Any R3 owners have Vertex 3 stories to share?

I've haven't played 80% of the games I own. Damn Steam sales.

 

The ONLY reason I would suggest vertex 3 over the intel is benchmarks score much higher all around...

Now, if you want to take all things into account, the Crucial M4 uses 1/8 the power of all the other SSD's, it's a couple hundred milliwatts active and around 85mW idle....Crazy low power

 

I own +100 Games........ Total played and completed = 4
Lot of new PC games coming this year too... The Witcher 2/Skyrim/Mass effect3/Battlefield3/etc and i didn't buy a lot of games i already want and waiting for sales (Crysis 2/etc)

My game is buying games.

 

Mass Effect 3 was delayed until 2012 iirc...

 

So, I have been doing some reading about RAID implementations and AHCI. It seams that Intel's most current RAID implementations includes the advantages of AHCI including NCQ.

I don't think you'll notice some terrible performance hit by running your Vertex 3, or any other SSD for that matter, in the R3's RAID mode. I downloaded CrystalDiskMark and ran the 64bit bench with random data and had these results:



And the following text details from the run:

Code:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   473.754 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   299.251 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   395.196 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   292.869 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    28.006 MB/s [  6837.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    62.010 MB/s [ 15139.1 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   207.255 MB/s [ 50599.4 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   253.020 MB/s [ 61772.5 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 12.0% (26.7/223.5 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2011/05/05 21:05:09
    OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

Intel RST shows the Vertex 3 is running at SATA III speed of 6GB/s although the speed reported by CrystalDiskMark is not showing that except the speeds it is reporting would not be possible on an STAT II connection.

This drive is connected via Port 1 and the BIOS is set to RAID. I realize this is just a benchmark, but it is an indicator that the drive is functioning at expected levels.

I have heard a few comments around here about the reduction in performance which will be realized if an SSD is run in RAID mode. I disagree.

 

Txs for all the help from this thread - I was able to get Vertex 3 running with no issues.

BTW I didn't understand why you have to install Windows in AHCI mode. So I installed in RAID mode with no issues.

So what I did was install the Windows 7 CD provided by Alienware onto the Vertex 3 - in Port 1 with the SATA mode set to RAID. I left Port 0 empty.

This all installs with no issues. Then I applied the LPM registry path as detailed at the beginning of this thread. A few people complaining in this thread about bsod's didn't seem to have done this.

Then installed all the drivers from dell site (including Intel RST) + SP1 + other Windows updates. All running great 3 days later.

I did test the Vertex 3 in Port 0 before doing this to see whether it was running @ SATA II or III and indeed its running @ SATA II in Port 0 (runs @ SATA III in port 1). The M17x spec in the manual says that the ports for HDD/SDD are SATA III so clearly there is a problem. I was planning to run 2 x Vertex 3 in Raid 0 to power Photoshop, but until this Port 0 problem is resolved this doesn't make sense. I'm surprised owners are not more up in arms about this issue which is clearly a failing to deliver the quoted spec.

Mike

 

I had a problem with my 120gb Vertex 3 bsod on first boot of fresh win 7 install.
i had to do a hdparm linux secure erase and that fixed the problem

 

I've had some glitches in my installation of my Vertex 3. I was wondering if anyone else followed my steps and sees the same things.

I've followed the guide and placed the Vertex 3 in Port 1 and the 750gb HDD that came with the machine in port 0. I have it in RAID with the second hard drive set to boot.

1. I was going to preserve my original HDD's recovery partition but my machine keeps trying to boot to it for some reason. Completely reformatting it helps most of the time. When I've applied Windows Updates though, it won't find a boot drive and errors out on restart. If I power off and back on, it boots up just fine.

2. I've applied the LPM registry tweak but still have some long hangs. I had it do it to me trying to access My Computer and the machine just locks for a couple of minutes. Prolonged Updates and loads seem to cause the same thing.

I'm thinking at this point I should have trusted my gut and gone with the Intel 510 for reliability and consistency of performance. I'm hoping that I can just tweak this thing to get the raw performance out of it. Besides, there's no fun in it if it just works out of the box is there?

 

Check the registry if the registry keys are really there. I had a similar problem after the LPM fix.

 

Regedits are there. Still having some weird lockups.

 

Note - there's a Vertex 3 firmware upgrade available - not sure it helps, but I've applied it and everything working fine (as before). Mike

 

This can't be good. I downloaded OCZToolbox v2.36 and it says there isn't a drive attached. My box and the drive say Vertex 3. Anyone seen this before?

 

Did you upgrade using the OCZ toolbox 2.36 because when I try and run it all I get is "No OCZ technology drives found"!

 

I'm getting the same exact thing.

 

Hey everyone, my specs are in the sig. I have done a clean install of Windows 7. I reformatted my 750gb hdd and put it into port 0. I placed the Vertex 3 in port 1. I installed windows in AHCI mode and then switched to RAID during the first bootup like others have instructed.

As I've been applying Windows updates and various other software updates, when I restart, it is trying to do a network bootup which I have checked and is configured to be last on the bootup list. It's not seeing the startup HD (which is the Vertex 3) and keeps going down the list.

My boot order in BIOS is set for secondary HD, cd/dvd, primary hd, network. I've verified this a couple of times.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

sdcalbchguy, looks like there is a new firmware for the Vertex 3 drives, some folks testing and reporting now: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/578376-vertex-3-fix-sandy-bridge.html

 

New thread opened to discuss the OCZ firmware for the Vertex 3 drives: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/578376-vertex-3-fix-sandy-bridge.html

 

My first R3 had no vertex3 issues at all, but when I got my second one it refused to be stable and would tell me about damaged boot records and whatnot as soon as I rebooted after a clean Win7 install. Read this thread and swapped the drives putting the SSD in bay1 and the HDD in bay0. Set boot from second drive and AHCI mode, installed windows and everything is well. Strange stuff, I guess bay0 doesn't like the vertex3.

 

Give the application admin rights and set compatibility mode to Windows Vista SP2...see if that helps.

 

I get an error message telling me I cannot update the primary drive. Do I need to boot from some other device? How have you guys handled this? I saw some info on creating a Linux boot image on a USB device, sounds like a pain in the butt to me ...

By the way ruderthanyou, your tips for getting the toolbox to run worked perfectly, thanks for the tips!

 

Hello,

I just got a brand new laptop with two Vertex 3 SSDs, newest firmware. First, you are correct that you cannot update the boot drive: you must boot off a different drive.

Second, after updating, the toolbox v2.36 still does not recognize the Vertex 3 drives.

R

 

Azureal, do you have another machine that you can use? I used my old Gateway P7805 and attached my Vertex 3 through a USB hub I have. That worked perfectly.

It solved my boot issues and most of my stuttering problems. I didn't remove the registry fix but I still seem to stutter every once in a while though.

 

Try to run it as administrator in xp compatibility mode on a OS booted from another drive.

 

Ok, good to know, I was not aware of that, but it makes perfect sense. I was able to run the toolbox using the compatability mode and running as administrator and see my attached Vertex 3 drive.

So I can put the vertex 3 into an external USB enclosure and flash it on another machine? I have several other laptops but I have no current desktop to attach it to an SATA controller. Thanks for the info!

Yep, this worked for me as well. Thanks for all of the advice folks.

 

I'm willing to create a boot disk to flash on my current machine but can't figure that one out either. There was a thread on their forums but it was confusing. Wasn't sure which distro to download or anything.

 

Yes, this is exactly how I ran it. I'm not sure if it matters which OS the flashing laptop is running. The one I used was running Win 7.

 

LV, do you have a USB enclosure that you can drop the Vertex 3 into? If you do, you could use your desktop to flash the new firmware into it.

 

Just as a side note, I applied the 2.06 firmware patch to my Vertex 3. I have still been stuttering. I checked my Events Viewer and saw I was getting the iaStor errors again. I rechecked my LPM registry edit and I think the firmware update had taken it out because when I did it originally I had checked to make sure it was actually showing up in the registry. Hopefully, this will fix the stuttering.

 

After tweaking and changing settings for over a month, I've finally gotten everything squared away and stutter free. However, I noticed something funny in my settings. After following the directions in this thread for the initial Windows installation (starting in AHCI and then switching to RAID during the first load), I was checking the SSD optimizations and noticed that the laptop was not running in AHCI mode as it should be. I checked using the SSD Optimization guide found here:

The SSD Optimization Guide | The SSD Review

I noticed my AS-SSD benchmarks actually improved quite a bit after I made the registry change. Has anyone else noticed that they were not in AHCI mode either? Did mine just setup that way via a fluke in the installation process?

 

New 2.08 firmware has been released.

OCZ Technology

 

Okay, so I got a Vertex 3 240gb OEM drive with firmware 2.11 and I seem to be able to install it in AHCI without setting BIOS back to RAID during the first reboot.