1. About the OCZ Vector 180 series
We have in our labs the OCZ's latest flagship client drive, known as the Vector 180. The drive basic feature is a power loss protection technology called 'Power Failure Management Plus', or PFM+. Although it is not the same feature met in the company's enterprise SSDs, PFM+ is limited to offering protection for data that has already been written to the NAND. This means that all user data that still sits in the DRAM buffer waiting to be written will be lost in the event of a sudden power loss.
Aside from PFM+, the other new thing OCZ is bringing to the market with the Vector 180 is a 960GB model. The higher capacity is enabled by the use of Toshiba's 128Gbit NAND, whereas in the past OCZ has only used a 64Gbit die in its products.
The Vector 180 is using the faster version of the Barefoot 3 controller, the M00 bin, which runs at 397MHz. And of course, the drive uses
Toshiba's latest A19nm MLC.
Here are the specs:
| PERFORMANCE |
120GB |
240GB |
480GB |
960GB |
| Sequential Read Speed |
550 MB/s |
550 MB/s |
550 MB/s |
550 MB/s |
| Sequential Write Speed |
450 MB/s |
530 MB/s |
530 MB/s |
530 MB/s |
Random Read Speed
(4KB, QD32) |
85,000 IOPS |
95,000 IOPS |
100,000 IOPS |
100,000 IOPS |
Random Write Speed
(4KB, QD32) |
90,000 IOPS |
90,000 IOPS |
95,000 IOPS |
95,000 IOPS |
Steady State Random Write
(4KB QD32) |
12,000 IOPS |
20,000 IOPS |
23,000 IOPS |
20,000 IOPS |
| PHYSICAL |
| Usable Capacities (IDEMA) |
120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB |
| NAND Components |
Toshiba A9nm Multi-Level Cell (MLC) |
| NAND Controller |
OCZ Barefoot 3 M00 |
| Interface |
Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/s (SATA III) |
| Form Factor |
2.5 inch, 7mm height (fits ultra-thin notebooks) |
| Dimension (L x W x H) |
99.7 x 69.75 x 7mm |
| Drive Weight |
115g |
| ENVIRONMENTAL |
| Power Consumption |
Idle: 0.85W, Active: 3.7W |
| Operating Temperature |
0°C ~ 70°C |
| Storage Temperature |
-45°C ~ 85°C |
| Shock Resistance |
1000G/0.5ms |
| Vibration (Operational) |
2.17Grms (7-800Hz) |
| Vibration (Non-operational) |
3.13Grms (5-800Hz) |
| Altitude (Operational) |
-,1000 ft. to 10,000 ft. |
| Altitude (Non-operational) |
-,1000 ft. to 40,000 ft. |
| Certifications |
UL C/US, FCC, CE, C-Tick, KCC, BSMI, VCCI, WEEE |
| RELIABILITY / SECURITY |
| MTBF |
2.3 million hours |
| Data Path Protection |
BCH ECC corrects up to 44 random bits/KB |
| Encryption |
256-bit AES-compliant |
| Product Health Monitoring |
Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) Support |
| Endurance |
Rated for 50GB/day of host writes for 5 years under typical client workloads |
| Additional Reliability Protection |
Power Failure Management Plus (PFM+) helps prevent ‘brick drive syndrome’ that can occur during sudden power losses |
| COMPATIBILITY |
| Serial ATA (SATA) |
Fully compliant with Serial ATA International
Organization: Serial ATA Revision 3.2. Fully compliant with ATA/ATAPI-8
Standard Native Command Queuing (NCQ) |
| Operating System |
Windows / Linux / Mac OSX |
| Power Requirements |
Standard SATA Power Connector |
| Targeted Applications |
Client workstations and laptops |
| ADDITIONAL FEATURES |
| Performance Optimization |
TRIM (requires OS support), Idle Time Garbage Collection |
| Service & Support |
5-Year ShieldPlus Warranty, Toll-Free Tech Support, 24 Hour Forum Support, Firmware Updates |
| Included Software |
Acronis True Image HD cloning software registration key (current version compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8) |
| Included Accessories |
A 3.5” SSD desktop adapter bracket |
|
PART NUMBER |
UPC |
| 120GB |
VTR180-25SAT3-20G |
842024037200 |
| 240GB |
VTR180-25SAT3-240G |
842024036548 |
| 480GB |
VTR180-25SAT3-480G |
842024036555 |
| 960GB |
VTR180-25SAT3-960G |
842024036562 |
2. Package, software
The packaging design has a black theme accented by blue and white. The front pictures the Vector 180 and at the bottom right the capacity is listed. On the backside there is a list of its main feature specs and performance numbers.
The retail package includes a 3.5" desktop adapter and a license for Acronis True Image HD 2013 cloning software. Like some of OCZ's recent SSDs, the Vector 180 includes a 5-year ShieldPlus Warranty.
The front graphic on the SSD is following the same clean layout as their other SSDs. On the backside, the capacity, firmware revision, and max power draw rating is shown on the sticker along with the serial number.
The drive came with firmware Ver. 1.01 installed. The readout on CrystalDiskInfo shows that NCQ, S.M.A.R.T, TRIM are all enabled (no DevSleep):
Below you see some screenshots from the fully redesigned toolbox called the SSD Guru. It provides support for firmware updates, drive monitoring, and other functions you can play around.
The overall design of the SSD Guru is much more user friendly and its first screen includes all the essential information about the drive.
The SSD Guru is available as both Windows and Linux installers as well as a separate bootable tool for Mac users. All Barefoot 3 based drives are supported along with the RevoDrive 350.
The SSD Tuner allows the user to issue a TRIM command to the drive to erase unused blocks to improve performance and it also includes a tool for increasing the over-provisioning for further performance gains.
The OS Tuner includes a few basic OS features that can be disabled for higher performance and/or capacity. By default the SSD Guru does nothing, but there are three preset options (reliability, performance and capacity) that you can choose from to optimize the OS.
The maintenance tab has the common firmware update and secure erase functions. The SSD Guru will also show a notification on the desktop if there's a newer firmware available. The SSD Guru also supports logging, which can be a useful feature if you ever have issues with the drive and need to contact OCZ's support.
Another feature of the SSD Guru is its SMART data monitor. OCZ has included three key icons that help the user to understand the purpose of each SMART value.
3. HDTachRW, ATTO Disk Benchmark
Here is our testbed:
- Shuttle SH81R4
Processor: Intel i7 4790Graphics card: Club3D Radeon HD 6790 CoolStream EditionMemory: 2x8GB RAM DDR3-1600 CrucialSSD: 512GB Crucial MX100Monitor: LG L246WH-BH 24"
- Windows 7 x64 SP1 with latest updates installed
We start the tests with the HDTachRW software.
The software measures the sequential read speed, the random access speed and sequential write speed. Remember that the HDTachRW feeds the tested drive a continuous string of small sequential requests. It doesn't equate to real-world maximum throughput, but it does mean something for analysis.
The drive's reading speed was consistent throughout its capacity and the average read speed was at 301MB/s, which is not the highest we have seen from an SSD in this particular benchmark. The average write speed was 351 MB/s.
The next software we used was the ATTO Disk Benchmark. The tool measures storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. The benchmark performs file transfers ranging from 0.5 KB to 8192 KB. ATTO can be adjusted to do overlapped I/O, in a variety of queue depths. We tested the SSD using the benchmark's default settings, using 256KB file length performance and QD4. ATTO probably gives the most accurate results for compressible read and write data.
ATTO reveals sequential read and write speeds that are in line with drive's specs. Reads reach 550MB/s and writes reach 522MB/s. With small 0.5KB, 1KB, and 2KB file sizes, the read performance does not seem to scale with the write, but once it reaches 4KB performance increases significantly from 35MB/s to 214MB/s.
We selected to show you the performance of the drive with 4K and 2MB files. The OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD is not among the top performers with such small files, as you see below:
The drive was fast with larger 2MB files and was positioned among the rather crowded first places in the read and write charts you see below.
4. CrystalDiskMark
The next benchmark is the CrystalDiskMark. The software provides throughput data based on sequential reads and writes, and random (512K/4K/4KQD32) reads and writes of various sizes. Below you see the drive's performance with incompressible (0Fill) data:
Sequential speeds reach up to around 485MB/s read and write. 4K read and write reach about 31MB/s read and an impressive 148MB/s write. OCZ calculated their IOPS rating via this benchmark’s 4K QD 32 test . In order to convert MB/s to IOPS you use this equation: (MBps Throughput / KB per IO) * 1024 Thus, the 480GB model reached (281.9MBps/4KB)*1024 = 72,166 IOPS read and 72,473 IOPS write. The figures are somehow lower than those quoted by OCZ.
Random writing of small 4K files was very fast (148 MB/s) and random writing of 512MB files was also high (470 MB/s). In the reading part with small 4K and 4kQD32, there is still some room for improvement.
5. AS SSD benchmark
We move on with the AS SSD benchmark, which contains five synthetic as well as three practical tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and the random read / write performance of an SSD. These tests are carried out without using the operating system's cache. The Seq-test measures how long it takes to read and write an 1GB file. Most importantly, this sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers.
During AS SSD the drive reached a score of 1108. Sequential speeds hit 501MB/s for reads and 476MB/s write while 4K speeds reach 23MB/s for read and 117MB/s for write. Access times are for read and write are both 0.057ms and 0.046ms, respectively.
The AS SSD Copy Bench presents us with transfer speeds for different file types. It reached a high of 404MB/s for the ISO test. For its lowest value, it reached 281MB/s on the program test.
In the following graph you see how the OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD reads and writes files, which have been partially of fully compressed. It is obvious that the both reading and writing speeds do not depend on level of file compression:
6. IOMeter
This is the IOMeter benchmark. Iometer is run by using workstation and database patterns for queue depths (outstanding I/Os) representing very light and moderate loads. Iometer is both a workload generator (that is, it performs I/O operations in order to stress the system) and a measurement tool (that is, it examines and records the performance of its I/O operations and their impact on the system). The app's ability to bombard drives with an escalating number of concurrent IO requests also does a nice job of simulating the sort of demanding multi-user environments that are common in enterprise applications. The software can be used for measurement of the performance of an SSD. We started using the IOMeter tests using the Xtreme Benchmark template .
For the specific test, we used 100% random, 67%-33% Read/write distribution, aligned with the benchmarks we had already done in the past with other SSDs.
The OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD gave 14855.87 IOPs in the total I/O chart:
7. Anvil Pro
The next benchmark is the Anvil Pro, an ‘all inclusive’ storage utility. The software is tests transfer speeds as well as IOPS The IOPS tests can be configurable with preset testing scenarios for read (Seq 4MB, 4K, 4K QD4, 4K QD16, 32K and 128K), write (Seq 4MB, 4K, 4K QD4, 4K QD16) and mixed IO.
We used the software with the OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD and tested the drive with 0-fill compression (RAW), 8% compression, 25% compression, 45% compression, 67% compression and finally 100 % (incompressible data). Below are the results with 0-fill compression as well as with fully incompressible files.
Overall, the 480GB model achieved a total score of 4601. The max sequential read reaches 491MB/s and sequential write comes in at 465MB/s. 4K speeds prove similar to the other benchmarks, 26MB/s for read and 139MB/s for write.
8. PCMark 7, PCMark 8
Below you see the results of Futuremark's PCMark 7 Professional edition. The software includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads.
Below you can see the breakdown of individual benchmarks with the testing methodology. The OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD scored 5568 points, pretty close to the top performers in the chart below
We continue with the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark, which uses traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices.
The OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD scored 4971 points, close enough to the Samsung 850 Pro SSD.
9. Final words
The OCZ Vector 180 480GB is not at the top of the performance league, although it scored adequately in all the tests. Sequential read and write speeds were a bit lower than those quoted by OCZ, and 2MB sequential and random benchmarks could be also higher. The drive's performance was very fast in 4K random write tests although still lacking in the read column.
Still, it's high queue depth workloads which are arguably more important for this class of SSD, and the Vector 180 holds its own well.
In addition, the OCZ Vector 180 returned some good scores in the tests of PCMark08 and PCMark 7 benchmarks. The OCZ Vector 180 also boasts great performance during in mixed workloads, placing at the top of the leaderboard among the tested consumer SSDs.
All those do not mean that the drive is slow - its IOPS figures are pretty good. It's just doesn't’t quite match the performance of some other drives, such as the Samsung 850 Pro, which remains the leader when it comes to SATA 6Gbps performance.
Besides performance, OCZ has added some features to the mix that could be interesting to you and make the difference. OCZ’s SSD Guru is a pretty good maintenance software, with some useful extras like a manual TRIM command and built-in secure erase.
In addition,OCZ has added new reliability features to the drive, which is headlined by its Power Failure Management Plus (PFM+) and ShieldPlus plan. The PFM functionality protects the SSD in the event sudden power loss and other instabilities by taking action to preserve inactive user data after detecting power anomalies; however, this feature does not cover in-flight data. The Vector 180 also features the one of the best warranty plans on the market - OCZ’s extensive ShieldPlus warranty plan. The service which helps to eliminate all of the hassle and pain that usually comes with support and warranty claims. It accomplishes this by simplifying the return process and removing any cost to the consumer.
The OCZ Technology Vector 180 480GB SSD retails online for $210.