The SSD Update: Vertex Gets Faster, New Indilinx Drives and Intel/MacBook Problems Resolved
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
The Bright Side: The Vertex is Nearly 3x as Fast
Immediately after I published the anthology, I asked OCZ for a shipping version of the drive. I wanted final hardware, updated firmware, shrink wrap, the whole 9 yards. Here’s what I got:
The drive itself looked identical to the first Vertex I tested, but the differences were all internal. The new drive used a new PCB layout, let’s pop the top off to see it:
Oooh.
The major change on the new board layout is the addition of a 2-pin jumper on the back of the drive to allow the drive’s firmware to be updated by the end user. OCZ tells me that as of 1275, the jumper is no longer needed to update the firmware so it looks like it was a short lived change.
While OCZ claims that there’s significant validation done on each firmware revision, without a doubt it’s significantly less than what every Intel and Samsung drive goes through. There’s a certain amount of risk you take when jumping on the unproven hardware bandwagon, so as always proceed with caution. It’s worth looking into
While I haven’t done much testing on 1275, I can’t blame you if you want to try the firmware out right away because it is good.
I’ll start with the best news first. I looked at 4KB random write performance once again using iometer. This test is the same one I used in last week’s review; a 3 minute run, 3 outstanding IOs, 4KB random writes spread out over an 8GB section of LBAs. I filled the drive completely before running the test.
| Random Write (4KB Block, 3 IOs) | IOPS | Transfer Rate | Average Latency (ms) |
| Intel X25-M | 5923 | 23.1 MB/s | 0.51 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 1275 | 1656 | 6.47 MB/s | 1.81 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 0112 | 617 | 2.41 MB/s | 4.86 ms |
Yeah. It’s fast. Not quite as fast as Intel’s X25-M but it’s good. Average latency has dropped quite a bit. The Vertex using firmware 1275 performs used at about the level that the original firmware performed brand new. The Intel drive can still crunch through over 3.5x the number of IOs per second as the Vertex, but it also costs nearly 2x per GB. The Vertex proves itself an interesting value alternative.
I then looked at random read performance. Now most SSDs do just fine here, even the JMicron based ones.
| Random Read (4KB Block, 3 IOs) | IOPS | Transfer Rate | Average Latency (ms) |
| Intel X25-M | 13883 | 54.2 MB/s | 0.22 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 1275 | 8931 | 34.9 MB/s | 0.34 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 0112 | 8184 | 32.0 MB/s | 0.37 ms |
The new firmware bumped up the Vertex’s performance by about 9%.
I spoke briefly with one of OCZ’s flash engineers and it seems like the reason the 1275 firmware is so much faster in random write speed is because of a bug in the 0112 firmware I tested with. There was apparently a problem with the 0112 firmware that prevented the controller from writing to as many flash devices as possible in parallel. The 1199 firmware fixed this, which explains why the sudden rush to ship the firmware. Unfortunately it looks like that version also has problems and thus we end up back at square one again. There’s no free lunch folks.
Sequential read performance showed a very marginal performance improvement:
| Sequential Read (2MB Block, 1 IO) | IOPS | Transfer Rate | Average Latency (ms) |
| Intel X25-M | 115.1 | 230.2 MB/s | 8.7 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 1275 | 127.9 | 255.9 MB/s | 7.8 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 0112 | 125.1 | 250.1 MB/s | 8.0 ms |
But sequential write performance went up tremendously:
| Sequential Write (2MB Block, 1 IO) | IOPS | Transfer Rate | Average Latency (ms) |
| Intel X25-M | 35.5 | 71 MB/s | 28.2 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 1275 | 67.7 | 135.3 MB/s | 14.8 ms |
| OCZ Vertex 0112 | 46.7 | 93.4 MB/s | 21.4 ms |
The Indilinx (and most other) drives offer better sequential read/write speed than the X25-M. Intel optimized for the most important characteristics for a desktop: random read/write performance, while most other manufacturers optimized for sequential read/write. Indilinx is the first to seem to want to really drive sequential without completely forgetting about random performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
73 Comments
View All Comments
monoton - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Hello Anand,I've read your articles about SSD with great interest and enjoyed the in-depth reviewing very very much.
Now with this update all I asked myself when seeing the headline was: Does it stutter (again)? You do mention random write performance but the maximum latency for random 4kb writes isn't stated at all. You were dwelling on that part so extensively in the other article that I thought it might have been a good idea to have it updated here. Please, pretty please, with sugar on top ;) let us know about it. Why else should we pay the extra cash to get the Intel...
One other thing also: You had a comment in that other article about the method of simulating the "used" drives - did you also fill up the spare blocks this time? Because the comment says, that it would bias the test results towards the Intel drive.
All in all no biggies, and I hope you continue to do these amazing reviews for a long time!
Best,
monoton
monoton - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Btw. the comment I'm referring to is the top one on pg. 19 of the comments.mschira - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Did you test any SSD directly plugged into the PCI-e slot likethe Fusion-io?Cheers
M.
LinkerX - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Anandtech has become the go to site since Toms Hardware turned in to junk. Keep up the great work.JonnyDough - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
"Your words and support are what inspire me to, even today almost 12 years since I started AnandTech, continue to work on things like The SSD Anthology or The RV770 Story. Thank you."(quote button doesn't work so I just used quotes)
You mean you don't get paid for your articles? Tell the crustacean man to get on it.
Akkuma - Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - link
I recently told my roommate I read AnandTech and have been doing so for years (about 6 or so now). He told me about how he went to high school with him (he is from Raleigh, NC) and was driving Porsches back then, handing out freebies from all the stuff he got to friends, bought his parents a home, etc..I don't hold it against the guy, but he is making some extremely serious bank from the site when he is one of the original computer hardware review sites.
strikeback03 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Least he earned the money. We had people in my HS driving (brand new) Porsches that their parents had bought them.Bladen - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Keep up the good work.I have always seen this site as the most professional of it's kind.
RyuDeshi - Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - link
I agree. I can never read through an entire THG article.. yet I managed to real almost every last word of multiple SSD articles Anand has posted. Keep up the excellent work!semo - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
"OCZ and Indilinx want to slot their drive in between the JMicron garbage and the Intel drive"gold. those scumbags must have set back ssd adoption by years in certain sectors. i still hear the AMD processors are too hot nonsense every once in a while.