Yesterday, OCZ launched its latest Vector Series SSDs based on the new Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller and since it launched more than a few reviews have gone live. All of them have nothing but praise for the new OCZ Vector SSD.
OCZ made quite a few bold statements saying that the new Vector is a "groundbreaking" piece of tech in more than one area and with impressive results from those posted reviews it certainly feels like a game-changing product. OCZ has been sailing in some rough seas lately and with a new CEO, the company wants to focus on bringing fewer products but with greater compatibility, reliability and greater validation testing. Of course, those are left to be seen with Vector Series SSDs as only time will tell if Vector is a part of that new vision.
In case you missed it, the new Vector SSD uses the company's first in-house controller, the Indilinx Barefoot 3. The controller is paired up with MLC NAND chips and placed inside a 7mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor case. We now also have more details regarding the actual controller and it uses a combination of unnamed ARM Cortex core paired up with OCZ Aragon co-processor. The flash controller with randomizer, ECC Engine and NAND ONFI/Toggle interface is connected to the NAND array via 8-channel and uses DDR2/3 DRAM controller. The Vector SSD itself uses 25nm IMFT synchronous NAND flash and two DDR3L-1600 DRAM chips.
The stated groundbreaking performance is certainly there, especially in the 4K Random performance with Vector leading the pack over its competition, including OCZ's quite good Vertex 4 SSD. The main competition for Vector, when it comes to performance per buck, is Samsung latest 840 Pro SSD and judging by these reviews, it certainly holds its ground quite well. The price, which is pretty much the only downside of the new Vector Series SDDs, is identical to the Samsung SSD 840 Pro, except the 512GB model which is around US $40 cheaper.
The price, performance and certainly OCZ's dedication to reliability, compatibility and validation testing partially presented by a 5 years of warranty for Vector Series SSDs, makes it quite a good SSD and welcomed competition to the Samsung 840 Pro. If you want the current best and latest, OCZ Vector Series SSDs are certainly a direction to look at.
You can check out some of the reviews here:
- Anandtech.com
- Tweaktown.com
- Legitreviews.com
- PCPerspective.com
- HotHardware.com
- Xbitlabs.com
- Hardwareheaven.com
- Ocaholic.ch
