Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

The sheer number of SATA3 based SSDs available on the market is nearly insane, almost all of them performing in roughly the same ranges. The market is sincerely locked up and saturated. It's not that SSD couldn't go any faster, it's that everything connected towards SATA3 is hitting the SATA3 bandwidth limitation (at give or take 550 MB/sec), massive wall holding back potential performance. In order for companies to keep selling these puppies, they need to diversity on several segments. You can differentiate based on price (MLC versus TLC), you can differentiate on endurance (lots of TB written), you can differentiate on volume sizes (stacked NAND FTW!) and obviously there's a level of service in after sales you can differentiate in. Basically the Toshiba OCZ VX500 SSD ticks all these boxed as you get great endurance, nice options in volume sizes, a lovely warranty program and you get MLC NAND (lot's of people still have their stomach turned around when they see TLC). Performance wise at this price level and being SATA3 bound we are not complaining whatsoever. 
  

Mind you that the priced above are manufacturer suggested retail prices, typically you can shave off another 10% in e-tail. For the US the 128 GB model is priced at $63.99, the 256 GB model at $92.79, the 512 GB model at $152.52, and the 1 TB version you can purchase for $337.06.  The Toshiba OCZ VX500 SSD (VX = Vertex;) works well as read performance wise this product can easily attack the competition and remains over the 550 MB/sec marker. And if you use your PC or laptop in a normal fashion like for the internet and gaming, these SSDs will still be plenty fast. Write performance varies a bit based on volume size, but overall you are in that 500 MB/sec marker. IOPS performance screams out loud and proud at that 90K on 4K random aligned reads, writes are a little lower but still close to perfect on a SATA3 SSD. Our trace testing shows impressive results as well. This is a trace test and can emulate what you guys do on your PC with spicy workloads focused on reads mostly. 

Lifespan

Toshiba is using MLC NAND here, preferred by the majority of end-users that actually understands what the difference is. Interesting to see is that Toshiba offers sincerely nice TB written rates. A 256 GB model could do 80'ish GB writes per day for five years, 160GB per day for that 512GB model and 320 GB/day for the 1TB version. Have EVER written such numbers ever in one day, let alone 5 years continuously ? Toshiba offers an extensive warranty for 5 years. Previously know as the ShieldPlus warranty is now called the 'Advanced Warranty program'. It might sound like a large chunk of marketing, truthfully it's probably the best warranty program your money can get you as Toshiba will pick up and deliver a new SSD at your doorsteps at their cost in the event of an failure. What other company does that ?:

• Serial Number Look Up - support can look up warranty coverage based on serial number
• Current product owners will receive a new (not refurbished) drive

• A pre-paid return label is provided for supported SSDs

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• Replacement is shipped before the defective SSD is received
• Replacement is shipped next business day

Overall SSD Usage

An SSD is enjoyable, very much so. If you put a drive like this into your SATA 3 compatible laptop or SATA 3 compatible PC, you'll have no idea what is about to hit you. We very much enjoy the grand sustained performance of this SSD series. Make no mistake, replacing an HDD with an SSD in your desktop PC or laptop eliminates the random access lag of the HDD head, it is no longer mechanical. That, combined with the performance SATA 3 offers these days, is simply a massive difference and probably the best upgrade you can make for your computer anno 2016.

SATA controllers

Some overall recommendations then. Should you be in the market for a SATA 3 SSD then we have a couple of hints though. First and foremost if you have a SATA 2 controller only on your motherboard, then you'll get limited at roughly 270 MB/sec read and writes. SATA 3 (6Gbps) will free you up from that allowing the SSD to perform in the 500 MB/sec range. It is however important that you connect your SSD to the proper controller. We absolutely prefer the performance of the Intel Series 6 and 7 (H67/P67/Z68/Z77/H77/Z87/X79/H97/Z97/X99/H170/Z170) integrated SATA 6G controller over anything else available in the market. If you run the SSD from a 3rd party controller like say a Marvell 6G controller, you will see lower performance. The new AMD 85X and 900 chipsets also offer fantastic performance. The more recent Asmedia controllers we spotted lately on motherboards also offer good performance, albeit still 20% ~ 25% slower than Intel's controllers. Also make sure you run your drive in AHCI mode, it does make such a difference in performance, a big difference.
 

Concluding

I know the SSD conclusions on SATA3 models can get a bit repetitive, but the proof is in the pudding. The VX500 is a perfect mainstream product series as it ticks the right boxes. You get great endurance, nice options in volume sizes, a lovely warranty program and you get MLC NAND. Both read and write performance on the VX500 series is sincerely good at this price-level. Hence the price perf ratio is equally good. For our tested model we are allowed to write 160GB per day writes for 5 years (which ever one comes first) before that warranty expires. Now that doesn't mean that once you have written that number the SSD is dead .. no Sir, it's just that it falls outside warranty. I very well could be that the VX500 can write many many many TBs more.  The warranty plan itself is fantastic, though you do need to reside in the US or EU for it. Power consumption is now a bot more in line as well, if you were planning to use one in a laptop at close to 3.5 Watts under load. If your workload is an enthusiast class gaming or internet PC then we have to admit, this is looking to be a great deal compared to say the 850 EVO, perhaps not the Crucial MX300 but that one has TLC. The after-sales is top notch, nice warranty, good performance and yeah, the price ain't bad either. Proper reliable performance is what the VX500 series will offer. The 512MB model is the cheapest (per GB) of this range at 145 EURO. For an MLC based SSD I would even say that it is pretty darn good value.

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