I'm looking to buy an SSD on monday - I feel like the price/gb ratio is finally at a level I'm comfortable with. Currently I'm looking at a vertex 4 256gb and the reviews are making it look fantastic. The problem is that I've heard about "storage mode" kicking in after 50% capacity and there aren't really reviews that highlight the change after that shift. If anybody has used a vertex 4 beyond this point and can give me a heads up on the difference that is made, it would be appreciated. Also, I'm specifically curious how the effect comes into play in firmware 1.5. The other drive I'm looking at is a samsung 840 pro but I'd rather save the money if the vertex stays close to its benchmark speeds. Thanks
I recommend you getting the Samsung 830 instead. You don't have to go for the 840 Pro to get great performance. I just got the Samsung 830 on sale for $199.99 from my local computer store to replace my older Mushkin Chronos 120 GB SSD (which I now installed in my media centre). The upgrade was very noticeable, it's like running my entire computer on the RAM lol. If you're iffy about the Samsung 830 (don't see why you would), you should get the Corsair Neutron (or its GTX counterpart). It's gotten really good reviews with the NAND and the LAMD controller. Also, another reason why I'm steering you clear from the Vertex is that many of OCZ's past SSDs have failed prematurely for many people. Not sure you'd want to jump on right now to take that risk. Yes, there's an inherent risk moving to SSDs as they generally fail a lot more than HDDs since it's still new tech, but OCZ has had a lot of quality issues with their Agility 3/Vertex 3 lines. deltatux
Coolbeans..thanks for clearing that up xzibit. Also, I overlooked the 830 thinking that it would be a bit more of a mid-range product but I'll sift through reviews and maybe give that one a go. I've always been impressed by the vertex series, but I have definitely seen a lot of failure. The slight price point difference doesn't hurt either
I got 2 V4's 256GB. 1 For OS & Progs and the other is my project drive which always has 100-160gb of data on the drive at any given time. I havnt noticed any performance loss what so ever. Great drives IMO. I also added an LSI 9750-i8 raid card and i get the read and writes speeds that are written on the box.
vertex 4 Someone on here said about unreliabilty of OCZ. My vertex 2 has just failed last friday its two years old and OCZ are holding out on me by just offering me a agilty 3 which I think is a rip off.They should at least give me a vertex 3 if they cant supply the samedrive,and yes I know the agilty would be faster but its still a budget drive.
Well yes, they should replace the Vertex 2 with a vertex 3. In terms of reliability though, the Vertex 4 is different to Vertex 2 and 3. SSD's have improved greatly in the last couple of years. You could say the Vertex 2 in processor terms is as old as a Pentium 4 The vertex 4 is a good drive. I haven't come across 'storage' mode, and I do know there is a new firmware in the works. Another thing to remember is like with anything computer related, a new model is on its way, but for availability, I'm not sure when.
Hello, I have a vertex 3 Max IOPS 120gb for windows and a vertex 4 256gb for games, and I never had a single problem with both... Maybe I've been lucky? My vertex4 is filled up to 54% and no difference for me.
Personally, I like my computer parts as fast as possible - but NEVER at the cost of data loss. I'd stick with an 830 or M4, just because they have pretty good track records as far as SSDs go. Let the newer parts get established. Besides, if you're looking for good benchmarks, the 830 is ~par with the fastest stuff out there, while also being low risk. And in real world applications (not benchmarks), the M4 does just as well, and is also low risk. IMO -scheherazade
I'm up and running now with the Agilty 3 they sent,had a few problems at first loading windows but now sorted.
Right on. Well, as per previous suggestions I ended up throwing down for a Samsung 830 256gb which I'm installing right now. Unfortunately, I just found out that the Sata III port on my mobo is a farce and isn't actually able to see the speeds that I expected. Because of this, I'll only be running my SSD on Sata II until I can afford an entire system upgrade. I can't wait to have this thing done I'm getting windows ready atm - should be seeing some wicked speeds soon. On the downside, I also discovered that my 2x WD1500ADFD in RAID 0 basically perform at the same sequential rates that I'll see with the SSD. I'm really hoping that the randoms payoff my $170 investment.
4K random is less than 1mb/s on a HDD. You'll get about 20 ish mb/s on the SSD. It's night and day, and it's 95% of the speed improvement you'll experience, since very few things use sequential transfer anyways. http://gfx.cdfreaks.com/reviews/vertex2_review/image026.png http://www.bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/storage/WD_WD1000DHTZ/Crystal_DishMark_4k_Read.jpg -scheherazade
This has been an incredible experience. Despite my hard drives being crazy fast before this, the changeover is fantastic. I didn't realize that computers could be this responsive. The biggest thing that I've noticed is that there was in fact a few milliseconds of lag between clicking on the start menu, chrome, etc, while they booted up. I always felt that it was fast enough because there is basically no discernible difference between the moment that I clicked on the mouse and things starting. Apparently I was wrong. I think I came to accept that there was supposed to be a moment of waiting. Well, there isn't anymore. It's almost hard to get used to. Everything happens unnervingly fast - it feels like the computer is in my head and knows what I'm thinking Definitely a recommended upgrade - even on SATA II
That might be me,i have a vertex 4 512gb with f/w rev 1.5 Yes they are very fast but ive had no end of problems as far as reliability,maybe it because ive gone past the 50% barrier but i didnt pay £500 to only use half an ssd. Ive already had to reinstall my system twice since i got the vertex in May due to read/write issues,its 1 week since the last reinstall and its taking longer and longer to boot and im expecting my v4 to screw up again. Before someone says "why dont you install your games on a second drive", my reply is...if i have to do that it defeats the object of installing games on my ssd to improve loading times in which case i would of been better just getting a second reliable WD Velociraptor 300gig 10,000rpm and run them in raid. Having to reinstall my system everytime ocz release a firmware update isnt my idea of fun either even though it wasnt supposed to be a destructive update i still had to reinstall everything. So OP in my opinion if you want reliability and speed get a Velociraptor.
I had problems running the vertex drives and OB Sata controllers. I got 2xVertex4 256gb, 2xCrucial M4 256 and 1xvertex 3 128. i purchased an LSI 9750 raid controller and things have been good ever since. I get far better performance from the drives now than i ever did running with the OBC.. If you can afford to do so buy an LSI card you wont regreat it. one thing to note about having a PCE-E controller is they do take longer for your bios to post but once your up and running it works great.
