OCZ Vertex 4 - Thoughts?

[Patrick]

Anyone been playing with the Vertex 4, especially on LSI RAID controllers or HBA's? I just purchased two 256GB units at Amazon for $299.99 each - $20 gift card (I think they just stopped that promotion.) Newegg had a $30 rebate but the Amazon GC got here in 1 day which is much faster than an OCZ expedited rebate (that takes a few bucks off anyway.)

Just thinking - 2x 256GB, or a RAID 0 on a LSI card or RAID 0 on an Intel PCH.

I already am using 4x 120GB SSDs in the i7-3930K rig so this is half about me thinking I should add a permanent 6.0gbps SAS 2 controller. (OK and I will admit I am also thinking of moving to a 16C/ 32T system )

Big thing I am worried about is having an idle drive for 1 hour and actually triggering GC. Anyone have thoughts about running these things on a LSI RAID 0 array?

 

[dba]

I'm still hanging back to see if the firmware turns out to be reliable. Vertex3s have been great for me in massive RAID, somewhat surprisingly given OCZs reputation, so I'm hesitant to make a change.

If the reliability looks promising, I'd love to run a set of IOMeter and Orion RAID0 tests with four or more drives to look for maximum sequential read speed and 8k/16k random read/write IOPS.

 

[mobilenvidia]

Don't know what all the fuss is about with OCZ, had my 4x Solid3's for ages with no issues.
I've not encountered any issues since I've had them.
Would be nice to be able to upgrade the FW while in a RAID array (something to consider).

Using the 2x SATA3 ports on the Mobo (Intel) should have similar performance to a LSI controller.
But adding other drives to it in SATA3 the LSI controller comes into its own.

 

[Patrick]

Don't know what all the fuss is about with OCZ, had my 4x Solid3's for ages with no issues.

They are known to have pushed FW out that has caused major issues. Just to give you an idea, I purchased two 120GB Vertex 1 drives just after they came out. I am currently on drives number 4 and 5 after three RMAs. The Vertex/ Agility 2 drives, Vertex/ Agility 3 drives have all been fine for me though.

 

[dba]

Don't know what all the fuss is about with OCZ, had my 4x Solid3's for ages with no issues....

The Vertex3, for example, cannot handle power saving on my machine. With power saving enabled in the OS, I will get a BSOD every 1-3 days. With power saving disabled, no BSOD ever. Is it the drives? With power saving turned on but the SSD drives unplugged, leaving just the spinning disks running, again no problem.

 

[mobilenvidia]

Not sure on where the actual problem lies, OS, MB or SSD's, or a combonation.
You running them on the Intel controller or a LSI one ?

My Solid3's from same generation as the Vertex3 have never given me a BSOD.
It might be the Memory tecnology, as the Solid3 were not as fast at IO as the vertex3 but I didn't have to dig as deep into my pockets either.
The only gripe is the FW updating in an Array, and all the hassles to do so.

You could have the M4 issue and not working at all in a LSI controller, no one seems too worried about this
The joys of early days of new technology, and the consumer becomes the beta tester.

Slow and steady wins the race

 

[dba]

Not sure on where the actual problem lies, OS, MB or SSD's, or a combonation.
You running them on the Intel controller or a LSI one ?...

The controllers were/are LSI - 9200-8e. I tried three different LSI BIOS/ROM versions, two different drivers, and two different MOBO BIOS versions before giving up, turning off power saving, and then not thinking about it anymore. The system went back to rock solid again, though drawing 75 watts more power at idle. The issue did not happen on my earlier MOBO, so I'm fairly sure that it is an interaction between the SSD drives and the MOBO, or possibly an issue that only appears with large numbers of SSD drives. Since it never happened with the Intel SSD drives nor the non SSD drives, it's not just the fault of the motherboard.

Of course when the issue started happening I began running stress tests of various sorts to try to make it happen predictably. It never, ever happened during any of these tests, some of which were 4 GB/Second disk reads for 24 hours straight, RAM testing for 48 hours at up to 100GB/Second, maxing all 48 cores all day using boinc, and running >1000 Oracle threads at a time. It is only when I stopped testing that the issue started happening again. Slowly I figured out that it only happened when the system was idle. I then tried turning off power saving and the problem disappeared entirely!

 

[Patrick]

Good thing SSDs use like 1w each at idle

That is really bizarre though. With the costs of 120GB drives basically at $1/GB, I have to admit I have been thinking about doing another 8 drive array.

 

[mobilenvidia]

I did a heap of benchies on my 4x Solid3's when I first got them.
To the point I think they've begun their slow down.
But never have I experienced an issue with them.
Now the Solids have a quieter life, sitting doing nothing all night other than upload drivers.
But still no issues, when they wake up.

To me lts either the OS not returning the SSD's from the idle state or the V3's are not coping well with idle states.
SO if my S3's are doing fine and I'm using SF2281 just as the V3, it could only be the actual memory chips.
Both the S3 and V3 use MLC NAND, actual chips must then vary.

We also share the same Firmware, so chances are its not that either.

 

[Patrick]

Popping the 2x Vertex 4's in the test bed today.

 

[Patrick]

Just an update... the Vertex 4 makes the Corsair Force GT 60GB (benchmarks scheduled for tomorrow but SF-2800 and Synchronous ONFi NAND) seem slow in comparison.

 

[MrRedHat]

I have Vertex 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s. The Vertex 2’s I’ve had about two years now and they’re both still going strong.

The Vertex 4 is the 512MB model and I put the latest beta firmware on it when I got it. I’ve had it for three weeks now without issues.

 

[Mike]

I've used the Sanforce based SSD's for almost 2 years and thought all was good till it killed itself a few weeks ago. I believed the early ones by OCZ, Corsair and the gang all dropped in a matter of months but was happy to find mine going strong after 1.5 years and then it still died! Replaced with Samsung 830s and we'll see how these hold up, a lot faster that's for sure.

 

[mobilenvidia]

OCZ FW v1.5

WARNING: This is NOT a Destructive Flash for firmware version 1.4 and newer. This is a Destructive Flash for firmware version 1.3 & 1.4RC, back up all data on SSD. Proceeding with this update will result in complete loss of data on the SSD.

WARNING: This is a two step firmware update process for firmware older than 1.4.1.2. Otherwise it is one step process.

1. Run OCZ Toolbox. Toolbox will update firmware to 1.4.1.2 first.
2. Shutdown and restart the system.
3. Run OCZ Toolbox again, Toolbox will now update firmware to latest firmware revision.
This completes the firmware update.

 

[Patrick]

Will get benchmarks up this week.

 

[Patrick]

Update: will post tomorrow. Looks like OCZ traded a bit of 4K low QD speed for sequential speed. 4K high QD looks similar. Going to try on a second drive tonight and post tomorrow.