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 Vertex Update
As you’d expect, a lot has happened since the article went live. On my end, I’ve started compatibility testing on the OCZ Vertex drives. As I mentioned at the end of last week’s article - OCZ and Indilinx, even collectively, aren’t anywhere near as large as Intel.
Firmware changes to the X25-M go through weeks upon weeks of validation at Intel; if the validation process is anything like it is for all other Intel components, the process is carried out on hundreds of servers making sure that every possible scenario is tested on the drive. Intel studied the usage pattern of hard drive users for quite a while before the X25-M ever made it to a reviewer’s hands; that’s why we didn’t have the stuttering problems on those drives. That’s why they just worked as intended right out of the box.
That’s also why the Intel drive commands such a high premium.
| Cost Per GB from Newegg.com | |
| Intel X25-M 80GB | $4.29 |
| OCZ Vertex 120GB | $2.91 |
| Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB | $0.12 |
| Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB | $0.77 |
OCZ and Indilinx want to slot their drive in between the JMicron garbage and the Intel drive. Unfortunately, without the resources of an Intel - it’s difficult to deliver the same sort of experience. That’s not to say that the only solid state options come from Intel, it just means that you should probably check to see if there are any compatibility issues before you pull the trigger on the Vertex.
Reading through OCZ’s forums there have been reports of drives not working in some notebooks. While the Vertex worked just fine in my X58 testbed, that’s hardly the most common motherboard out there. So before I left for GDC last week I started compatibility testing on the Vertex. I met with OCZ at their offices to share notes on compatibility testing with these drives. For example, I’ve seen issues with the ASUS P5B Deluxe and the P5K Deluxe and the Vertex drive being detected properly (or taking a long time to detect) but OCZ has not. I want to find out why.
I’ve also heard limited reports of Vertex drives dying after heavy use. The data loss/corruption issues appear to be related to firmware 1199, a revision newer than the 0112 version I tested with for last week’s article. While I recommended that OCZ ship with the firmware I tested for my review, it looks like some drives shipped with 1199. I don’t have exact numbers of how many drives used 1199 vs. 0112, but there are some out there in the market. Sigh.
The problem was quickly identified by customers, OCZ and Indilinx and fixed in a very short period of time with the 1275 revision. If you have a drive with the 1199 firmware it’ll appear as such in the BIOS and your best bet is to contact OCZ directly for the new firmware and instructions on how to upgrade to it.
While it’s great that OCZ has been proactive in releasing firmware updates, every time you update your firmware you do lose all of the data on your drive. If you keep persistent backups then it’s not a big deal; if you don’t, it’s a pain.
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Dennis Travis - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Thanks SO MUCH for your update on the who SSD situation. Things seem to be looking up! Great Job. Keep em coming! :Dzonteck - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
yes i have to agree, this updating on the ssd situation has been invaluable to me too. you hear good things on the forums about the new firmwares and it's so good to see you share how things have changed even since last week.Mastakilla - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Hi!Great article once more!!
Looking at the price / performance ratio of the Intel and Vertex does leave 1 interesting question open:
how does a RAID 0 of Vertex drives compare to a single Intel (in price it is about the same)
Also interesting to invest is the compability between SSDs and RAID controllers (I have read about issues between non-Intel SSDs and the Intel based RAID controllers (like most Arecas))
Keep up the good work!
7Enigma - Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - link
Should destroy the Intel drive in all real-world tests. All it takes is to look at a single Vertex drive with the new firmware to see it is within ~1 second load time, and already significantly faster with copying larger files. Honestly, Intel should be scared to death of this bugger, or else they realize they milked the teat for as long as possible without competition, and can now drop the price inline with OCZ and Supertalent.Hauk - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Some two weeks ago I reports that Super Talent had an Indilinix based drive on the market. Was surprised at the lack of information. Nice to finally see details surfacing. A product with such potential has been poorly marketed to this point in my opinion.Props to OCZ for their work in getting Vertex up to speed. Many have been critical that they rushed the product to market. Yea it sucks that flashing destroys data; but look at mobo manufacturers. We should be used to bug fixes through firmware updates. Intel needed some form of competition.. good for everyone.
I flashed my Vertex 60GB to 1275 without issue. It's a simple process. Would like to see instructions on something other than a forum post however. How about a .pdf to accompany the files..
Eri Hyva - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
How abouthttp://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives...">http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/f...ives/ocz...
?
Two links there:
Vertex Firmware Update and
Firmware Install Guide (pdf-file)
Hauk - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Nice!Nickel020 - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Thanks for the update!One thing I missed in your articles though is alignment and its importance for performance. The drives ship with a partition on it and it's supposed to be aligned, but the partition on my drive seems to be off, as I only got about 195/75 MB/s read/write max on ATTO when it was "new" and like 105/35 MB/s now that it is "used". I have yet to re-install the drive and properly align it, but either I have a defective drive or this is caused by alignment, making proper alignment extremely important. I'm on the 0122 FW btw.
Another thing I missed is RAID1, you do not mention it at all. You can basically get 2 Super Talent 60GB drives for the price of an Intel 80GB and use them in RAID1. This will still have lower random 4KB performance, but the increased performance in many other areas should be dramatically higher than the Intel's.
I have never used RAID1 though, but I would love to hear your opinion on this, as I'm considering getting a second 60GB OCZ.
Nickel020 - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
I meant RAID0 of course, that stuff always gets me confused...Shinshin - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Seems that the speed is limited by the chip as stated in their website 230MB/s read and 170MB/s write.I'm looking forward their next-gen chip which will support sata v3 and will have 500MB/s throughput (!) by the end of 2009.
(btw, they have a great website IMO...)