OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD Review - Conclusion

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Provided by: OCZ
No compensation was received for review of this product.

Price Point

Price: $209.99 USD @ NewEgg.com

Class: Performance

The OCZ Vertex 4 256GB is priced in the Performance Class of SSD Drives

Reviewer's Opinion

The notion that storage is limited for most users is not a comfortable thought.  During the reign of second and third generation SSDs, most mainstream users were forced by budgetary reasons toward drives under 128GB capacity.  SandForce based drives paired with asynchronous NAND flash components presented a valid compromise as well, even though there is noticeable disparity when handling incompressible files. Although the synchronous NAND flash SSD prices are still higher than asynchronous NAND flash drives, the gap between them has closed dramatically. NAND prices, by their very nature, are always volatile so day to day prices swing wildly at times, although the current trend looks positively towards reasonable pricing.

With a five year warranty, the OCZ Vertex 4 is the highest warranty OCZ has ever given their product and shows a confidence that is unprecedented and is designed to rival Solid State Drives from Samsung, Crucial and Intel, which have been popular for those looking for non-Sandforce based SSD that can handle incompressible data with ease. This long warranty period should also assuage the concern of those who were left with a bad taste in their mouth after the BSOD issues that reared when the previous generation SandForce SSD was initially introduced. 

In terms of performance, the OCZ Vertex 4 lives up to the award-winning lineage with impressive IOPS and real world performance.  Our test suite doesn’t show it completely but the performance at lower queue depths is also quite remarkable. In case you have purchased a Vertex 4 SSD with a firmware older than 1.5, I suggest upgrading, as the performance numbers show a noticeable bump compared to the older batches.  Even more impressive is that, at the time of writing this review, the 256GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD can be purchased on NewEgg.com for only $209.99.  NewEgg list prices at the time of writing:

 

  • OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-240G = $229
  • Intel 520 Series Cherryville 2.5" 240GB = $269
  • SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256D/AM 2.5" 256GB = $249
  • OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-256G 2.5" 256GB = $209

 

This means the new Vertex 4 SSD is the best cost-effective price-per-GB drive currently available.  Even with the price drops all around, the Vertex 4 is the most affordable top of the line SSD compared to its contemporaries and even compared to the previous generation Vertex 3 240GB. Users do not really have to compromise anymore; top of the line storage performance is now within mainstream range.

Likes

  • 5 year Warranty
  • Everest 2 Platform
  • NDurance 2.0
  • TRIM
  • High IOPS performance
  • Ultra-low Latency
  • Price
  • 3.5" to 2.5" adapter included

 

Dislikes

  • None

 

 

HTL Editor's Choice Award

 

 

 

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