OCZ Vertex 4 stupid fast...

[Orlandoech]

My brother just got a 2012 13" MBP today, I installed a new Vertex 4 256GB SSD in it. This thing is insanely fast, faster than my rMBP SSD.

Here are some screens of the SSD speeds using Magic Disk Speed App. The SSD has the latest 1.5 firmware. I have always liked OCZ SSDs, Ive owned 5 different OCZ SSDs myself with no issues, ever. I highly recommend OCZ SSDs, even though people say they are unreliable, I myself have never had issues with any of the OCZ SSDs Ive owned.

I highly recommend the OCZ Vertex 4 SSD for anyone looking for an insanely fast SSD.

 

[RealEyes]

My brother just got a 2012 13" MBP today, I installed a new Vertex 4 256GB SSD in it. This thing is insanely fast, faster than my rMBP SSD.

Here are some screens of the SSD speeds using Magic Disk Speed App. The SSD has the latest 1.5 firmware. I have always liked OCZ SSDs, Ive owned 5 different OCZ SSDs myself with no issues, ever. I highly recommend OCZ SSDs, even though people say they are unreliable, I myself have never had issues with any of the OCZ SSDs Ive owned.

I highly recommend the OCZ Vertex 4 SSD for anyone looking for an insanely fast SSD.

Yeah, I had one in my windows machine and it flys.

 

[Dangerous Theory]

Wow those are the best combined results I've seen. Never checked my rmbp speeds though.

Btw geekbench is a RAM and processor benchmark so not relevant.

 

[SDAVE]

Yes, but is it dependable?

I'd rather lose 50MB/sec read/write and use a Samsung 830/Intel 520/Crucial M4 and have reliability. With these other drives you have to update firmwares etc.

 

[clyde2801]

Great specs, nice price, but updating the firmware appears to be a total PITA.

And it seems MBP owners are reporting a few horror stories on the reviews at Amazon and Newegg. Glowing reviews are almost matched with horror stories and reports of receiving dead units.

Power consumption on the larger units is reported to be more than a HDD and more of a drain upon battery life.

Glad you got it to work on your install, though.

 

[32KFJ]

Yes, but is it dependable?

I'd rather lose 50MB/sec read/write and use a Samsung 830/Intel 520/Crucial M4 and have reliability. With these other drives you have to update firmwares etc.

my ssd (m4) just writes with 260 mb/s....

 

[clyde2801]

my ssd (m4) just writes with 260 mb/s....

Yeah, same here. But I'd suspect you'd have to be Mr. Data to tell a difference unless you're moving a whole bunch of data around at once. Eh....

 

[dusk007]

I also would go with a Samsung or Plextor.
The speed difference is unnoticeable and the Vertex 4 shows rather poor power consumption.

 

[SlyMac]

Those number are nice but I'd rather stick with the reliability of the 830.

 

[JTToft]

Yes, the numbers are pretty nice, but they are barely higher than the Samsung 830's. I calculate a difference of 15 MB/s or 3.5 % between the two in average read/write speed. The 830 is faster in read while the Vertex 4 is faster in write.

With a difference that insignificant, I'd definitely choose the Samsung 830 for the better reliability and compatibility. In fact, one might argue that the higher read speed of the 830 benefits the user more than the higher write speed of the Vertex 4...

 

[49JC]

I agree with OP. Just threw one of these in my 2010 mbp and needless to say took care of my need to upgrade to the new iMac we've been waiting for. Havent had any issues with it so far.

 

[gentlefury]

Samsung 830 is slightly slower on the right and about the same on the read. And much better quality.

 

[Orlandoech]

Like I said, I've owned multiple OCZ SSDs with no issues. So reliability is an invalid argument for me.

Although I think the 830 is. Good drive, it also has failed on users lol. Too many Samsung nut huggers.

 

[gentlefury]

Like I said, I've owned multiple OCZ SSDs with no issues. So reliability is an invalid argument for me.

Although I think the 830 is. Good drive, it also has failed on users lol. Too many Samsung nut huggers.

I have 3 samsung HDDs and 2 Samsung SSDs (3 if you count the one in my rMBP) and ALL have served me very well...and have been fast, reliable and most of all, quiet (HDDs I mean).

They are my favorite brand of storage, by far!

I did get an OCW enclosure for my Samsung 470 SSD tho..and it is quite nice!

 

[Orlandoech]

I have 3 samsung HDDs and 2 Samsung SSDs (3 if you count the one in my rMBP) and ALL have served me very well...and have been fast, reliable and most of all, quiet (HDDs I mean).

They are my favorite brand of storage, by far!

I did get an OCW enclosure for my Samsung 470 SSD tho..and it is quite nice!

Nice! I'm not denying Samsung have nice SSDs but people act like they are impossible to fail and I've seen multiple 830s fail.

 

[NMF]

People like the 830 because it's basically the same drive used by Apple, so you can safely turn on TRIM and not have to worry about excessive beachballing or any of the other potential hiccups that you might experience with a drive like the Vertex 4. Maybe TRIM works fine with the V4, then again maybe it doesn't -- the point is that with the 830 you know for sure that everything works, and that peace of mind is what attracts people to it.

I'm content with the speed too... better reads than the V4!

 

[dusk007]

I agree with OP. Just threw one of these in my 2010 mbp and needless to say took care of my need to upgrade to the new iMac we've been waiting for. Havent had any issues with it so far.

2010 MBP it doesn't really matter as the SATA 2 will limit it to about half the performance anyway.

 

[49JC]

2010 MBP it doesn't really matter as the SATA 2 will limit it to about half the performance anyway.

Yeah you're right. I do still plan on upgrading my machine in the very future and now I'll be ready with this. But my itch to pull the trigger wont be that bad.

 

[Orlandoech]

People like the 830 because it's basically the same drive used by Apple, so you can safely turn on TRIM and not have to worry about excessive beachballing or any of the other potential hiccups that you might experience with a drive like the Vertex 4. Maybe TRIM works fine with the V4, then again maybe it doesn't -- the point is that with the 830 you know for sure that everything works, and that peace of mind is what attracts people to it.

I'm content with the speed too... better reads than the V4!

Image

I'm aware of this, but I chose the v4 for my bro. Samsung do make good SSDs. Those are. Ice numbers too!

 

[JTToft]

Like I said, I've owned multiple OCZ SSDs with no issues. So reliability is an invalid argument for me.

Although I think the 830 is. Good drive, it also has failed on users lol. Too many Samsung nut huggers.

- You speak as if this is somehow subjective. The fact of the matter is that the Samsung 830 gets consistently better reviews than the Vertex 4. In fact, between 25 and 66 % better reviews on Newegg.
And if your speed benchmark is anything to go by, the difference in performance is 3.5 %.

So, the question is, which would you choose: The drive with 3.5 % better performance or the drive with at least 25 % better reviews?
In addition, the Samsung 830 is Anandtech's recommended drive as well as Apple's choice in their notebook computers.

I'm glad that you've been happy with OCZ, and I'm not trying to claim that the 830 is perfect, but the facts are there, and they are not "invalid" just because you haven't had any issues with your drive.

 

[wasimyaqoob]

I've also got an OCZ Vertex 4 in my MacBook Pro, an absolutely awesome SSD. Highly recommended

 

[SDAVE]

Nice! I'm not denying Samsung have nice SSDs but people act like they are impossible to fail and I've seen multiple 830s fail.

Not at all, but Samsung and Intel have higher standards. They are much larger companies than Sandisk, etc. and would not want to tarnish their reputation with bad products.

I still have a Samsung 160GB drive somewhere being used daily. No issues. Can't say the same for WD, Seagate, etc.

Of course, all electronic parts fail, no one is saying Samsung doesn't fail, just saying that Samsung builds everything themselves and they are trusted more.

Would rather lose a few MB's off the read and gain reliability.

I've done a lot of research on the Samsung 830 and have read nothing but positive results by hundreds of users.

Other SSDs have many complaints, especially DOA's and issues with always being forced to update the firmware.

The Samsung 830 only has had 1 firmware update so far and that was almost a year ago.

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In addition, the Samsung 830 is Anandtech's recommended drive as well as Apple's choice in their notebook computers.

This. Apple uses the exact same SSDs in their rMBPs (albeit in the mSATA form factor).

The price difference is not that big anyways, I would always pick Samsung, Intel or Crucial over anything else.

 

[Beta Particle]

I'd rather lose 50MB/sec read/write and use a Samsung 830/Intel 520/Crucial M4 and have reliability. With these other drives you have to update firmwares etc.

Pretty much all SSDs on the market have had firmware updates to bring performance improvements or bug fixes.

Intel, often hailed as having the most reliable SSDs, had one of the more serious bugs I can think of in recent years with their 320 series of drives:

How about that for turnaround time? Just two days ago Intel announced that it had found the root cause of the power cycle bug that could leave your SSD 320 in a mostly unusable 8MB state. Today Intel is making the firmware available to the public, presumably after a long period of validation testing.

Intel encourages all SSD 320 owners to update to the latest firmware here, even if you haven't encountered the issue. If you have encountered the problem you can either send your drive in for a replacement or secure erase your drive using Intel's SSD Toolbox and then drop the new firmware on it.

The other drives you mention have not been without issue either:

This seems to be a month of SSD firmware updates. Less than two weeks ago, Crucial released a firmware update to fix the issue that caused BSODs after 5184 hours of operation. Today, OCZ released a firmware update for Octane that improved its random write performance. Samsung also joins the chorus and they have released a firmware update, or actually two updates, for their SSD 830 Series

The first update, named as CXM02B1Q, was actually released two weeks ago. Its release went mostly unnoticed due to CES, hence we never saw it until today. The release notes state that the update fixes a BSOD or hang issue when waking the computer up from hibernation mode.
…
The second update, CXM03B1Q, was released last Thursday and it's identical to the earlier update, but with improved compatibility and stability of the update tool. You can download the latest firmware for the Samsung 830, and as usual we recommend backing up critical data before flashing.

Personally I have been running a Patriot Wildfire in my main system for over 18 months now with zero issues. It’s a drive that uses 16 chips of lower capacity NAND rather than 8 chips of higher capacity NAND, in order to improve performance through parallelism, making it the fastest drive you could buy at the time, and one which still holds its own against most of the drives you can buy today.

 

[Orlandoech]

Pretty much all SSDs on the market have had firmware updates to bring performance improvements or bug fixes.

Intel, often hailed as having the most reliable SSDs, had one of the more serious bugs I can think of in recent years with their 320 series of drives:


The other drives you mention have not been without issue either:


Personally I have been running a Patriot Wildfire in my main system for over 18 months now with zero issues. It’s a drive that uses 16 chips of lower capacity NAND rather than 8 chips of higher capacity NAND, in order to improve performance through parallelism, making it the fastest drive you could buy at the time, and one which still holds its own against most of the drives you can buy today.

Lol