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OCZ Vertex 4 256GB Review

Posted 09/28/2012 at 3:41am | by Nathan Edwards

OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

OCZ has typically reserved its Vertex label for the highest-performing SSDs in a given generation—using synchronous NAND, for example, rather than the asynchronous NAND found in its less expensive Agility series. The 256GB Vertex 4 carries on that tradition, with 16 128Gb IMFT 25nm synchronous NAND packages on a board with 512MB of DDR3 DRAM cache and OCZ’s new Indilinx Everest 2 controller.

The Everest 2 controller in the Vertex 4 is a modified Marvell controller with custom Indilinx firmware.

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SanDisk Extreme SSD 240GB Review

Posted 09/28/2012 at 3:29am | by Nathan Edwards

SanDisk Extreme SSD 240GB

SSD vendors that make one or more components of their drives tend to do better than those who just slap commodity parts on a board and call it a day. Sounds reasonable, right? SanDisk’s Extreme SSD is yet another drive based on the LSI SandForce SF-2281 controller, a 6Gb/s SATA SSD controller with speedy sequential reads and an emphasis on hyper-fast queued random writes.

However, because it is a NAND manufacturer, SanDisk has the means to use its own 24nm toggle-mode NAND—eight 256Gb packages in the 240GB version—instead of commodity NAND. Like other SF-2281-powered drives, the Extreme SSD uses the extra 16GB of NAND for overprovisioning and write caching.

SanDisk’s Extreme is a plain black metal box with a sticker on it and speed inside.

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