OCZ SSD: Summit vs Vertex vs Agility

So I'm in the market for an SSD for my E4300 (specs in sig). I'm liking the things I hear about the OCZ brand.

I'm confused however; OCZ alone has so many different SSDs, I'm not sure what to think.

Initially I was looking at the Vertex series, but now they have other SSDs hitting the market.

So, what's the deal with each series? How are we to know which is better? Why one is cheaper/more expensive then the others (aside from storage capacity)?

Brains of NBR... HELP!!

 

I actually bypassed OCZ and bought a Super Talent ME 64gb drive for $149 off Newegg a few weeks ago (was a hot deal). It uses the same controller and memory as the OCZ Vertex and was much cheaper.

I found a great URL in the SSD thread about 3 weeks ago that compared all the various manufacturers, which controller they used, and what the models were named etc. It helped me greatly, but I can't find it right now, but maybe you'll have better luck.

FWIW, my SuperTalent drive is running great in my E4300, I think you'll like the upgrade a lot.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into it.

Getting an SSD and installing Windows 7 is my goal. I want a TRIM-capable SSD that can utilize Windows 7 appropriately.

 

The knock on the Summits is the early buyers got hosed because their SSDs shipped without garbage collection firmware and Samsung has yet to issue a flasher to update FW. All of the newer Summits are shipping with updated FW but they are selling at something of a discount to the Vertexes although the Summit seems to perform better. I think the Summit is the way to go right now for price/performance.

 

If you want to buy an SSD now then don't get one with a Samsung controller (ie:Summit) because Samsung has yet to release FW for TRIM although they are promising it to be released prior to W7 release.

 

Thanks for the tip. TRIM is a definite must. I guess that means I'll be waiting a while for SSD manufacturers get their FW updated.

 

If you want a TRIM-capable SSD go for the Intel G2 or the Vertex. Both drives would natively support TRIM by the time Windows 7 comes out. And I suggest going through this Article as well.

 

If you want to roll the dice on FW being released, the Samsung controller SSD's will probably be the most likely to be discounted.

 

Thanks for the link, Makaveli. I'll give it a read once I'm out of class.

 

It seems that a top controller like Samsung's controller and a cache of at least 128MB are very important for today's SSD performance.
From this point of view, Corsair P128, Vertex and Summit are comparable.
See here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/corsair-p128-ssd-review/2
and the other reviews as well.
Pay attention that you need a size of at least 120GB in order to get the 128MB cache. The 64GB version has a lower cache and therefore the write performance in much lower than that of its bigger siblings.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe as it is now ocz and the vertex to be precise is the only ssd on the market atm which has trim and background garbage collection baked into their firmware?
Making it especially nice for non win 7 os and raid setups.
Not sure if you can flash other ssds with a vertex firmware to get this working.

 

The 60gb OCZ Summit is supposed to have 128mb cache.

Manufacturer: OCZ Technology Memory Type: MLC-Flash
Capacity: 60GB Read: 220 MB/s
Edition: Summit Write: 125 MB/s
Form Factor: 2.5" Cache: 128MB
Case: N/A Package Type: OEM
Connectivity: 1 x SATA 3Gb/s

 

the OCZ Vertex is just an Indilinx controller drive. Any drive with that controller will have the same firmware support as an OCZ Vertex.

 

Indilinx drives have 64MB cache, it doesn't make it perform worse than Samsung's 128MB cache, so don't use that as a reference. Other than Indilinx drives, Intel G2 has TRIM capabilities and Samsung has something similar which restores performance.

 

I thought the background garbage collection firmware was/is developped by Ocz themselves.
Making it officially ocz only, ok you can flash it on other indilinx drives (i heard at least)but that would be kinda stealing the work ocz has done.
I guess a lot of people should thank ocz then hehe

 

Actually, from what i've read...Indilinx and OCZ are working in liaison with each other in making TRIM and these firmwares/updates etc. to the drives. But Indilinx are truly the ones who's creating TRIM while companies like OCZ test it. (See Here: Pg. 12 - 15) So any SSD with the Indilinx controller should support it. I know the Vertex does for sure.

 

Samsung has horrible IOPS performance if you read Anandtech's article.
128MB cache is not "very important" for all controllers, significance of cache size is dependent on the design of the controller. Intel does not have this large cache size yet is still king of random writes and IOPS, far destroying the Samsung 2nd gen controller. By your reasoning, the Indilinx and Intel G2 should be considerably slower since they only have 64MB and 32MB cache respectively. The Intel G1 only has 16MB. Only in sequential writes are the Intel's slower than the Samsung's. A major reason for having large caches is for random write performance, and the Samsung falls behind the other 2 in this respect.

 

So many conflicting posts in this thread...

Here's some PCM Vantage scores (total, from hardware.info and Tom's). Still a synthetic benchmark, but a pretty good one.

 

Anand has some good information in his most recent SSD article. It may be helpful to you, especially this page - http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=16

 

What I like about AnandTech's reviews is that he does his best to test drives under used/worst case scenarios. The idea being that any drive ought to be able to give you top performance out of the box, but where they really diverge is in their ability to continue to provide top performance 3, 6, 12, 24 months down the road. Since most of us don't buy these things quarterly, user experience inevitably will be closer to "used" than "new" performance.

We'll have a better idea after the major players implement TRIM support, but Anand's latest <s>review</s> <s>essay</s> thesis is really useful in this area.

What I get from it: don't consider garbage collection as a major selling point (if a selling point at all), and track prices on the Agility drive, which might be a really good value if OCZ really is committed to having several price points.

 

ran the pcmark vantage HDD suite scored 20561 with 60gb summit

 

That's good to know but I'm afraid Vantage scores can not be compared amongst different systems. The differences between Hardware.info and Tomshardware seem to confirm that.

 

I would agree with that, as there can be significant differences between tests on just my own system. You can scroll to the bottom to HDD suite and get a more detailed breakdown of the various tests in the HDD suite. Comparing the individual components might be more informative depending on the needs of the prospective buyer. I am thinking a quadcore processor would make a difference in these tests.

 

The important thing is that the write performance for 64GB SSDs is almost half for the 128GB SSDs, which may be a selling point for the later. My mistake was that I assumed that was due to the cache size without checking the specs again. I am not sure about random writes comparison info though.

 

The Samsung controlled drives have nuch slow small random writes than Indilinx based drives and Intel. Right now Intel G2 is the way to go for ~$230 unless you can get a killer deal on an indilinx drive. Samsung controlled drives don't make sense IMO as they are generally both slower and more expensive per gb than Indilinx/Intel.

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631

 

Actually, until recently, the 256GB Samsungs were the cheapest per GB (from Dell for $480 USD).

 

This is all you need to know:

1. Intel's drive is the best. But it's also expensive.

2. Indilinx controllers are second to Intel and they are better "bang for buck".

3. Samsung/JMicron controllers and everything else are crap.
(Edit: Correction here thanks to miro_gt: Samsungs are sub-par for SSDs compared to Intel/Indilinx, but still better than mechanical drives. JMicron, on the other hand, is crap And I'm actually not sure if there are any other companies who make these controllers, but since nobody here has heard of anything else it would be safe to assume that it would be a gamble and therefore crap )

4. To answer your question:

OCZ Vertex uses Indilinx controller with Samsung flash. Therefore this is the best OCZ drive. This will support TRIM with updated firmware.

OCZ Agility uses Indilinx controller with Intel or Toshiba 40nm flash. Therefore this is the 2nd best OCZ drive. The flash is slightly slower than Samung flash. This will also support TRIM with updated firmware.

OCZ Summit uses Samsung controller and it's crap compared to the other 2. And in terms of TRIM, this is your riskiest choice.

Random reads/writes are MUCH better on Indilinx drives than Samsung. Check out anandtech's review for the details.

 

It must have been real cold in Canada for you to write this ... or else

 

hahaha I will edit my post, I guess I should have put it this way:

-Samsung controllers are sub-par for SSDs, but are still better than mechanical drives

-JMicron controllers are crap

 

samsungs degrade down to hdd levels, as stated by anandtech. and paying much more for something that acts just as a hdd after some usage is just not worth it.

so while they are fine (just like hdds), they are crap in terms of performance/$ and in terms of what an ssd can deliver.

 

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The Summit SSD's original firmware was not addressing degradation, the firmware that new Summits are shipping with does have a type of garbage collection that works when the system is idle.



This is AFTER installing, Crysis, GTAIV, Microsoft Streets and Trips '09 with gps locator, pcmark vantage, 3dmark vantage and 3dmark06. When the drive was new it was consistently testing 20,000 pcmark hdd suite--now after 50% full it is consistently testing @+21,000 pcmark hdd suite. Does that sound like degradation?


just google "VBM18C1Q"

 

that gc collection doesn't matter. samsungs just don't perform well.

and worst case still is "like a hdd", which is way below what other ssds deliver.

i had two fresh new samsungs, both didn't perform well from the start. the mtrons before and the intels afterwards just worked much better out of the box (and still do).

so while the summit might be well enough for you (it's mostly better than a good hdd), it is not for me, as paying a lot of money means for me, getting a lot out of it. the samsungs didn't gave me "a lot", but just "a bit" of a gain over ordinary hdds. mtrons and intels give me lots of gain.

so the cost of a summit can not be justified. the cost of vertex or intel based (and slc drives), on the other hand, can.

 

Heres Toms Hardware PCMARK Vantage overall HDD suite for a number of SSD's on the market including OCZ Summit(doesn't say which firmware, assuming it's the old one) It should be noted that comparing scores across different systems produces inaccurate results but I highly doubt that they are testing on a notebook and their desktop is likely to have better hardware than my notebook. For all intents and purposes this comparison should be, "good enough"



Heres my hdd test suite overall score:


http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=220910
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcmv=220578

 

Hey daveperman, you can send your Samsung SSD's in to whatever vendor(ocz,corsair?) and they will flash the new firmware or you can wait till Samsung makes it public and you can flash them yourself.

Without the new firmware they don't even make good paperweights.

 

well, even with the new firmware, i wouldn't use it for more than a paperweight. they are not impressive at all, even in their best cases (fresh out of the box, os installed, and they perform 'meh'..).

no firmware can change that.

i will save it for a netbook laters, as they are still better than a hdd (cool, no noise, and stable when shaking or dropping). other than that, they are really nothing compared to my other ssds..

 

have you done any benchmarking with your SSD's daveperman?

I would very much like to see your pcmark vantage hdd suite results. Since my summit performs so poorly(maybe better than a hdd?) and only gets +21,000, your Intels should get some multiples of that right?

 

in benchmarks, the summit looked quite well. but that doesn't matter for me, as i don't care about benchmarks, but about actual, felt performance.

quick google on pcmark vantage:

computerbase.de

the intel there gets up to 36000?

from anandtech:

that's quite well, what's poor?

everything there..

 

I still think you should put up your own benchmarks instead of relying on possibly flawed tests retrieved from other sources. like I said, I think they are testing the Samsung drives with the old firmware. btw, your off the cuff dismissal of firmware,

doesn't make sense when you consider that most devices are a similar technology separated only by "firmware".

 

well, think what you want. i think, anandtech does it's job very well, and if you've actually read all of their work, you would think so, too.

and the new firmware won't bring a lower latency => no performance gain in usage.

and i've made my own benchmarks. it's just, they are on the samsungs right now, and i won't open my laptop again to switch, i nearly broke a one-month old 3000$+ laptop to fit in the intel ssd, i won't take it out again

 

Why even bother with the Samsung drives when the Indilinx drives cost the same? Even with the new Samsung firmware, Indilinx is still better.

And the only benchmarks that really matter are the 4KB random reads/writes. Most SSDs now have sequential speeds of 200+ MB/sec. So it's the random reads and writes that sets them apart in real-world usage.

The only way I'd ever get a Samsung is if it was similarly priced to a mechanical drive.

I'm gonna stick with my Seagate 7200.3 320GB until I let Intel and Indilinx fight it out a bit more I'm hoping to buy a 120GB or 160GB when they become a bit more reasonably priced...

 

I got two 60gb agilities on the way priced at $158 and $30 mail in rebates for each couldn't turn that down. i'm pretty confident that for gaming and level loading these two drives in RAID0 will beat any other $260 storage solution