OWC vs Vertex vs Crucial vs Intel (Benchmarks)

[lavrishevo]

For those looking for some solid benchmarks this is a great article I found. Check link below for all the details.

OWC's Mercury Extreme Pro was one of our favorite SF-1200 SSDs at the time, and remains a solid performer today. But the new wave of SATA 6Gb/s has enthusiasts excited about taking SSD performance to the next level. The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G does just that and more, leveraging the new SandForce SF-2281 processor to deliver sustained sequential reads of up to 559MB/s and writes up to 527MB/s.

OWC is second to market with a consumer-grade enthusiast SSD based on the scorching performance of the SandForce SF-2200 processor family, pacing behind OCZ and the Vertex 3 by just a few weeks. The comparisons between the two drives are natural and frankly, these two SSDs are in a class of their own. Both companies spend a great deal of time tweaking for performance and OWC is rightfully proud of their designed and assembled in America heritage.

Nothing else currently available comes close in terms of straight line speeds - so the showdown begins. While we wait for the rest of the SandForce licensees to figure out a plan to get to market, the Vertex 3 and Mercury Extreme Pro 6G get the advantage fighting to establish themselves as the go to SSD option for enthusiast computing......


Conclusion

Right now OWC has itself in a very good position. With a company policy geared for reliability and consistency, they wait to release products until firmware and hardware kinks are worked out. To the end user this means less need for firmware updates since the drive is ready to go straight out of the box, and fewer bumps in the road associated with being an early adopter. OWC is also one of the few drive manufacturers that design and assemble drives in the USA, with most companies importing finished goods from overseas.

The end result is an SSD that we expect will be reliable, but we know performs like an angry beast - cranking out chart topping scores throughout our time with the drive. The Mercury Extreme Pro 6G is available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities with a suggested retail of $319, $579 and $1799 respectively. Since OWC sells their product directly, expect fewer discounts and promotions, but their pricing is generally competitive with the street pricing for the Vertex 3.

Pros

Stronger 4K read and write speeds off the line than the Vertex 3
Blows the doors off drives not using the SF-2200 processor
Reliable performance right out of the box
Cons

Lagged a bit in our HTPC trace
Bottom Line

The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G offers both rock solid design and performance. The 6G regularly finds itself at the top of our charts and its engineering and firmware lead to great behavior on our test bench. Anyone looking for top-tier SATA 6Gb/s SSD performance needs to add the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G to their *very* short shopping list.

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_extreme_pro_6g_ssd_review_240gb

 

[mak713]

Great article! Thanks for sharing.

Mak

 

[NickZac]

they wait to release products until firmware and hardware kinks are worked out

Really?

To the end user this means less need for firmware updates since the drive is ready to go straight out of the box

Really?

 

[lavrishevo]

OWC Extreme Pro 6G and the Vertex 3 really seem like the best two drives for the new MacBook Pro.

 

[DarwinOSX]

Not much of a review and they obviously don't have much experience with OWC.

They have released drives before they were ready, you can only install their firmware updates using Windows, and they do not assemble their own drives.

 

[mediasorcerer]

Not much of a review and they obviously don't have much experience with OWC.

They have released drives before they were ready, you can only install their firmware updates using Windows, and they do not assemble their own drives.

yes,you have some valid points,but,if you want hi performance,these two are basically top of the range,and represent the best on offer for enthusiasts,who often manage to overcome the pecularitis associated with firmware updates and the like,id rather owc at the end of the day,cos larry seems like a good bloke,and has looked after me really well so far.

 

[dusk007]

They really need to work out the power consumption issue. The SF 2200 still needs more in idle than the 1200 under load. With modern laptops sucking in 5-8 W in low usage conditions it does make a difference. Since it is only some chip that can wake almost instantly they really should work out some low power idle state.

 

[revelated]

OWC Extreme Pro 6G and the Vertex 3 really seem like the best two drives for the new MacBook Pro.

To copy what someone said before -

Really?

I'm curious. Why is it everyone is gunning for ultimate speed? A better question is, everyone across the web seems to indicate that the Intel SSDs are the most reliable and dependable. So why is it they are being ignored? Are people really that tuned-out to their data that they don't care if they lose it? If I were asked what the best SSD was (and I was just asked that when I sold my old Big Apple yesterday), I'm pointing them to Intel. Reliability > Speed anyday, especially when said speed increase is not noticeable to any but the most OCD of users.

 

[MastaK]

Great review, I'm glad to be one of the first to get this drive and problem free.

 

[beaker7]

To copy what someone said before -

Really?

I'm curious. Why is it everyone is gunning for ultimate speed? A better question is, everyone across the web seems to indicate that the Intel SSDs are the most reliable and dependable. So why is it they are being ignored? Are people really that tuned-out to their data that they don't care if they lose it? If I were asked what the best SSD was (and I was just asked that when I sold my old Big Apple yesterday), I'm pointing them to Intel. Reliability > Speed anyday, especially when said speed increase is not noticeable to any but the most OCD of users.

If reliability is most important to you, you should be using enterprise grade hard drives or SLC SSD's in RAID 1.

Or just back up regularly.

At my office we've been running OCZ and OWC SSD's of each generation. Workstation here has several in RAID 0. Never had one die.

 

[DustinT]

Storage Review is one of the very oldest, most established and reliable drive sites. You can be quite sure they know what they are talking about. Yes, Intel has a better reputation but their performance is really lagging behind this round.

Sandforce is on top which means OCZ and OWC are the only two drives worth talking about in terms of highest performance. As far as reliability goes, I'd love to see a study comparing failure rates for these drives.