I just ordered OCZ Vertex...

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wojtek
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Location: London, UK

I just ordered OCZ Vertex...

Post by wojtek » Sun Mar 08, 2009 6:40 am

Hi,

I don't know how but one of the UK on-line retailers stocked 2 OCZ Vertex 30GB. Just ordered one - should get it on Tuesday, so I will post immediately some benchmarks/real life results ;)

fyleow
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Location: California, USA

Post by fyleow » Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:37 pm

Are you planning on raiding them together?

lowpowercomputing
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Location: Germany

Post by lowpowercomputing » Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:33 pm

He bought one if I'm not mistaken.

wojtek
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Location: London, UK

Post by wojtek » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:23 pm

Sorry, I couldn't afford to buy 2. But I'm preparing good set of tests for single drive using 2 different PC's:

1. With Asus P5Q Pro (check my sig for details)
2. With Abit A-N78HD and AMD LE-1250

I wish I have some mobo with AMD chipset in HTPC, than all bases would be covered... Maybe next week...

wojtek
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Location: London, UK

OCZ Vertex 30GB benchmarks - HD Tune Pro, HD Tach, ATTO

Post by wojtek » Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:32 am

Hi,

I just received my OCZ Vertex 30GB from Aria.co.uk
It arrived with NTFS partition on it what I see a bit strange - probably it was review sample.
Firmware is 00.P

Anyway, first impressions.

Specification from the box:
Size: 99,88mm x 69,63mm x 9,3mm
Operating Temp: 0-70C
Max Performance*: Read: Up to 230MB/s, Write: Up to 135MB/s
Sustained Write: Up to 80MB/s
Shock Resistance: 1500G, 0,5ms
Vibration: 20G Peek, 10-20KHz with 3 axis
MTBF: 1,500,000 hrs
* - Based on ATTO

Below first test setup and results of the first benchmarks.

Intel E8400 @ 3.6GHz with Ninja
Asus P5Q Pro
6GB Corsair DHX 800MHz@1066MHz C5
Asus EN8600GT
1xSamsung F1 320GB (OS)
Winxp SP3

HD Tune Pro 3.50
64kb block size

Image

Image

HD Tach 3.0.4
Quick bench

Image

Long bench

Image

ATTO

Image

Later, I will run same benchmarks on the same PC and the second PC with Vertex as a OS drive (windows and Linux Ubuntu 8.10) installed on it.

fyleow
Posts: 175
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Location: California, USA

Post by fyleow » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:53 am

I wonder why ATTO shows ~150MB/s reads while HDTach shows 220.

Supposedly performance drops a bit after the OS is installed so I'm looking forward to those benchmarks.

wojtek
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:11 am
Location: London, UK

Post by wojtek » Tue Mar 10, 2009 2:15 pm

Hi,

Now some results with OS installed. I installed Windows XP SP3 and using it since about 3-4 hours. Installation of the OS and software was smooth and a bit faster than with Samsung F1 320GB. I didn't notice any stuttering. Windows was switching off VERY slow until I disabled swap file. Booting is a bit faster. Apps starting almost immediately - and I mean immediately. Even Photoshop CS needs just 2-3 seconds to show the face.
No issues when multi-tasking.

Now some benches, but first test setup:

Intel E8400 @ 3.6GHz with Ninja
Asus P5Q Pro
6GB Corsair DHX 800MHz@1066MHz C5
Asus EN8600GT
1 x OCZ Vertex - AHCI Mode (OS)
WinXP SP3

HD Tune Pro 3.50
64kb block size

Image

Image

HD Tach 3.0.4

Quick bench

Image

Long Bench

Image

ATTO

Image

We can see some drop in the performance with OS installed on it, but in my opinion most important is that I didn't notice any stuttering/freezing during install and multi-tasking. Overall, my system works better and faster than with previous config. Is it worth £120? It depends from ones priorities.

I should add some disclaimer: My version of windows xp is tweaked a bit and even with old HDD's was working much faster (installing in about 12min) than 'normal' XP so maybe this is why difference isn't bigger for me.

fyleow: I don't know. Maybe because this programs working in the different way? HDTach always showing higher results for the empty SSD.

flopper
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Post by flopper » Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:13 am

did u align the drive with diskpar to use 64 sectoring instead of xp 63?

windows xp seems to dont align the drives properly for ssd.
If it was a review example it might been aligned correctly from the start tho.

wojtek
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:11 am
Location: London, UK

Post by wojtek » Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:40 am

No, I didn't align - I intended to test first as it is. I will optimize (everything what I can find on the OCZ forum) and test today or tomorrow. But, honestly, I found benchmarks very unreliable - ATTO behaving strange at least.
- when I test from different OS and program file is on the different disk (my Samsung F1 320GB) than result is very low.
- when I test from different OS but program file is on the OCZ Vertex than result is better.
- highest result I'm getting when testings is under OS installed on the Vertex and program file is there too.
The difference between lowest and highest is more than 20%!

AS you see - benchmarks simply s***s! Most important is real life performance and this is great up to now. Actually, is so good that I decided to sell my F1 and buy more Vertex ;)

Aris
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Post by Aris » Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:12 am

finally intel has some real competition.

fyi: they are also now for sale at newegg.

soujir0u
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Post by soujir0u » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:53 pm

I'm getting one as a system drive too. Now I'm just figuring out how I can mount a 2.5'' drive in my trusty old P180.

Tzupy
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Post by Tzupy » Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:08 am

wojtek, you mentioned the original firmware as '00.P', which I find strange. '00.P' doesn't look like a firmware version to me.
Have you tried to update the firmware to the latest 12.75? I know you'd lose the Windows installation, but it's probably worth it.

bishyb
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Location: Dundee, UK

Post by bishyb » Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:29 am

Wojtek, your atto bench doesn't look right there...

Received my 30GB Vertex last night, and did a quick test in my X38 rig:

Image

The drive arrived with 1275 firmware installed, and I aligned the drive as per Tony's instructions in this thread: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... hp?t=53756

Will run another bench once it's installed in my Asus P5N7A rig later on.

Tobias
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Post by Tobias » Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:44 am

I'm getting alot of funny results out of my drive and I can't figure out why...

I would be laughing, had I not known that we are talking about a single drive on a SATA 3Gbps connection...

Image

Image

Spectacular performance, don't you say? Average read speed at or over the theoretical max of SATA 3Gbps...

ATTO looks as it should, though...

Image

halcyon
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Post by halcyon » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:16 am

Thanks for all the benchmarks.

I'd appreciate a 'real world' rerun and comments on experiences after a month of use after a real OS install + some app + paging , etc.

I'm almost ready to pull the trigger on 2*30GB Vertex drives, but I am constraining myself for now :)

Square Wave
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Location: England

Post by Square Wave » Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:00 am

Any updates on this yet? It would be interesting to read how things are going now that a few months have passed.

:)

RoGuE
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Post by RoGuE » Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:19 am

wojtek wrote: Overall, my system works better and faster than with previous config. Is it worth £120?
In my opinion..absolutely not. SSD technology (for large amounts of storage) is still in its early stages. It simply isn't refined, and it is WAY too expensive for each Gig.

In less than a year they will be half the price, and probably twice as fast.

wojtek
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Location: London, UK

OCZ Vertex 30GB benchmarks - HD Tune Pro, HD Tach, ATTO

Post by wojtek » Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:22 am

Hi,

Sorry about lack of updates - I've been busy recently. Now again unemployed so will catch up with stuff...
I will post some benchmarks tomorrow evening (GMT) but cutting long story short - this drive is just GREAT. After 4 months as a system drive, I don't see any changes in performance, any stuttering, etc. It's still same config as before - FF cache in ramdisk, WinXP SP3, standard tweaks for OS and drive (this is only change - aligned partition) and still original firmware!

Tomorrow I will post benchmarks and more details regarding config.

quikkie
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Post by quikkie » Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:18 am

I've had a 64GB samsung SSD (the OEM drive from novatech.co.uk) in my rig for a few months running windows 7 and haven't had any problems with it. Transfer speeds aren't as good as the vertex drives but still over double what my WD2500KS can do (reading or writing).

For the time being if you are thinking of an SSD I would suggest a SSD be used for the OS plus apps that need the boost and a regular spinning drive for mass storage and all your other not-so-speed-sensitive apps.

Square Wave
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Location: England

Post by Square Wave » Fri Jul 17, 2009 5:10 am

It's a small world. I get all my bits from Novatech whenever possible. :) I have found them to be really helpful down at the Portsmouth branch.

Regarding SSDs, is it always essential to perform an alignment? I was totally unaware of it until I read this thread.

alleycat
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Post by alleycat » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:35 am

It is essential to do the alignment. Use diskpar, there's a guide on OCZ forums but I can't find it right now. Apparently Windows 7 should do the alignment for you, but I did it manually just to be sure.

Square Wave
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Location: England

Post by Square Wave » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:37 am

Thanks, I'll remember to look up how to do that again when I get my SSD.

wojtek
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Location: London, UK

OCZ Vertex 30GB benchmarks - HD Tune Pro, HD Tach, ATTO

Post by wojtek » Sat Jul 18, 2009 4:58 am

Hi,

Here is ATTO result after 4 months of using OCZ Vertex 30GB as a OS drive. Keep in mind that it's with first version of the firmware. FF cache in ramdisk, no swap, WinXP SP3,

Image

Partition alignment is ESSENTIAL!

As I wrote 2 days ago - I did NOT notice any changes in the system responsiveness.

One important notice:
I often accessing files inside archives via Total Commander which has a temp folder on Vertex - this adding something like 1-1.5 GB of writes per day.

It was a well invested £120... Now, just to get a job and then I will buy another, bigger model for my most essential documents.

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