OCZ Vector Extreme Performance SSD Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,384 words · ~6 min read
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welcome to my unboxing and first look at the ocz vector which has one of the
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cleanest shrink wraps I've ever seen it's really hard to get a handle on this
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I mean I maybe this is part of their whole like restructuring they've gone
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through I don't know if you guys have been paying attention to the uh to the stock news and all that kind of stuff
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but ocz um went through a huge
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restructuring CEO was gone replaced by uh replaced by another guy and uh they
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laid off a significant portion of their Workforce with the idea being that
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they're going to get leaner and meaner and more focused on you know behaving
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like the very large company that they have now become so the vector is the
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longest development cycle that we've ever seen from an ocz SSD it took longer
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than 18 months to bring to Market which means that they were I mean think about
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that for a second that means back when you know vertex 3 was Riding High they
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were already working on this in addition to having Vertex 4 in the pipeline and
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this is the true next generation replacement to anything that we've seen
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over the last little while from ocz this has just taken a very long time to bring
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to market for context previous ocz
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products have taken less than 12 months to actually bring them to the market so
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they're much more focused on validation and compatibility and delivering a more
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consistent user experience so what that
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means is this drive should be Far and Away the
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finest thing we've ever seen out of ocz which is very very exciting I mean
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remember something guys ocz has taken a lot of flak over the years for issues
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with indel linkx controller drives issues with San Force controller drives
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because their whole thing is they were always first to Market with it so all
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these ocz drives were out there and even though every other manufacturer had the
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same issues ocz took a lot of the flat cuz they had more drives out there so
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there were more people complaining about them whereas now they've they've decided
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we're going to take a completely different approach we're not going to release this thing till it's completely
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ready I haven't heard any complaints about the vector yet and in terms of
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performance it is right up there with Samsung's new 840 Pro I mean think about
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that I mean back when ocz was saying okay yeah we're going to be an SSD
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company we're kind of looking at it going okay well Intel was just
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dominating back then with the x25 series and you're kind of going oh yeah okay
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let's see if these guys can go up against the Juggernaut like Intel now Intel's kind of faded away now we're
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kind of we were kind of saying oh you know Samsung launched the 840 the 840
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Pro how are they going to go up against a juggernaut like that well they figured out a way so the vector is very
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competitive with the 840 Pro Series it uses 25 nanometer NLC flash so it's not
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using TLC flash like the 840 which causes it to have not very good right
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speeds compared to a flagship product that is using mlc flash remember TLC
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means three bits per cell as opposed to two bits per cell which is what we're
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seeing in the higher end drives um right right the most exciting thing about this
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it comes with a 2 and2 inch to three and a half inch no that's not the most
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exciting thing about it this is also the first ocz SSD you see this indel linkx
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infused thing here so if you guys remember the original IND linkx Barefoot
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controller back in the vertex and everyone else had access to that too uh
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so that was the first generation indel linkx controller then Barefoot 2 never
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really seemed to come to life unless that's what they ended up branding the one in the octane and the Vex 4 so then
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there finally there was another Eng link controller that was actually not ocz
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design silicon that was a Marvel controller That Was Then repurposed with
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a with an ocz firmware this is designed inhouse by the plx team the indel links
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team and another sort of segment of the team based out of ocz's California
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headquarters so it is designed from the ground up it uses an ARM cortex core and
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an Aragon co-processor whatever that guy does ocz is not sort of giving out all
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of the details about how exactly that works but it is completely actually
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designed by them both hardware and firmware and then they're just finding a
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Fab to manufacture the chips for them I mean same thing goes for the flash
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itself it's Intel flash so ocz doesn't actually manufacture The Flash but
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they're packaging it themselves so once you actually open up the drive
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everything's ocz in there comes with all the mounting options you'll need for
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your notebook so there's your side mounts there's your bottom mounts idle
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power consumption is a little little bit higher than something like a Samsung 840
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Pro but at load they're very very close which means that it's totally suitable
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for Notebook use however I think most people still these days are buying these
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high performance ssds for desktop use uh it's warrantied for up to five years up
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to five years well yeah up to 5 years or I think it's something some number of
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ter I can't remember exactly how many terabytes but they're warrany it for 20
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gigs per day for 5 years so think about that for a minute I mean just for fun
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try to figure out how many gigs you write to your boot Drive every day I can
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pretty much guarantee you it's a lot less than 20 G gabes and then you know
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you go away for a week on vacation maybe you don't use your computer every single
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day now you've banked up some more I realistically if you don't get more than
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5 years out of this drive then I'll be very very surprised in terms of
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performance it's right up there with drives like the 840 Pro hangs with
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pretty much well I mean the 840 Pro has been in a league of its own for a little while so it hangs with that which means
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it is a perfect choice for an Enthusiast grade top tier SSD it also provides very
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consistent performance whether it's U the fact that it has trim which I mean
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any sort of modern SSD has uh or whether
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it's you know how um how cluttered up
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the drive is or whatever else is going on with it it responds very very
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consistently which to me is what SSD is all about because you can take a hard
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drive and you can go okay yeah I'm going to write a sequential file or read a sequential file oh yeah it's almost as
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fast as an SSD her her it's not about that it's about when things get rough
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when things get fragmented on the actual drive itself how well does it react when
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it has to rely mostly on its random performance and the vector performs very
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very well so thank you for checking out this unboxing and first look for those
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of you who need a summary the most important things to take away are true
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Flagship performance Drive the first truly
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ocz designed right down to the very heart and soul of the drive that we've
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seen yet and 5year warranty so it's
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right up there with everything else like the Intel 520 series don't forget to
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