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 OCZ Vertex 450, 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, Anvil's Storage Utilities and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Silicon Power Slim S55, Samsung SSD 840 EVO, Seagate 600 SSD, SanDisk Extreme II, OCZ Vector, Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme, Samsung SSD 840 Pro, Samsung SSD 840, Kingston Ultra Plus, OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Agility 4, Kingston SSDNow V300 and Kingston HyperX 3K.
The Vertex 450 is the first drive based on the Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 controller platform. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that, unlike SandForce controllers, it performs equally well with both 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.
 Vertex 450 256GB |
 SanDisk Extreme II SSD 240GB |
According to OCZ, the 256GB Vertex 450 is capable of reading at 540 MB/s and writing at 525 MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. While the drive performed well, it came up a bit short of these numbers in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.
 Vertex 450 256GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 SanDisk Extreme II SSD 240GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The Vertex 450 performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 464.2 MB/s and write at 490.8 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the Vertex 450'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 450 had average read and write speeds of 327.3 MB/s and 287.9 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 362.2 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the Vertex 450'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.
 Vertex 450 256GB |
 SanDisk Extreme II SSD 240GB |
When tested with ATTO, the Vertex 450's read speeds topped out at about 552 MB/s and its write speeds at 522 MB/s.
