Product Listing

OCZ Vector SSD (256GB) - A Challenger to Marvell & SandForce

By Kenny Yeo - 30 Nov 2012

Conclusion

Move Over, Here Comes The Vector

In the world of haute horology, many watchmakers are striving to become what is known as a manufacture. A manufacture refers to a watchmaker that produces most, if not all of its components in-house. By doing so, they have absolute control over the quality of the parts and thus can make better timepieces.

We see parallels of this in OCZ’s recent acquisition and in its development of their new Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller. With the new controller and firmware, OCZ has now up its game and have greater control over its SSD products. All that is left now is for them to produce their own NAND memory chips - right now they source their memory from IMFT.

In terms of performance, the OCZ Vector is easily one of the fastest drives in the market now. Performance on AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark was very impressive, and it was pretty good on Iometer too. On the flip side however, it was pretty average on PCMark 7 and HD Tune Pro 4.6, and had some problems coping with PCMark Vantage. Still, that was only one problematic benchmark and we would rate the Vector is one of the quickest drives in the market right now.

The new OCZ Vector offers attractive performance, but that comes at a price.

Price-wise, the 256GB variant of the Vector that we have tested is available locally for around S$399. This means it commands a considerable premium over the Vertex 4 (S$313), and also other drives such as the Intel SSD 520 Series (S$313), Plextor M5 Pro (S$290), Transcend SSD720 (S$335). It is also one of the priciest SSDs in the market right now.

Is it worth it though? It may be too early to tell. For sure, the Vector is blazing quick in almost most instances, but Intel's SSD 520 series remains to be the most consistently performing high performance drive across the board. Furthermore, it's still early days yet for the OCZ Vector SSD and it is too early to tell if the controller and firmware are going to perform reliably. Remember, early SandForce drives were bugged by a BSOD issue?

However, as tested right here, we are impressed with the OCZ Vector. The Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller looks to be a viable alternative to the SandForce SF-2281 and Marvell 88SS9187 controllers and we wonder if OCZ would capitalize on it by licensing to other SSD makers.

In closing, if you are dissatisfied with the current crop of SandForce and Marvell SSDs, the OCZ Vector is definitely worth checking out if you want to be on the cutting edge of technology. Unfortunately, such products usually carry a premium which the OCZ Vector exhibits as well.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
8.0
  • Performance 8.5
  • Features 7
  • Value 6.5
The Good
Impressive performance in most tests
Read/write performance were equally consistent
In-house developed controller and firmware
The Bad
No frills or accessories
Commands considerable premium over other high-end SSDs
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.