OCZ Vertex 4 SSD review with 1.5 firmware

Product showcase

The following images were taken at high-resolution and then cropped and scaled down. The camera used was a Canon 450D 12 MegaPixel.

We start of with packing. As stated we'll include both the 256GB as well as the 512GB models in the product photography today. For the firmware tests we use thee 256GB model only though. SSDs my man -- low power consumption at 1~2 Watts and virtually no heat. It would be wise though to have a laptop, workstation or desktop with SATA3 (6 Gbps) port though!

And there it is, this is the 2.5" SATA III version. You should easily be able to place it somewhere in your chassis. Small and light-weight. This drive chunks out peak read and write performance in dazzling numbers compared to the traditional HDD. You'll receive a small manual, a 3.5" installation bracket some screws and a wicked SSD!

Again, please do understand that you do need to connect the product to a proper SATA3 (6Gbps) controller, the best ones can be found on the Intel series 6 and 7 chipset based products (H67/P67/Z68/X79/Z77). Some other motherboards will use an additional controller from JMicron or Marvell, these will all result in lower overall performance. We've seen performance drop with 25% on Marvell based controllers.

If you connect it towards a SATA2 host controller then your bandwidth is limited and you will hit a read/write performance wall at 280MB per second

When we look at the connectors, we spot the standard power and Serial ATA connectors. This drive is SATA3 compatible, which typically requires a specific SATA3 cable by the way. A proper SATA 6G cable is recommended and should be delivered with your motherboard. We did try, and we never ever had issues with a standard SATA2 cable either.