OCZ VerteX 2 VS Corsair force 3

[Pilotasso]

I have recently completed an upgrade to my brothers PC. He bought the Force 3 series SDD from Corsair while I have a Vertex 2 from OCZ.

 

My PC's system specs:

 

Q9550 CPU@ 3400GHZ

ASUS P5K deluxe with 8GB of 1066MHZ DDR2 Dual channel

EVGA GTX 470 1280MB DDR5

OCZ VERTEX2 SDD 120GB

 

My brothers PC:

 

I7 2600K@ 3400GHZ

ASUS P67 Sabertooth with 8GB of 1600MHZ DDR3 Dual channel

Gigabyte GTX 570 TWIN FROZR II 1280MB DDR5

Corsair Force 3 SSD 120GB

 

 

And here are results.

 

OCZ verteX2 (degraded with 6 months of use)

 

Corsair Force 3 (new)

 

 

Surprising results, because I see applications load MUCH faster on the I7 than on mine (which also has an older ICH9 controller).

Edited June 4, 2011 by Pilotasso

[Pilotasso]

Compressible data tests.

 

OCZ VERTEX 2

 

Corsair Force 3

[Pilotasso]

My conclusion:

 

This is clearly a faster desktop windows and games SDD (where small files perfomance are more important) however it would look very weak at the eyes of video editors and other sequential operations users.

[Pilotasso]

Warning:

 

Apparently theres something wrong with this drives firmware causing people to have their machines BSOD/hang or drives disappearing from BIOS.

 

The problem is being addressed but I advise against purchasing this drive until further notice.

 

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=95688

[Pyroflash]

I highly recommend the OCZ Vertex 3 drive, the newest Sandforce controllers fix the problems the Vertex 2 had, not to mention the Vertex 3 is a significantly faster drive.

[bumfire]

Something which I am not sure about but have read in a few places is, the smaller the flash memory modules fab that the ssd's receive, the shorter the lifespan of those flash memory modules.

 

So newer SSD's might not offer the same longevity as the generation before etc.

 

I cant recall what size of flash modules they are using now for the latest gen of ssd's, but if its true, then it may not be worth buying into newer ssd's if the lifespan of the memory modules will suffer badly over a short period of time.

 

Now, this is only what I have been reading in a few places, maybe they have resolved the problems or changed the manufacturing process, I dunno, but the story going about is that the newer the ssd's, the quicker they will crap out on us due to the modules not being as good at writes over a period of time and will either lose the stored info, or wont be able to write onto a block alot quicker than what happens now.

 

Whether its true or not I couldnt say, as my ssd's have been powering along for the last 2-3 years perfectly and I couldnt praise them enough, especially as they were free :)

 

Saying all that, I doubt the problem will affect us in the immediate future, but they are saying that the smaller the fab process for the ram modules for increased ram amounts on a ssd, doing so will entail a quicker death for the ssd.

 

P.S

 

Pilotasso, your V2 gave your bro's ssd a run for its money, even though your ssd wasnt brought back to an as new situation by wiping it, you should be well impressed with the V2's, as it gave your bros a real good run for its money.

 

get another and raid those bad boys up, I have done so since the begining of windows 7 official release on technet and I havent formatted or cleaned them out yet and they still power along with 0 problems.

 

I have run ASCleaner 2 or 3 times over that space, but I find I really dont need to as they are still fast enough without using ASC.

 

I think the next ssd I will buy is gunna be an internal one with a larger amount of ram, pcie based, as some are not that much more dearer than normal ssd's, but have more memory on them, admittedly some are raid on a card, which they neglect to tell you, but they can be worth it for not much more than a normal ssd if you do your homework and have a spare pcie slot.

Edited June 6, 2011 by bumfire

[Pyroflash]

Bumfire, it was true that there were a few problems converting over from the larger NAND process to the newer and small 25 mm NAND fab process, but those issues were largely memory controller related, and have been for the most part fixed in the latest generation of SSD's(e.g. OCZ 3 series).

[Pilotasso]

The 25nm SDD's have the same lifespan because they use up more redundant space too. The only disadvantage is less available space.

[Pilotasso]

Corsair announced complete recall and replacement of the drive from the market. wow

 

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showpost.php?p=506369&postcount=285

[topdog]

Crushing news to go against the recent burst towards SSDs, but certainly the right thing to do and hopefully other manufacturers with the same controllers (and problems) will recognise the need to follow suit.

 

I refrained from upgrading the firmware on mine from 2.0.2 to 2.0.6 where the majority of problems are being reported (and presumably newer drive models and batches were already shipping with the newer firmware off the shelf), so I may have lucked out there unless they determine my hardware needs sorting too.

[Pilotasso]

Its not just the firmware it shipped with. Its also a hardware issue. However none of the other vendors are reporting any problems.

[topdog]

They are having problems reported to them, though. And with my brand of drives, the problem was exacerbated by the firmware upgrade.

 

So; I know for sure the firmware upgrade will screw mine up, what's still left out to the jury to decide is whether or not I share a similar enough hardware to have the fault too.

 

But the BSOD and lost drives problem predate Corsair's release of those SSDs.

 

Some references:

 

Discussion on BSOD/instalbility issues with FW2.06 on Vtx3 Agy and solid3 drives

OCZ Agility 3 problems - Firmware?

Total recall of Sanforce 2xxx-drives

why so many reports of ssd drives dissapearing?

OCZ Agility 3 problem

 

And this just seen:

OCZ Official Statement regarding hardware issues reported by other manufacturers

 

I will still be careful at this point since OCZ have been mad-defiant to their customers about problems with these drives, and only now are starting to admit there are some (albeit limited) problem drives out there.

Edited June 7, 2011 by topdog

[Eggcake]

I'm still no fan of the sandforce products. They still have so many problems. I always recommend Intel SSDs because they just work and have very few (if any) bugs. In addition, what they promise is what you get. No half data rates with uncompressible data and no speed drop after filling the drive once or twice.

 

And in regard of the faster loading times (post #1) :

CPU makes a HUGE difference when comparing actual loading times of applications. At least with my Q9550 the loading times often scale PERFECTLY with the CPU clock (2-4GHz) - I did pretty extensive tests.

 

In my opinion the actual benefit of "faster" SSDs is minimal on todays desktop computers. If you need them for specific application which profit (like DBS) it can help for sure, but the difference between "2nd Gen. drives) (Intel X25-M, SF-12xx) is minimal in the real, "measured" performance, because there are other limiting factors like CPU or FS. So I for myself go for the SSDs with best reliability, which is still Intel IMHO. Sadly, "one-click" benchmarks like CDM only tell a very little part of the whole story.