your system will give you a blue screen, and on the assurance of the OCZ themselves - Updating the firmware from the panel tools not supported in Windows XP !!! In this case, you need to reinstall the system, say on Windows 7 (before that, select the AHCI mode) and update the firmware.
4) An internet connection is required to update the OCZ firmware.
If all the conditions are met, you need to download the link - https://www.ocz.com/us/ (by going to the site, select your SSD from the list and download for it OCZ Toolbox).
Unzip the downloaded folder and run the file OCZToolbox.exe... OCZ Toolbox v (version number) starts up. in it you will see your SSD drive. By clicking on it, information about it will appear on the right side.

By clicking on the menu Tools, you will see the coveted button Update Firmware, click on it.
Important!!! During the firmware, provide the computer with uninterrupted power supply, or any external influences on it, if the computer turns off or reboots during the firmware update, this may damage the SSD.

A warning appears stating that you need to make a data backup, if you transferred all data from the SSD to another media, press " Yes".

The process of downloading the new firmware and installing it will begin, it will take just a few seconds, after which a message will appear in the program Update comleted successfuly. Please power-cycle yur drive.

After that, turn off the computer, take out the power from the SSD and connect it after a minute or two, then turn on the computer. We launch the OCZ Toolbox program, check if the firmware was updated, if you had a very old firmware, you may need to repeat the procedure to install the latest firmware (it is quite possible that the first firmware you installed was intermediate)
I hope this step-by-step instruction helped to update the firmware on your SSD, no matter which one, be it OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Vertex 3, OCZ Agility 4, OCZ Agility 3, OCZ Vector, OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS or OCZ Vertex Plus R2... And you got a stable, high-speed SSD drive.

[UPDATED!] OCZ Vertex 4 128Gb SSD Review

Introduction. Specifications.

For the past two generations, OCZ Technology has relied on third-party flash controllers, SandForce, to produce its highest performing line of SATA SSDs called Vertex. OCZ Vertex 2 on SandForce SF-1222 and OCZ Vertex 3 on SandForce SF-2281 proved to be quite productive for their time and quite competitive. But at the same time, SandForce controllers have been used by dozens of other SSD manufacturers. As a result, the market was filled with a lot of identical solutions, differing only in the installed type of memory and, in some cases, modified (with respect to the reference) firmware. There was something missing that could clearly distinguish the drives from OCZ Technology from the entire range of products based on the SandForce platform.

After some time, a number of manufacturers released drives based on the Marvell controller, which were able to compete strongly with OCZ Vertex 3 and other SandForce-based SSDs. It was necessary to move on, and for the new direction, OCZ Technology acquired the South Korean developer of Indilinx controllers.

The first OCZ drives to use Indilinx's new Everest controller were the Octane series. And although the speed characteristics of the OCZ Octane turned out to be quite good by modern standards, they are still insufficient to compete with the best models based on controllers from Marvell and SandForce. But OCZ Technology did not abandon this direction and the next generation of controllers from Indilinx called Everest 2 proved to be worthy to become the basis for a new productive line of Vertex 4 drives.

For testing, we took an OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb drive (VTX4-25SAT3-128G), and for comparison - the previous model OCZ Vertex 3 120 Gb (VTX3-25SAT3-120G) as a representative of drives using SandForce SF-2281 and Crucial m4 128 Gb ( CT128M4SSD2) based on Marvel 88SS9174-BLD2.

The table lists the technical specifications of the OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB drive compared to the OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB and Crucial m4 128Gb:

* when connected to SATA 6 Gb / s interface

* * prices are taken from June 6, 2012 from the website of the online store computeruniverse.net excluding VAT.

Packaging and equipment

The packaging design of OCZ Vertex 4 is almost unchanged from previous models from this manufacturer.

Also included is a quick installation guide and a sticker from OCZ:

The metal base and black plastic cover are still used for the case.

A standard SATA connector and a power connector located on the side are used to connect the drive:

Along the edges on four sides there are holes for attaching the drive to the case or adapter. And next to them are the screws with which the two parts of the SSD case are connected. One of the screws is, as usual, covered with a warranty sticker.

Nothing out of the ordinary, except that a thermal pad is installed between the metal part and the flash memory controller. Previously, such measures were not previously required for cooling controller microcircuits. But the Indilinx Everest 2 runs at a higher frequency than its first generation predecessor, so improving its cooling will not be superfluous.

The OCZ Vertex 4 is hotter than other drives. When it reaches a high temperature, it slows down to the SATA2 level. When using the drive on an open bench or in a well-ventilated computer case, the problem with heating, most likely, will not arise, but when choosing a drive for a laptop or netbook, this feature should be borne in mind. During testing, it was possible to heat up and slow down the Vertex 4 only after installing it close to another working drive and only after prolonged intensive load, uncharacteristic for everyday use. The free-standing drive did not overheat and never dropped the speed.

Let's look at the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb board:

In the center of the board is the Indilinx Everest 2 (IDX400M00-BC) flash controller manufactured in January this year:

Around the controller, on both sides, there are 16 Intel 29F64G08ACME2 synchronous 25-nm MLC flash memory chips of 8 gigabytes each.

Two Micron D9PBW microcircuits (MT41J256M16RE-15E Rev.D) with a density of 4 gigabits, designed to operate at a frequency of 1333 MHz, are used as cache memory.

According to information from the manufacturer, on all models, except for the older one (with 512 Gb), half of the available cache memory is not used. Even so, 512 Mb is more than other SSDs.

The ST Microelectronics M25P40 chip is used to store the firmware of the drive.

The power system is based on the Richtek RT9991GQV controller.

Proprietary OCZ Toolbox utility

Vertex 4, like other OCZ SSDs, is supported by the proprietary OCZ Toolbox utility. Its capabilities have already been reviewed in OCZ Vertex 3 and have not changed significantly since then, except perhaps for the appearance.

To update OCZ Vertex 4 firmware from 1.3 to 1.4, version 3.02.09 of OCZ Toolbox was downloaded.

After starting, on the Drives tab, you can select an SSD drive from the list of those found in the system, find out its model, capacity, serial number, firmware version and WWN:

On the Tools tab, you can update the firmware for the previously selected drive:

On the Security tab, you can reset the information on the drive:

The last tab Details allows you to find out some service information about the drive, as well as see the SMART indicators:

Test configuration and software used. Performance comparison. Conclusions.

For testing, an open stand was assembled with the following configuration:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K E1 (Ivy Bridge), 3500 MHz;
• Motherboard: ASUS Maximus V Gene, Rev. 1.01, Intel Z77, BIOS 0813;
• Memory: G.Skill Perfect Storm F3-16000CL7-6GBPS, DDR3-2000, PC3-16000, 2x2048Mb;
• Video card: Palit GeForce 7300GT Sonic, 256 Mb GDDR3, PCI-E;
• Drives: OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb, OCZ Vertex 3 120Gb, Crucial m4 128 Gb, Western Digital WD1002FAEX 1Tb;
• Power supply: Corsair Professional Series Gold AX1200 (CMPSU-1200AX), 1200W;
• Thermal paste: Arctic Cooling MX-4;
• CPU Cooling: Thermalright Archon with two Thermalright TY-140 fans.

Software:

• OS: Windows 7 SP1 x64 v6.1.7601 with updates to March 2012;
• DirectX Redistributable (Jun2010);
• Intel Chipset Device Software v9.3.0.1020;
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology Enterprise Driver v3.1.0.1085;
• Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI) Driver v8.0.10.1464;
• NVIDIA ForceWare Driver v296.10;
• CPU-Z v1.60;
• SSD Tweaker v2.0.0;
• Crystal Disk Mark v3.0.1e;
• HD Tune Pro v5.00;
• ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46;
• AS SSD Benchmark v1.6.4237.30508;
• AIDA64 Extreme v2.30.1957 beta;
• PCMark05 v1.2.0;
• PCMark Vantage v1.0.2;
• PCMark7 v1.04;
• IOmeter v1.1.0 RC1;
• Anvil "s Storage Utilities v1.0.44.330 RC1.

The processor was overclocked to 4600 MHz at 1.44V by increasing the multiplier.

The video card worked at nominal frequencies of 500/1000 MHz.

The drives were connected to the port of a SATA controller built into the Intel Z77 chipset, which operated in AHCI mode and at a speed of 6 Gb / s.

In the operating system settings, the option to clear the write cache (Turn off write-cache buffer flushing) was enabled.

OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb and Crucial m4 128 Gb drives were tested on an updated configuration with a Core i7-3770K processor running at 4600 MHz, and the results of both two representatives of the SandForce platform were taken from them. Replacing the Core i7-2600K with the Core i7-3770K did not have a noticeable effect on the performance in the storage benchmarks, so these results can be easily compared with each other.

The results for OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb are shown after updating the firmware to version 1.4. Kingston HyperX was tested with firmware version 320ABBF0 (v3.20). The firmware version of the Crucial m4 128 Gb has been updated to 000F, while the OCZ Vertex 3 120 Gb has been updated to 2.15.

Before testing, an empty partition was created on all drives for the entire available volume (119 Gb for OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb and Crucial m4 128 Gb, 112 Gb for Kingston HyperX 120 Gb and OCZ Vertex 3 120 Gb) in NTFS format with a default cluster size ... The operating system was booted from a Western Digital WD1002FAEX hard drive.

Between benchmark runs, TRIM data was forced to flush using the TRIM Optimize Manager feature in SSD Tweaker.

Crystal Disk Mark v3.0.1

Settings: Test Data - Default (Random).

One of the strengths of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is immediately evident in the Crystal Disk Mark - it is twice as fast as the rest of the test participants in write speed. Moreover, both on linear and random recording (including multi-threaded). Due to the increased cache in OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb, even single-threaded recording in blocks of 4 kilobytes has grown.

Switching the benchmark operating modes from random data to a sequence of zero bytes did not affect the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb results due to the lack of compression support in the Indilinx Everest 2 controller.

HD Tune Pro v5.00

Settings: Partial test (Accurate), 1 Mb block size.

And here is one of the weak points of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb - the linear read speed is 40-50 MB / s lower than that of other test participants and is not constant (the graph shows fluctuations within 12 MB / s).

Linear write speed of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is also inconsistent. In the first half of the flash memory capacity, it reaches 400 MB / s, and then drops sharply to 75-100 MB / s. This test was performed several times, but the results were repeated. A similar result was obtained with firmware version 1.4 RC at thessdreview.com.

Settings: Long Bench (32mb zones), run in compatibility mode with Windows XP SP3.

The benchmark HD Tach, as well as HD Tune, shows the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb lag in linear read speed. But it is worth noting that both of these benchmarks are more focused on hard drives than on SSD-drives, and it is too early to draw conclusions based on the results only in them.

ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46

Settings: Total Length = 256 Mb, Queue Depth = 4.

All drives showed similar results in read speed, but OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb still lags slightly behind the rest of the test participants.

In terms of write speed, OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is again twice as fast as Crucial m4 128 Gb, but starting from a block size of 16 kilobytes and above, it is outperformed by drives based on SandForce, due to their support for data compression.

AS SSD Benchmark v1.6.4237.30508

The entire OCZ Vertex 4 line, both the older 512 Gb models and the more affordable 128 Gb models, show an overall result of about 1100 points in the AS SSD benchmark. That's roughly double the result on SandForce-based drives and a third more than the Crucial m4. At the moment, this is generally the highest indicator among all SSD-drives with a SATA interface.

Here OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb took the lead at multi-threaded read speed, and at linear and 4 KB blocks it demonstrated results close to Crucial m4 128 Gb.

The results on write speed in AS SSD Benchmark also repeat the picture obtained in Crystal Disk Mark - OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb outperformed the competitors by two times.

The access time on read operations in OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is about the same as in solutions based on the second generation SandForce. And on write operations - several times less. I can only assume that due to the increased size of the cache memory, this benchmark on the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb measures the access speed obtained without accessing the flash memory. That is, the data sent for writing entirely "settles" in the cache from much faster RAM. But in any case, when calculating the total score in the AS SSD Benchmark, the readings of the access speed are not taken into account.

In copying speed OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is also ahead, but the advantage is not so great - within 20-25%.

AIDA64 Extreme v2.30.1957 beta- Disk Benchmark.

Settings: Block Size = 1 Mb.

The Read Test Suite, which is part of the AIDA64 information and diagnostic utility, shows the linear read speeds obtained when accessing the drive directly, that is, bypassing the file system. And here we again see a manifestation of the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb weak point, but it should be noted that the lag is small - within 10%.

PCMark05 v1.2.0- HDD Test Suite.

According to the overall HDD Score in PCMark05 OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb lagged behind Crucial m4 by a little more than 10%.

In the first two XP Startup and Application Loading subtests, which mainly use single-threaded reading, as well as in General Usage, OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb was the worst. In the Virus Scan subtest, which depends not only on the capabilities of the drives themselves, but also on other factors (such as the power of the central processor and the organization of caching in the operating system and the SATA controller driver), all test participants are approximately equal. As for the recording of files, here OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb, even without using data compression, was able to catch up with the drives based on SandForce 2.

PCMark Vantage v1.0.2- HDD Test Suite.

In PCMark Vantage, OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb has the worst results. Considerable lag behind the other three drives, both in the overall score and in all subtests.

Tests in PCMark Vantage (as well as in PCMark05) on OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb were carried out several times. The repeatability of the result was worse than on other drives and it fluctuated within several thousand, but in any case, this did not change the alignment of forces.

PCMark7 v1.0.4- Secondary Storage Score

In PCMark7, according to the total OCZ score, Vertex 4 128 Gb and Crucial m4 128 Gb turned out to be almost equal, and the drives on SandForce2 are slightly faster. But the difference in this benchmark is usually very small and fits into a few percent.

It is possible to highlight the lag of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb in starting applications due to the lower speed of linear reading. The same was observed in previous versions of PCMark (Application Loading subtest), only here it is less pronounced. When importing images, the write speed of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb allows it to be on par with SandForce 2. In other subtests, all drives are equal.

IOmeter v1.1.0 RC1

Settings: Access specification = 100% Random, Block Size = 4Kb, Queue Depth = 32.

Random multi-threaded writing and reading with a small block size is also a strong point of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb. And if in reading it was in the lead, then in writing it fell a little short of the drives on SandForce 2 (and all for the same reason as in a number of other benchmarks - because of data compression).

This graph repeats the data from the previous one, only instead of megabytes per second, it shows the number of I / O operations.

Above in the AS SSD benchmark in OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb, you could see an abnormally low access time on write operations. Here, the average indicators are normal, and the maximum write access time of the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is too high. And this is no coincidence - the benchmark was run several times and the results were generally the same.

The CPU load of the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb is only slightly higher than that of the Crucial m4 128 Gb.

Anvil "s Storage Benchmark v1.0.44 RC1

Settings: Compression = 100% (Incompressible)

Anvil's Storage Benchmark simultaneously shows both the strong side of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb (linear writing and multi-threaded reading) and its weak side (linear reading and single-threaded reading in 32-128 Kb blocks).

It is one third ahead of the rest of the drives in terms of the overall score, almost doubles them in writing incompressible data, and on average (taking into account both single-threaded and multi-threaded access) is approximately equal in read speed.

Conclusion

Pros and cons of OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb SSD:

[+] Fastest write speed of any SATA SSD up to 128 Gb.

[+] High speed of work with multi-threaded access.

[+] Increased cache size up to 1024 Mb (only half of the installed cache is used on the 128 Gb model).

[+] Uses 25nm synchronous flash memory chips with 5000 cycles rewriting life.

[+] Reasonable price (a little over 100 EUR). At about the same level as the price of the previous Vertex 3 model.

[+] Long warranty period (5 years).

[-] Unstable linear read speed. The performance in the benchmarks varied arbitrarily from run to run in the range from about 425 to 500 Mb / s.

[-] A short-term decrease in the write speed after the drive is full by half of its volume, associated with switching the operating mode (for more details, see the appendix).[-] Higher operating temperature than other SATA SSDs.

Although the OCZ Vertex 4 with a capacity of 128 Gb certainly has its strengths and weaknesses, in general it is undoubtedly one of the fastest and most modern drives with a SATA 6 Gb / s interface. The instability of indicators and speed drops in some benchmarks have a software basis associated with internal caching algorithms and are likely to be fixed or improved in the next firmware versions.

PS. While this review was being prepared for OCZ Vertex 4, firmware v1.4.1.3 was released. Changes in the new version do not affect speed indicators, but are aimed only at improving compatibility and fixing some bugs.

An important addition.

A month after the release of the review, new details became known about the reasons for the slowdown of the OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb drive after writing more than half of the volume to it. This clearly shows a graph with the test results of the recording.
in the HD Tune benchmark.
It turned out that OCZ Vertex 4 128 Gb operates in two modes (performance and storage), depending on the percentage of data filling. When the drive is more than half full, it switches its operating mode, which takes a certain time (up to half an hour). At the moment of switching to the new operating algorithm, the recording speed slows down, but later, when the switching is completed, the recording speed is restored.
Of course, a filled OCZ Vertex 4 won't be as fast as an empty one. A partial loss of speed after filling with information in an actively used drive (in comparison with the state of a new one) is characteristic of all SSD models. But after filling it by half, it will not work all the time at a write speed of about 100 MB per second, as one would think looking at the graph in HD Tune.
The question arises - why was it necessary to introduce the division into two modes? The performance mode corresponds to normal SSD operation. The storage mode (according to information from the manufacturer) is used to optimize the use of memory cells for maximum reliability. That is, so that those of the cells that are still free are used (wear out their resource) evenly.

We express our gratitude:

- companiesOCZ Technology peraccumulatorand Vertex 4 128 Gb andVertex 3 120 Gb ,

- companiesCrucial perstorage device m4 128 Gb ,

- companiesASUS permotherboard Maximus v gene ,

- companiesCorsair for the power supply Professional Series Gold AX1200.

Solid state drives (SSDs) are becoming increasingly popular. This is due to their constant cost reduction and, of course, faster work with files. If you do not go into details, then an SSD is a kind of flash drive, only thanks to more advanced technologies of significantly larger volume and significantly higher read and write speeds. At the moment, replacing a traditional hard drive with an SSD will give a good performance increase (the most noticeable is high performance when an SSD is connected to SATAIII), in particular, the operating system will boot many times faster, programs will open faster, files will be copied at a faster speed. But to experience the beauty of your SSD, the first thing to do is update the firmware on it. Why do I need to update the firmware? - you ask, in order to get rid of the problems that the manufacturer noticed after the mass release of the SSD, and fix them with the new firmware.

In this article, I will describe step by step the process of updating the firmware on an SSD. OCZ Vertex 4 but for SSD OCZ Vertex 3, OCZ Agility 4, OCZ Agility 3, OCZ Vector, OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS, OCZ Vertex Plus R2 the firmware update process is absolutely identical.

For a successful firmware update, there are several factors to consider:
1) Before updating the firmware of your SSD, you need to copy any data you may need to another medium. Most likely nothing will happen to them, but a failure is possible and you may lose all data.

2) You must connect the SSD drive as an additional drive, and not the main one (on which the system is installed). It is also necessary to take into account that you will need a computer on which you can connect an SSD via SATA, if you hope to update the firmware on a laptop / computer by connecting it using a SATA-USB adapter

I can upset you, with the help of these devices, nothing will work, the program will not "see" your SSD, there will be an inscription No Supported Drivers Found.

3) For successful flashing of your OCZ, the SATA controller in BIOS must be set to AHCI mode. In this regard, I want to add that if Windows XP is installed on your computer, you will not be able to update the firmware, because if you change the mode to AHCI, your system will give you a blue screen, and according to the assurances of the OCZ themselves - Firmware upgrade from toolbars not supported in Windows XP !!! In this case, you need to reinstall the system, say on Windows 7 (before that, select the AHCI mode) and update the firmware.

4) An internet connection is required to update the OCZ firmware.

If all conditions are met you need to download OCZ firmware update program (by going to the site, select your SSD from the list and download for it OCZ Toolbox).

Unzip the downloaded folder and run the file OCZToolbox.exe. OCZ Toolbox v (version number) starts up. in it you will see your SSD drive. By clicking on it, information about it will appear on the right side.

By clicking on the menu Tools, you will see the coveted button Update Firmware, click on it.

Important!!! During the firmware, provide the computer with uninterrupted power supply, or any external influences on it, if the computer turns off or reboots during the firmware update, this may damage the SSD.

A warning appears stating that you need to make a data backup, if you transferred all data from the SSD to another media, press "Yes".

The process of downloading the new firmware and installing it will begin, it will take just a few seconds, after which a message will appear in the program Update comleted successfuly. Please power-cycle yur drive.

After that, turn off the computer, take out the power from the SSD and connect it after a minute or two, then turn on the computer. We launch the OCZ Toolbox program, check if the firmware was updated, if you had a very old firmware, you may need to repeat the procedure to install the latest firmware (it is quite possible that the first firmware you installed was intermediate)

I hope this step-by-step instruction helped to update the firmware on your SSD, no matter which one, be it OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Vertex 3, OCZ Agility 4, OCZ Agility 3, OCZ Vector, OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS or OCZ Vertex Plus R2... And you got a stable, high-speed SSD drive.

OCZVertex 4: a healthy mind in a solid

While mobile gadgets are being improved by increasing the diagonal of the screen, offering us a slightly larger box under the guise of opening the century, while processor manufacturers, instead of coming up with something new, follow the already beaten path of build-up - the clock frequency used to grow, today the number of cores in the processor ; while mobile operators are pushing us mobile Internet in ridiculous volumes at unfunny prices, and even according to old standards - while all this nonsense is happening in the world, during which technological breakthroughs are replaced by marketing moves, there are still companies that honestly improve their own products and develop them ... An example of this is the OCZ Vertex 4 solid state drive.

It is one of the most exciting solid state drives in the industry at this stage. Firstly, we have before us a flagship product of a well-known company with a very affordable price. Secondly, it is built on a fundamentally new controller Indilinx Everest 2, which is in itself ambiguous given the dominance of SandForce systems.

At the hardware level, this controller is practically indistinguishable from Marvell products. Roughly speaking, only the firmware has been radically redesigned, which is the merit of Indilinx. In fact, we have before us a processor with ARM-architecture, operating at a frequency of 400 MHz. Among the main advantages are the improved algorithm for working with the cache memory, which, by the way, is installed in 1 GB, and the Ndurance 2.0 technology. Due to it, it was possible to achieve a longer operation of the drive without a pronounced aging effect, which is confirmed by the warranty period: OCZ gives a 5-year warranty for all Vertex 4 drives.

The delivery set, except for OCZ Vertex 4, includes a metal adapter for mounting in standard desktop cases.

The whole salt of the pleasant changes lies in the firmware: it turns out that the version of the firmware affects the performance of the drive so much that the difference is not just noticeable - it is colossal. The declared write speed of "old" 128 GB drives is 200 MB / s, and new ones with firmware 1.5 - 430 MB / s. So if you bought a Vertex 4 not from the newest batches, then it is really advisable to update the firmware.

We got a 128 GB drive with firmware version 1.5 for the test, so the data obtained can be considered the highest for the corresponding Vertex 4. And this drive really shows high speeds: for sequential reading - 509 MB / s, for writing - 411 MB / s ... Moreover, the drive looks very confident even in a long queue.

Based on the PCMark 7 results, you cannot say that the tested solid-state drive has any clear advantage over the competitors, however, its overall score is still quite high - 5290.

A more mundane test of the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, which simulates real processes, produces much more attractive numbers. Here we can see that the OCZ Vertex 4 is really fast when dealing with real data. Moreover, this manifests itself not only on large amounts of information, but also on small files when working with them in multi-threaded mode.

As a result, we can confidently say that today OCZ Vertex 4 looks like a very good acquisition. The drive is inexpensive, reliable, and fast. Its performance is more than enough not only for a home PC, but also for a server system. There are practically no bottlenecks. The main thing is to make sure that the firmware is at least version 1.5.

Total

As for the drives of the Vertex 4 line themselves, everything is simple with them - good mid-range models. Not a budget segment (for this, there were drives of the Agility 4 family - with the same controller, but paired with asynchronous memory), and not record holders in performance (at least when it comes to models up to 256 GB - the half-terabyte Vertex 4 is a separate story ), namely a good average level. First of all, to replace Vertex 3, which is evident from the surviving name - it's just that there are too many SSDs based on SandForce controllers, which complicated competition, and the transition to your own controller is convenient both from the point of view of its simplification and to reduce the cost price. But, let's repeat, not counting on records - work on Vector (which will be discussed in one of the upcoming articles) was probably carried out in parallel with the creation of a controller for Vertex 4. For its own class, the drive turned out to be a good solution. The only fly in the ointment is the rather high power consumption, which many people have encountered when trying to use the drive in laptops. The difference was even more noticeable when trying to use this SSD as an external drive (in a box with a USB 3.0 interface): if even 480 GB of SSDs on SandForce can easily get by with power from a USB 2.0 port, then Vertex 4 256 GB (not to mention 512 GB ) "Does not start" and from 900 mA USB 3.0. However, the manufacturer himself honestly writes about 1.5 A on the case of the device, so, of course, it is not too correct to make claims to him.

But the main issue that we wanted to consider today was the comparison of different firmware versions on the same hardware. As you can see, the difference in performance can really be radical. This is especially noticeable in the first months of the "life" of devices: Vertex 4 with firmware 1.3 is not at all the Vertex 4 that it became in the final result. The truth is not without its drawbacks - in some scenarios, new firmware reduces performance. Therefore, one should not, perhaps, run thoughtlessly to update. The same rule applies as for all firmware updates, drivers, etc.: if the new version fixes some errors that interfere in practice when using the old one, it is best to use it. But repair what did not break, you need to be careful. In any case, do not be surprised later if suddenly something starts to work worse. In fairness, you can notice this, perhaps, with the help of tests, but after all, improvements, as we see, are also mainly manifested in them. Another thing is the fixes of critical errors, which, unfortunately, are not uncommon in the first versions of firmware (it is enough to recall the very protracted history of compatibility problems between SF2 and Intel controllers): here it is better to take preventive measures in order to exclude even the potential for problems, and not wait their appearances.

But in general, we are done with the Vertex 4. As well as with the line of Indilinx Everest and Everest 2 controllers: as we can see, despite the creative reworking of the Marvell heritage, this development option cannot boast too impressive results - the "standard Marveloids" are no worse. That is why, in the end, OCZ shifted the main efforts to improving its own developments Indilinx, which resulted in Barefoot 3 - already used in Vector and (according to rumors leaking in the press) planned for use in Vertex 5. But more on that in the next articles of the series.