is this normal for a OCZ Vertex 2?

R

rfadream

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 26, 2006
Messages
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I sold my C2D system to a friend and upgraded to an i5-2500k system.
I went from my 80gb Intel G2 SSD to this new 50gb OCZ Vertex 2.

Can anyone tell me if this Crystal Disk Mark is about normal for a Vertex 2
or if there is something wrong with my setup?

50gb Vertex 2 - http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/459/vertex2.png

80gb Intel G2 - http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/6923/intelg2.png

I thought a Vertex 2 was supposed to be faster?

Old System
C2D e6400 @ 3.0 ghz with 4gb DDR2

New System
i5 2500k @ stock speeds with 8gb DDR3

Both with Windows 7 64bit installed.
I made sure bios was set to AHCI for both systems.
 
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I was gonna try it for you but AV keeps saying CrystalMark is infected with some open candy adware or something.
 
when you write large amounts of data to sandforce-based SSD's, they artificially slow down to extend the drive life. if you have been benchmarking, the drive is probably slower now because of it. those speeds do look low to me, but i dont have that exact drive for comparison.
 
Even in their original states, the Vertex 2 was actually slower than the Intel 80GB G2 SSDs due to the G2's significantly greater random read/write performance.

Anyway, those specs might be right considering that OCZ switched NAND types a few months back that lowered performance quite a bit.
 
oh wow that seems pretty shady. I guess I will just return the vertex 2 back to amazon.
 
ghost6303 said:
when you write large amounts of data to sandforce-based SSD's, they artificially slow down to extend the drive life. if you have been benchmarking, the drive is probably slower now because of it. those speeds do look low to me, but i dont have that exact drive for comparison.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and we're talking 20GB of data just for that Crystal bench, on a small 50GB drive, the controller has to have passed in "protection" mode half into it.
 
Aesma said:
Yeah, and we're talking 20GB of data just for that Crystal bench, on a small 50GB drive, the controller has to have passed in "protection" mode half into it.
Click to expand...

oh wow 20gb! never knew that, thanks for the clarification.

ghost6303 said:
when you write large amounts of data to sandforce-based SSD's, they artificially slow down to extend the drive life...
Click to expand...

in your opinion does benchmarking ~10 times on a intel g2 significantly impact the drive's lifespan?

basically is the sandforce drives artificial speed limit a good or bad idea?
 
rfadream said:
basically is the sandforce drives artificial speed limit a good or bad idea?
Click to expand...

The Sandforce throttling is a really stupid idea. I think the only reason they still have it is so the companies (like OCZ) that sell Sandforce drives can cover their asses. Neither Intel nor Micron (Crucial) sees a need to screw their SSD users by throttling their performance. That should tell you something.
 
is the throttling only limited to uses like benchmarking or also in just normal large file transfers?
if its only in artificial scenarios like benchmarks i think i can live with it.
 
There is little documentation on the throttling. As best as I can tell, the controller looks at the flash memory over some period, probably 3 or 5 years. It probably assumes a certain amount of total lifetime writes, distributed over that time period. The throttling seems to prevent you from crossing the line represented by the total lifetime writes over the period assumed for the lifetime. But it only counts powered-on hours. So, to take an extreme example, if you only powered on your SSD for one day (24 hours) on the first of each month, and left it powered off at all other times, then after a year, the controller would think your SSD is only 12 days old. Therefore, if you used the SSD heavily on each of those days, you would get throttled since the controller thinks you have written too much for 12 days, even though it has been a year.
 
OCZ should include a sticker on each drive that states:
DO NOT BENCHMARK. (Trust us the drive is fast we promise but don't try to test it m'kay?)

I know I'm being a bit harsh. But there is some truth to what I'm saying .
 
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