OCZ Vertex 3 240g, no issues, blindingly fast

[DustinT]

So, I'm pretty careful with my shiny, new MacBook Pro 15" 2011. Its new, shiny and I really depend on it all day. When the reports of the tremendous speed increases of the Vertex 3 came out I knew it would be the first of a long line of upgrades, IF it could behave.

I'm happy to say that so far so good. It installed simply enough in a 10 minutes procedure. I decided to go ahead and reinstall the OS and my Apps just to be safe. This was easily accomplished from my couch with a beer and a remote in hand.

Now I've got 240 gigs of the fastest storage available in a laptop and man, is it sweet!

Really, I've had only one irritant and thats upgrading the firmware. When I received the drive it came with 2.02 installed. I installed and ran that a few days and really didn't notice any problems although the benchmark results were a little lower. So, hearing there was a new firmware out I decided to install it on my drive. As of this point, OCZ doesn't have any good way to do that with the drive installed in a MacBook. So, I popped it out and connected it to my Wife's PC. A quick boot off a Ubuntu 11.04 live cd allowed me to install and run the linux fwupd app which updated it in a matter of seconds. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes which includes the time it took me to locate a suitable screwdriver.

Here's a couple benchmarks for you. Aja gives more of a best case scenario and Xbench a worse case. Neither of them can describe just how cool it is to boot and launch any program(s) you want in mere seconds. Oh, and the last benchmark is the stock hard drive in this system. Big difference, eh?

All in all, its a great upgrade and highly recommended.

 

[Macsavvytech]

So, I'm pretty careful with my shiny, new MacBook Pro 15" 2011. Its new, shiny and I really depend on it all day. When the reports of the tremendous speed increases of the Vertex 3 came out I knew it would be the first of a long line of upgrades, IF it could behave.

I'm happy to say that so far so good. It installed simply enough in a 10 minutes procedure. I decided to go ahead and reinstall the OS and my Apps just to be safe. This was easily accomplished from my couch with a beer and a remote in hand.

Now I've got 240 gigs of the fastest storage available in a laptop and man, is it sweet!

Really, I've had only one irritant and thats upgrading the firmware. When I received the drive it came with 2.02 installed. I installed and ran that a few days and really didn't notice any problems although the benchmark results were a little lower. So, hearing there was a new firmware out I decided to install it on my drive. As of this point, OCZ doesn't have any good way to do that with the drive installed in a MacBook. So, I popped it out and connected it to my Wife's PC. A quick boot off a Ubuntu 11.04 live cd allowed me to install and run the linux fwupd app which updated it in a matter of seconds. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes which includes the time it took me to locate a suitable screwdriver.

Here's a couple benchmarks for you. Aja gives more of a best case scenario and Xbench a worse case. Neither of them can describe just how cool it is to boot and launch any program(s) you want in mere seconds. Oh, and the last benchmark is the stock hard drive in this system. Big difference, eh?

All in all, its a great upgrade and highly recommended.

I am looking forward to my OWC 6G SSD which is meant to be very similar if not a small amount better. I want it all! and i want it now!

 

[JayMBP]

^

Do it! The world of 500MBps is a completely new one!

Processing 4 streams of 1080P footage simultaneously here!

 

[jkwireless]

Any issues with Bootcamp?

I have ordered this drive (Vertex 3 240Gb) and am planning to put it into my 2011 MBP 13" /i7. I plan to install boot camp for a Windows 7 partition and I've read varying comments that this does not work with the SSD (or doesn't work well), so I wanted to ask if anybody has any direct experience with this?

I would lean a little towards compatibility vs. max speed if there is a better drive choice, but I do want to get an SSD, and I already have the MBP (so I can't to a BTO from Apple to get an Apple SSD.)

Your comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[jimbo1mcm]

Firmware Update

There has to be a better/easier way to do a firmware update!!!

 

[JasonH42]

I have ordered this drive (Vertex 3 240Gb) and am planning to put it into my 2011 MBP 13" /i7. I plan to install boot camp for a Windows 7 partition and I've read varying comments that this does not work with the SSD (or doesn't work well), so I wanted to ask if anybody has any direct experience with this?

I would lean a little towards compatibility vs. max speed if there is a better drive choice, but I do want to get an SSD, and I already have the MBP (so I can't to a BTO from Apple to get an Apple SSD.)

Your comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

I don't know why you think this as Bootcamp/Windoze 7 works fine with the Vertex 3.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

I don't know why you think this as Bootcamp/Windoze 7 works fine with the Vertex 3.

i also read (from newegg consumer review) that the v3 had issues with windoze and bootcamp
im also looking to get the ocz v3 240gb as i want to load osx and win7

 

[the_fellowship]

Is it possible to update the OCZ Vertex 3 firmware via Bootcamp? I have the SSD installed in my 2011 MBP 13" and was hoping to update the firmware without taking the drive out and connecting to a PC.

Would be great to hear from anyone who has tried this

Thanks

 

[b0rg]

Is it possible to update the OCZ Vertex 3 firmware via Bootcamp? I have the SSD installed in my 2011 MBP 13" and was hoping to update the firmware without taking the drive out and connecting to a PC.

Would be great to hear from anyone who has tried this

Thanks

Yes you can but then you need to use the OCZ Toolbox 2.35 because 2.36 got a primary boot drive detection.

 

[DustinT]

I have ordered this drive (Vertex 3 240Gb) and am planning to put it into my 2011 MBP 13" /i7. I plan to install boot camp for a Windows 7 partition and I've read varying comments that this does not work with the SSD (or doesn't work well), so I wanted to ask if anybody has any direct experience with this?

I would lean a little towards compatibility vs. max speed if there is a better drive choice, but I do want to get an SSD, and I already have the MBP (so I can't to a BTO from Apple to get an Apple SSD.)

Your comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

I'm using Bootcamp and Windows 7 with mine and there have been zero issues. It works fine. You shouldn't believe everything you read in Newegg's reviews.

 

[DustinT]

There has to be a better/easier way to do a firmware update!!!

I agree. But, consider that the firmware really doesn't need to be upgraded regularly if things are working properly. So, how often do you have to upgrade the firmware? Often enough to make the performance boost a bad value proposition? Maybe, but not for me.

I do hope OCZ will straighten out the difficulties but I didn't find it that big of a deal to connect to another computer for a few minutes.

 

[Weaselboy]

I do hope OCZ will straighten out the difficulties but I didn't find it that big of a deal to connect to another computer for a few minutes.

Did you try the boot Linux CD directly on your Macbook? The OCZ forums seem to indicate that would work.

 

[JasonH42]

Did you try the boot Linux CD directly on your Macbook? The OCZ forums seem to indicate that would work.

They don't work with 2011 models, tried Ubuntu/PCLinuxOS/Fedora/openSUSE without any joy.

 

[Nox Darkness]

Is there really a need to update the f/w? I am considering on getting this drive but am quite apprehensive on the hassle to do so much to update the f/w.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

Is it possible to update the OCZ Vertex 3 firmware via Bootcamp? I have the SSD installed in my 2011 MBP 13" and was hoping to update the firmware without taking the drive out and connecting to a PC.

Would be great to hear from anyone who has tried this

Thanks

The drive f/w can not be updated whilst in use, whether in bootcamp/linux, the drive can be left in the hdd slot, and os loaded from another source - usb, external hdd (e.g + rEFIt) and fw updater is run, as long as drive is not in use

Is there really a need to update the f/w? I am considering on getting this drive but am quite apprehensive on the hassle to do so much to update the f/w.

my set-up - i have windows on my optibay stock hdd - so can flash, format and update the ssd - when i finally get a v3

 

[SpitUK]

I am tempted to upgrade my firmware if only for the idle power benefits. Anyone notice any battery improvements since upgrading?

 

[sporadicMotion]

These things are fast. Picked up a 120 gb Max IOPS today. Still has the 2.02 firmware but i don't care if there's no more performance to be had... it's fast.

 

[maclaptop]

I've been working with several different top of the line SSD's over the last few years in both PC and Mac laptops. I really like the Vertex 3, so much so I have it in three of my 2010, 2011 machines are they are rockets.

 

[DustinT]

Is there really a need to update the f/w? I am considering on getting this drive but am quite apprehensive on the hassle to do so much to update the f/w.

You can certainly use it with the 2.02 firmware. The performance and battery life will take a slight hit but its nothing major. I used it that way for a week and it was fine.

Having said that, I can tell a difference now that I have the updated firmware.

 

[awer25]

my set-up - i have windows on my optibay stock hdd - so can flash, format and update the ssd - when i finally get a v3

Don't count on it. I have the same setup and it didn't work for me. I opened the program, it said downloading firmware to drive, went through the steps, but then after it still shows 2.02. I tried it a couple times, but now I'm going to take out the drive and put it into a regular windows machine.

 

[DustinT]

Don't count on it. I have the same setup and it didn't work for me. I opened the program, it said downloading firmware to drive, went through the steps, but then after it still shows 2.02. I tried it a couple times, but now I'm going to take out the drive and put it into a regular windows machine.

Yup, I tried that too and it doesn't work.

It just not that big of a deal to pull out the SSD and flash it in another computer.

 

[awer25]

Yup, I tried that too and it doesn't work.

It just not that big of a deal to pull out the SSD and flash it in another computer.

At least I know it wasn't just my setup that's doing that. I wasn't going to update it, but now that I see that it may help battery life when idle, I'll probably do it. For me battery life is hit or miss on the rated 7 hours (sometimes I get 7, other times I get 4 - always using only the integrated GPU)

 

[Nox Darkness]

Thanks for your feedbacks Any idea if fan noise and heat issues will decrease upon the change to ssd?

 

[XandeR803]

battery life

I haven't really noticed any increase in battery life after updating. It's still about 4-6 hours on integrated gpu just web browsing.

 

[awer25]

I haven't really noticed any increase in battery life after updating. It's still about 4-6 hours on integrated gpu just web browsing.

Thanks for the update. I still can't get mine updated, even on a Windows machine. The only thing I haven't done yet is erase the whole disk and reformat in NTFS...I just don't think it's worth the hassle. I'll just stick with 2.02 until there's something worth updating.