Model: OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB Solid State Drive
Manufacturer: OCZ Technology
Provided By: OCZ Technology

OCZ Technology is no stranger to the computer industry. Founded by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, the company entered the memory market in 2002. Determined to manufacture the very best memory for overclockers, OCZ quickly established itself as a leader in the industry by breaking speed barriers and maintaining a reputation of quality. Today, OCZ continues to innovate. Along with their line of enthusiast-oriented power supplies, the company offers a wide range of high-performance SSD solutions for the enterprise and consumer markets.

The Vertex 3 has been on the market for more than a year now and, while it is no longer OCZ's flagship SSD, the drive isn't close to retirement yet. In fact, OCZ recently introduced two new SSDs based on the Vertex 3 platform. Along with the 7mm thick Vertex 3 Low Profile, the company now offers a 3.5" version designed specifically for workstation and desktop PCs. Available in capacities ranging from 120GB up to 480GB, the Vertex 3 3.5" is powered by LSI's SandForce SF-2282 processor and features a SATA 6GB/s interface as well as native TRIM support. This desktop-ready SSD also uses 25nm synchronous MLC NAND flash to deliver up to 550MB/s read and 520MB/s write transfer rates and a maximum of 85,000 4KB random write IOPS.

For this review, OCZ sent us the 120GB version of the Vertex 3 3.5". This SSD is capable of delivering up to 550 MB/s sequential read and 500 MB/s sequential write speeds as well as up to 20,000 random read and 60,000 random write IOPS.

   OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB Solid State Drive
General Specifications
Part Number VTX3-35SAT3-120G
Capacity 120GB
Flash Type 25nm Multi-Level Cell (MLC)
Controller SandForce SF-2282
Form Factor 3.5-inch
Interface SATA III 6Gb/s

Performance
Sequential Read 550 MB/s Max
Sequential Write 500 MB/s Max
4K Random Read 20,000 IOPS (75 MB/s)
4K Random Write 60,000 IOPS (235 MB/s)
Maximum 4K Random Write 85,000 IOPS (330 MB/s)
Seek Time .1 ms

Reliability
MTBF 2 million hours

Power Consumption
Active 1.8 Watts
Idle 0.55 Watts

Environmental
Operating Temperature 0 ºC to 70 ºC
Ambient Temperature 0 ºC to 55 ºC
Storage Temperature -45 ºC to 85 ºC
Shock 1500G

Dimensions and Weight
Dimensions 146 x 101.6 x 11 mm
Weight 135g

Other Features
3.5" slim form factor
Supports TRIM, SMART, NCQ, ATA/ATAPI-8
Three year warranty

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the Vertex 3 3.5" has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at OCZ's new SSD and then see how well it performs. Does the Vertex 3 3.5" have what it takes? Can it deliver the performance we've come to expect from OCZ's Vertex series? Keep reading as we find out.



The Vertex 3 3.5" comes in a small, black and gray box. Along with a picture of the drive, the front advertises many of its key features including its 120GB capacity, SATA 6Gbps interface, SandForce controller, MLC flash memory and TRIM support.  The back of the box provides a bit more information regarding the Vertex 3's features and capabilities. Inside, you'll find the SSD, an installation guide and a sticker that says "My SSD Is Faster Than Your HDD."

Physical Features:

The new Vertex 3 3.5" shares the same basic design as the 3.5" versions of OCZ's Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs. The top of the outer casing is made out of smoky, semi-opaque plastic. There is also a large, silver and black sticker showing that the SSD is part of OCZ's Vertex 3 series. The bottom of the casing is made out of aluminum which has a bright, brushed metal finish. The stickers on the bottom show the drive's part number, capacity and serial number.

While only 11mm thick, the OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" has the same footprint as a standard 3.5" hard drive. As you can imagine, it looks quite large when placed next to the original Vertex 3.

I was a bit surprised to see that OCZ had not taken the original Vertex 3 and simply placed it in a 3.5" case. Instead, the company designed an entirely new PCB specifically for this form factor.

The size of the PCB isn't the only difference between the Vertex 3 3.5" and the original Vertex 3. OCZ's new drive also uses LSI's SandForce SF-2282 controller chip instead of the SF-2281 found in the Vertex 3. The only notable difference between the two chips is that the SF-2282 supports 16 byte lanes which allows for higher capacities. 

For the 120GB Vertex 3 3.5", OCZ opted to use Intel's 8GB 25nm 29F64G08ACME2 synchronous NAND flash chips. Looking at the pictures above and below, you can see that there are eight of these chips on either side of the PCB. If you do the math, you'll see that this equals 128GB and not the 120GB of storage the drive advertises. The SandForce controller uses this extra 7% (8GB) to maximize read and write performance and extend the endurance and overall reliability of the drive.


The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.

To test the performance of the Vertex 3 3.5", I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro 4.61 and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Plextor PX-256M3P, SanDisk Extreme, Samsung 830 SSD, Plextor PX-256M3S, Patriot Pyro SE, Plextor PX-256M2P, Kingston HyperX, OCZ Vertex 3 and OCZ Agility 3.

As I mentioned earlier, the Vertex 3 3.5" is based on LSI's SandForce SF-2282 controller. Like other SandForce controllers, the SF-2282 features a technology called DuraWrite, which uses data compression to lower write amplification and extend the life of the drive by reducing the number of program-erase cycles. This data compression also plays a big part in the controller's performance. The more the data can be compressed, the faster an SSD like the Vertex 3 is able to read and write. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that there is a considerable performance difference when writing incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB

Kingston HyperX 120GB

According to OCZ, the 120GB Vertex 3 3.5" is capable of reading at 550MB/s and writing at 500MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. The drive didn't come close to these numbers using CrystalDiskMark's default (random) test data. However, with the highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data, the Vertex 3 was able to read at 492.3 MB/s and write at 481.2 MB/s.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB - All 0x00, 0Fill

Kingston HyperX 120GB - All 0x00, 0Fill

HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:

Next, I used HD Tach to test the Vertex 3's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.

Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the Vertex 3 3.5" had average read and write speeds of  379.0 MB/s and 371.6 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 333.5 MB/s.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the Vertex 3's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB

Kingston HyperX 120GB

When tested with ATTO, the Vertex 3's read speeds topped out at about 556 MB/s and its write speeds at 527 MB/s.


AS SSD:

AS SSD is a relatively new benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive. Take note that AS SSD uses incompressible data in its tests, which can have a major impact on the scores of SandForce-based drives like the Vertex 3 3.5".


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB

Kingston HyperX 120GB

AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB

Kingston HyperX 120GB

HD Tune Pro 4.61:

Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I'm also going to use it to benchmark the Vertex 3's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB - HD Tune Read Benchmark

Kingston HyperX 120GB - HD Tune Read Benchmark


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB - HD Tune Write Benchmark

Kingston HyperX 120GB - HD Tune Write Benchmark

The Vertex 3 3.5" performed very well when benchmarked with HD Tune. The drive had average read and write speeds of 503.0 MB/s and 440.5 MB/s, respectively, and a burst rate of 322.9 MB/s when writing.   


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB - HD Tune Random Access Read

Kingston HyperX 120GB - HD Tune Random Access Read


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" 120GB - HD Tune Random Access Write

Kingston HyperX 120GB - HD Tune Random Access Write

The Vertex 3 3.5" didn't disappoint when doing random reads and writes. When reading 4KB blocks, the drive reached 20,099 IOPS and had an average speed of 78.514 MB/s. The Vertex 3 3.5" was even faster when writing, reaching 21,753 IOPS with an average speed of 84.976 MB/s.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the Vertex 3's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using both repeating and random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

The Vertex 3's performance was very similar to what we saw in our other tests. With highly compressible, repeating data, the drive was able to read at 525.75 MB/s and write at 497.99 MB/s. The Vertex 3 3.5" did not slow nearly as much as the Agility 3 when reading random data. However, its write speeds dropped to 168.69 MB/s. 

The Vertex 3 3.5" performed surprisingly well when doing random reads and writes. With repeating data, the drive was able to read at 75.98 MB/s and write at a blazing 314.85 MB/s. Here too, the Vertex 3 3.5" took a performance hit when tested with random data. However, it was still able to write at 163.64 MB/s.

According to OCZ, the Vertex 3 3.5" can deliver a maximum of 85,000 IOPS when randomly writing 4K blocks. In our tests, the drive reached 80,601 IOPS with repeating data and 41,892 IOPS with random data.


TRIM Performance:

While SSDs offer many benefits, there are some downsides to using flash memory. One of the biggest issues people run into is performance degradation. Over time, an SSD will run out of fresh blocks and will have to write over data the file system has marked as deleted. This procedure is very complicated and can slow an SSD's write speeds considerably.

To address this problem, most manufacturers have added TRIM support to their SSDs. The TRIM command allows an operating system, such as Windows 7, to tell an SSD which data blocks are no longer in use. Using this information, the drive pro-actively erases these blocks and adds them to the free block pool.

To test the Vertex 3's TRIM function, I first put the drive in a "dirty" state. I used Iometer to fill the entire drive and then ran a random write test for 20 minutes. Looking at the screenshot below, you can see that the Vertex 3's average read and write speeds dropped to 168.7 MB/s and 189.7 MB/s, respectively.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" - Dirty

To see how well the Vertex 3 3.5" could recover, I let the computer sit for a few hours and then reran the test. The drive's average read speed jumped back up to 295.0 MB/s. However, its write speed lagged a bit behind, averaging out at 225.6 MB/s.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" - After Trim

Lastly, I used OCZ's Toolbox utility to perform a secure erase on the Vertex 3 3.5". With the drive wiped clean, its average write speed jumped back up to 372.0 MB/s.


OCZ Vertex 3 3.5" - Wiped

Final Thoughts:

OCZ's new Vertex 3 3.5" solid state drive is great choice for the consumer looking to put a high-performance SSD in their workstation or desktop PC. With its desktop-ready form factor, the drive fits in existing 3.5" drive bays without the need for an adapter. The Vertex 3 3.5" also combines LSI's SandForce SF-2282 controller with Intel's 25nm synchronous NAND flash to deliver some impressive performance. In our sequential read and write tests, the drive was able to read at speeds as high as 556 MB/s and write at speeds in excess of 480 MB/s. It also took the top spot in our random write tests, delivering more than 80,000 IOPS. As with other SandForce drives, the Vertex 3's performance did take a hit when reading and writing incompressible data. However, thanks to its synchronous NAND flash, its performance didn't suffer nearly as much as some other drives.

The Vertex 3 3.5" will be shipping soon in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities. No word yet on how much the 240GB and 480GB versions will run. However, the 120GB drive reviewed here has a suggested retail price of $159.99. This is higher than what the original Vertex 3 currently goes for, but I'd expect the street price of the Vertex 3 3.5" to come down over time.

Highs:

  • Desktop-ready 3.5" form factor
  • Available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities
  • SandForce SF-2282 processor with DuraClass, DuraWrite and RAISE technologies
  • Excellent sequential read and write speeds
  • SATA 6Gb/s interface
  • Synchronous NAND flash
  • Supports TRIM, SMART and NCQ
  • 3 year warranty

Lows:

  • Not as fast when writing incompressible data
  • More expensive than 2.5" version