So what exactly is wrong with Vertex 3s?

I'm owner of a desktop with a Vertex 2 60gb drive, and it has been running great , never failing.
I've read people talking about how the Vertex 3s have reliability issues over other brands. I'm considering getting the Vertex 3 120g drive as a primary drive for my next laptop, so I'd like to know the situation on these drives.

 

Horrible, just horrible
Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

4/5 seems at least respectable.

 

From my research it seems that the sandforce controllers have serious compatability issues with many laptop implementations of h65 and 67. I'll take this over to the clevo forums to see what the situation is ATM on that implementation.

 

Really? What about the previous drives from that series, Vertex 2? They were also if not more plagued with problems, and was released around the same time as HM55 chipset. And, are notebook users the only one experiencing these problems? No they are not, and that means that the Sandforce drives also have compatible problems with desktop chipsets....
Don`t sandforce learn from their mistakes, OR maybe, just maybe they see some gain in pushing out drives with unfinished firmware just to be the first one out and to keep repeating the same "a new firmware that will take care of problem A and B will arrive shortly" to people who want to RMA their SSDs. Or maybe, just maybe there are enough short sighted people with enough money to buy their products. You know, speed and scores in tests like crystaldiskmark is more than enough to lure people in...

Here are OCZ fine history in terms of feedbacks from users.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227552
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227551

 

The Sandforce controller on the Vertex 3's has known issues to cause BSOD's. There is no question that the controller is FAST, but the issues cause many owners "Headaches" OCZ has the first right of updates with Sandforce for firmware...but even with the mods made...the controller still suffers from issues.

Most reliable drives for SATA III right now. Intel 510 series or Crucial M4 / C300 series. These drives use the Marvel controller, which suffers from very few, if any issues. Kingston just released the HyperX series with Sandforce...time will tell if they figured something out that neither OCZ, Corsair or the likes who use Sandforce have not...

 

I'm very surprised at the amount of people that are having issues with their vertex 2s and moreover their vertex 3s in so many implementations... I personally have a vertex 2 that has been running perfectly(electrical taped to my case XD) for the past 3 months. I will most likely be going the Crucial M4 route, even though performance is honestly embarassingly low(read speeds seem be alright if the drive isn't populated, with write speeds just a tad bit faster than my 60g vertex 2, but with a fully populated drive, the read and write speeds drop so much). Oh well, shame that OCz messed up so hard on the sandforce implementation. I'll see what I get from the clevo forums as far as that particular implementation of the h67 before I make a final decision on this.

 

Oh, Vertex 2 is rather fine, if a bit slow after prolonged useage without a secure erase. However, Vertex 3... is known to have problems.

 

vertex 2 is rather fine ? I would stick with my analogy of peanut(which I don't understand why it is deleted). For those that is not allergic to peanut, it is fine. For those who does, it can be deadly. Same goes for SF. If it doesn't show problem, it is fine. If it does(and the percentage is relatively large, just like peanut where it warrants label warnings), it is deadly and in general not fixable(i.e. RMA would cause you the same issue).

 

the company called ocz is a big problem in itself. liars, cheaters, bad support, and have i said liars? oh, liars against customers btw.

the controller is a big problem in itself. it's performance oriented, not quality oriented. it gives you great benchmark numbers, but not that great overall usage performance. it is rather unstable (firmware dependent of course), and it's rather unpredictable. if you want something with predictable performance, don't get a sandforce.

it's shown to have a much higher failure rate than other drives.

it's something expensive. there are cheaper ssds, and more expensive ones. but it's in the luxus line. you don't want to buy a luxus article that is crap, then. you pay much for something that has some guarantees to work (or have at least great support).

just not worth the money. ocz as a company deserves to die. sandforce as an ssd controller deserves to fade out. and anyone not caring about reliability and quality at first, performance later, deserves to not have it's job anymore anyways.

 

You won't be surprised if all of a sudden your OCZ turns into a brick. Not much(zero, in fact) on these things going KABAM. At least, that was what happened with mine...

 

Indeed. Sandforce failed to learn lessons from last year, this year's generation is even worse in many ways, aside from the repeat from last year's "running along fine, then BOOM! random dead drive, you are now SOL" bit. That's a FEATURE they saved...

Agreed wholeheartedly. OCZ will do all they can to blame you and your hardware for the problems. They actually told me last year that an x48 chipset could not run a Vertex 2, so i should upgrade to a "modern" system. Riiiiight, I should spend more than the drive itself cost to get a system that is 5-10% faster than what I had. I nearly RMA'd right there, but conned the drive into working. Since then I have learned that I am not alone and that OCZ refuses to acknowledge any problems.

To be fair, OCZ is likely tired of all the trouble with Sandforce drives, as it is the controller with issues, and they don't make the controllers. However, their handling of the issue is shocking, and honestly they do deserve to die out in that regard.

Just stick with Intel or Crucial for SATA 3 (6Gbps) SSDs, and Samsung is worthy in the SATA 2 market too. Soon their will be the new Samsung drive, time will tell how that works out. The same for the new Kingston, time shall tell. But it's going to have to try REAL hard to be a bigger disaster than Sandforce has proven itself to be.

 

What's wrong with Vertex 3?
-Questionable reliability track record
-Often sloppy firmware updates
-Performance drops with incompressible data

Crucial M4 is cheaper, more reliable and, with the latest firmware, faster.
Crucial m4 Trace-based benchmarks | Core | Tweakers.net Reviews

That's what it seems like on the surface. 33% of the people gave it a one or two star rating. People usually only give one or two star ratings if they experience serious problems.

As long as you don't fill the M4 beyond 90% it's way faster than Vertex 2 and with the latest firmware it's also faster than Vertex 3.

 

Although those tests are only using one program that I've never heard of to test performance on a scale that doesn't really mean much to me, it's still interesting to see the M4 top the V3... In any case, that R/W performance should be enough for me, but those tests seem to be somewhat biased because they test it on some sort of indexing system per usage type instead of the regular 4k/8k/sequential/etc read/write tests that typically complement the index based tests. Weird tests, but the fact that I wouldn't be taking a risk is reason enough.

 

Their test setup plays back traces of applications that are common to the environment. For example the Desktop benchmark uses Adobe Photoshop and Sony Vegas Pro. The Home & Office benchmark probably uses MS Office and other apps.

I prefer their benchmarks over Anand's because theirs are real time.

 

Yea, the Crucial M4 was actually dang close to the Vertex 3 in REAL_WORLD usage even before firmware 0009, and this had been shown by several sites using different typical-usage tests. The only places you really see the Vertex win are synthetic benchmarks that don't tell the whole story. Factor in how they tend to fail suddenly and for no reason, and Sandforce just ignores the trouble and releases new controllers with even more issues, and you have a very compelling reason to avoid all Sandforce drives. This means more than just the Vertex 3, but the Agility 3, the Force 3, and several others too.