OCZ Vertex 120gb vs Intel Gen2 80gb SSD

A

asmielia

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 10, 2003
Messages
337
Hi there,
just bought a new macbook pro in order to do some iphone/mac development. I'd like to replace the hard drive with an SSD. My two main choices are an OCZ Vertex 120gb which I could hopefully get for close to $300 (Canadian) soon, or an Intel Gen2 80gb, which I'm guessing will be around $250.

I'm kind of worried about only having 80gb. I've heard you can reinstall OSX to eliminate some unnecessary items and bring it down to less than 10gb installed. I was also debating dual booting Windows 7. I'll most likely be installing a few other things apart from the dev tools, like iLife, and Final Cut Pro.

Won't really need to store movies/games or much music on there. Might add some pictures but it would be under 5gb for sure.

I'd prefer to go with the faster Intel drive as it just came out so will most likely be king of the hill for at least 6 months or so. But if 80gb won't be enough, I might go for the 120gb Vertex. The 160gb Intel is out of my price range.

What do you guys think?

Thanks,
Adrian
 
Either are good drives, and in real world use you will probably see almost no difference. I'd say go for the GSkill Falcon 128GB though, as its the same thing as the Vertex but cheaper.
 
I would say that 80gb is too small for a Dev box.
Especially if you even remotely think that you will install both OSX and Win7.

With the new Vertex Firmware it takes care of TRIM/GC on the drive by itself without OS interaction.
Yea the Intels are faster but not by much.

Both are lightyears faster than HDD.

Cant really go wrong either way.
Just depends on how much GB you want.
 
nitrobass24 said:
I would say that 80gb is too small for a Dev box.
With the new Vertex Firmware it takes care of TRIM/GC on the drive by itself without OS interaction.
Click to expand...

Just to be cautious, can you clarify that TRIM does not require OS interaction? I do not believe that is the case, according to what I have read.
 
PHiZ said:
Just to be cautious, can you clarify that TRIM does not require OS interaction? I do not believe that is the case, according to what I have read.
Click to expand...

I guess I should explain it better.

With the FW that was released today it has better support.
TRIM is OS dependent, but with todays release it now works on Win7, Linux, and OSX.
It also does what is called Garbage Collection. This was added in 1.3, but was slow.
Now its much faster, and works on systems with RAID

It performs a similar operation to TRIM but is done at the Hardware level instead of at the OS making low-level calls to the SDD.
This will allow it to clean up the empty cells even when the SSD's are used in a RAID.
 
Pyrolistical said:
Don't go for the GSkill. OCZ's newest FW is for OCZ only and has advanced GC and trim support
Click to expand...

Gskill, and Patriot and Supertalent, etc will all be receiving the same firmware updates as the OCZ drives. In-fact people have even cross-flashed before. The 1.4 beta firmware came out on the OCZ forum TODAY so give it a little bit and I'm sure all the other manufacturers will have the same firmware updates too. Remember OCZ DOESNT code the firmware, Indilinx does.
 
extide said:
Gskill, and Patriot and Supertalent, etc will all be receiving the same firmware updates as the OCZ drives. In-fact people have even cross-flashed before. The 1.4 beta firmware came out on the OCZ forum TODAY so give it a little bit and I'm sure all the other manufacturers will have the same firmware updates too. Remember OCZ DOESNT code the firmware, Indilinx does.
Click to expand...

Almost correct. OCZ got custom FW from Indilinx. So other products will not get the advanced GC.
 
extide said:
Gskill, and Patriot and Supertalent, etc will all be receiving the same firmware updates as the OCZ drives. In-fact people have even cross-flashed before. The 1.4 beta firmware came out on the OCZ forum TODAY so give it a little bit and I'm sure all the other manufacturers will have the same firmware updates too. Remember OCZ DOESNT code the firmware, Indilinx does.
Click to expand...

Something to note is the Firmware is not fully released.

OCZ has released a beta version of 1.4, and according to them will be tweaked before being put on the main website.
 
does intel also gc in the background? or does it just write as efficiently as possible?

also, TRIM does not work currently in Linux - it probably won't be until 2.6.32.
 
thebeephaha said:
If one is intending to use raid... should I get some Vertex or X25-M SSDs?
Click to expand...

Know that with either brand you are kind of being the Internet's guinea pig. The OCZ forum has some dedicated members sharing their experiences, Intel may or may not have the same community involvement. (Also, it may be irrelevant due to a greater investment in R&D by Intel (speculation on my part.))

Already I can tell you that there is talk of the OCZ Vertex not working with (some?) Adaptec RAID cards.
 
PHiZ said:
Already I can tell you that there is talk of the OCZ Vertex not working with (some?) Adaptec RAID cards.
Click to expand...

its the 5 series cards BTW

BUT thats not OCZ's fault
Seriously these cards were designed before SSDs so expecting something to do what it was not designed for is kind of unrealistic.

Thats like saying its Intels fault that some Core2's are not supported on all LGA775 Boards.
Its up to the manufacturers of the mobo/raidcard to release bios/firmware for new products/technology.

There are HDDs that dont work with all brands of RAID cards.
I dont remember but there were a lot people here having problems with Seagate I think drive dropping out of Areca RAID arrays. But they work great with other cards.

Secondly Adaptecs cards are not up to snuff right now.
If your gonna do HW Raid get LSI or Areca.
 
nitrobass24 said:
its the 5 series cards BTW
BUT thats not OCZ's fault
Seriously these cards were designed before SSDs so expecting something to do what it was not designed for is kind of unrealistic.
Click to expand...

My tone came across a little negative, because I was typing quickly without picking my words carefully. I fully applaud OCZ's involvement with their customer's through their support forum.

I do not mean to be judgmental, but consider this. I believe that I read that Intel dedicated $125mil to SSD development. OCZ is a much smaller company, and cannot match those resources. Also, Intel needs to cultivate a reputation as having bullet-proof, enterprise-level, no-nonsense gear, "it just works with everything gear."

OCZ is targeting more the enthusiast market, where you can get away with some inconsistencies, because your customers are tinkerers.

So, I presume that Intel can afford to test their gear with a wider variety of configurations. Flying in the face of my presumption is their issue with the gen2 products blowing up when encountering a BIOS password. Note, OCZ would probably have posted a workaround (don't set a BIOS password, not a big sacrifice), and had a patch out shortly thereafter. Intel decided to stop shipping the drives and probably do robust testing on their patch in different configurations.

Again, it looks like I'm beating up on OCZ, but I'm not. I respect them, I respect their approach, and support their agility as a smaller company.

I think OCZ could beat Intel on price in a particular segment of SSD. Idilinix supplies their controllers, and they purchase their flash, so OCZ has relatively little overhead. However, I think Intel is going to dump their products into the marketplace in order to establish a position that will pay off in the long-run.
 
PHiZ said:
My tone came across a little negative, because I was typing quickly without picking my words carefully. I fully applaud OCZ's involvement with their customer's through their support forum.

I do not mean to be judgmental, but consider this. I believe that I read that Intel dedicated $125mil to SSD development. OCZ is a much smaller company, and cannot match those resources. Also, Intel needs to cultivate a reputation as having bullet-proof, enterprise-level, no-nonsense gear, "it just works with everything gear."

OCZ is targeting more the enthusiast market, where you can get away with some inconsistencies, because your customers are tinkerers.

So, I presume that Intel can afford to test their gear with a wider variety of configurations. Flying in the face of my presumption is their issue with the gen2 products blowing up when encountering a BIOS password. Note, OCZ would probably have posted a workaround (don't set a BIOS password, not a big sacrifice), and had a patch out shortly thereafter. Intel decided to stop shipping the drives and probably do robust testing on their patch in different configurations.

Again, it looks like I'm beating up on OCZ, but I'm not. I respect them, I respect their approach, and support their agility as a smaller company.

I think OCZ could beat Intel on price in a particular segment of SSD. Idilinix supplies their controllers, and they purchase their flash, so OCZ has relatively little overhead. However, I think Intel is going to dump their products into the marketplace in order to establish a position that will pay off in the long-run.
Click to expand...
Intel drives don't suffer from the same extent of fragmentation that the indilinx ones do, so they haven't had need for a garbage collection all that much since the firmware fix months ago. The main thing to worry about is $/GB. I wouldn't have said that even a month ago, but now that the indilinx platform is really starting to mature and show signs of getting away from the external intervention required to keep them running as best they can, it's changed my opinion. You're basically trading sustained transfers for random r/w speeds in indilinx vs intel now.

3bit MLC could make things interesting next year.
 
Y'all need to check out the OCZ forums. This new GC FW is absolutely amazing. Within 8 minutes a completely dirty Vertex was restored to original state. Amazing stuff Indilinx is doing. Waiting for the FW to come out of BETA to flash all of my Vertexes....
 
The intel drive is a faster overall every day drive due to the better small read write performance. (What I can gather from reading reviews) Compared to any 3.5 inch based HD either will be light years ahead. Now compare the OCZ and Intel SSDs to any 2.5 inch notebook drive and its just no contest. If you need the extra space, the OCZ should serve you well.
 
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