News - OCZ rolls out its quickest MLC-based SSD to date: the Vertex Limited Edition

[HEXUS]

Available only for a limited time, likely to cost a small fortune, but certain to be blazing fast.

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[cordas]

I want.... but not at the price they are asking. I just can't wait for these things to drop to less that £1 per GB, and I can only dream what speeds they will be achieving by the time they get there.

[Infinite]

Not sure why the call it "limited edition". There is already a thread about it on OCZ forum. It is using the Sandforce controller. Seems to be like a pre-launch "test" batch of Vertex2

[TheAnimus]

Actually that price is coming down quite a bit.

I paid (well the firm I was working for at the time, but it was my cost centre) more than the price of the 200gig one, for a slower 32gig one, which was amazing performance boost for this server. (allowed me also to write sloppier code!).

Its not *that* bad.

[cordas]

I know the price is coming down (with both capacity and performance increasing at the same time), but until its under £1 per GB I doubt SSDs will be anything but a tiny niche product. Even at my buy in price I suspect they will still be far from the mainstream. For them to look to replace HDDs in anything but the most expensive kit they are going to need to be 20-30p per gb.

My ideal system at the moment would have a ~100gb SSD for my operating system, some frequently used apps with long load times and games, with xTB HDD for data storage that doesn't need the speed bump that a SSD gives. I can't see many Dell or other OEM brands selling such machines to the mainstream market.

[jim]

I can't see many Dell or other OEM brands selling such machines to the mainstream market.

Primarily because nobody would understand the idea of multiple hard drives. People store junk everywhere, on the desktop, in the root, in their documents.

One of my dad's mates asked me to look at his PC because it was completely out of disk space - turns out the bloke who sold him it had partitioned off the hard drive - 25GB for OS, 100GB or so for data. Of course, he had no idea, so his photos, music, videos went in to C:\Documents and Settings\etc and combined with software into C:\Program Files\ very quickly the whole lot had gone, with acres of space sitting in D:\

It would never work.

[Funkstar]

What snootyjim said

The only way you are going to get the speed benefits of SSDs on mainstream systems without the massive cost is to use the SSDs are some kind of transparent cache for root, os and apps in that order, dropping things out of the cache when there isn't enough space.

[cordas]

What snootyjim said

The only way you are going to get the speed benefits of SSDs on mainstream systems without the massive cost is to use the SSDs are some kind of transparent cache for root, os and apps in that order, dropping things out of the cache when there isn't enough space.

Or for the price of SSDs to drop to the point where they are cost effective to place in machines... which I think will probably when they hit about 20-30p per GB.

Windows 7 doesn't support that kind of transparency required to allow manufacturers to put both SSD and HDDs in the same machine and have them function in a way that most users will understand. If MS moved to a linux style file system/partitioning then it would be doable, but i see hell freezing over first.

[jim]

Or for the price of SSDs to drop to the point where they are cost effective to place in machines... which I think will probably when they hit about 20-30p per GB.

Windows 7 doesn't support that kind of transparency required to allow manufacturers to put both SSD and HDDs in the same machine and have them function in a way that most users will understand. If MS moved to a linux style file system/partitioning then it would be doable, but i see hell freezing over first.

It would be a hardware solution rather than software, like that dual drive released recently. I agree though, I doubt it will be a hit until you can have a solely SSD computer. I'm waiting until then to do my machine anyway, I've got no interest in speeding up Windows and Office and then having all my games run at normal HDD speed.

[scaryjim]

It would be a hardware solution rather than software, like that dual drive released recently.

Indeed, I'm surprised more hardware manufacturers aren't thinking along those lines already. I'd be amazed if you couldn't squeeze the hardware for a low-capacity (say, 16GB) SSD into an existing 3.5" drive: if you used 2.5" platters you could easily do it. The trick would be getting the controller right: I imagine managing a permanent cache in an efficient way is non-trivial. If they could get it right, though, you could be looking at a 1TB drive with most of the performance benefits of an SSD. The real problem with that whole concept, though, is that you still need to put both SSD and HDD hardware into a case, so you're going to be looking at a cost not dissimilar to paying for one of each drive type. It would make much more sense for the mainstream market though.

[MadduckUK]

it was called hybrid ssd, it was championed by intel for a while, now it has gone eerily quiet. i guess hybrid drives would have been good enough for most people and stopped a lot of ssd sales so they killed it

[Kumagoro]

I would liked to have had a hybrid drive for the laptop. 40 Gb SSD and 500 GB would be nifty and
I think I would pay £120-£150 for something like that.

[[GSV]Trig]

Typical of OCZ tbh, they'll release newer faster stuff now and then that tech will filter down to the cheaper drives...

atm I have a pair of 60gb drives, a vertex for boot and an agility for data/games, everything else is on my server, keeps it all nice and fresh, I could use my old 30gb as a temp drive for best speed (60 os, 60 data, 30 swap/temp) but I think it'd be better in the laptop...

[0iD]

It's nice to see the capacity of SSD's start to creep up to a reasonable size imo. However, as I've said before, it's new tech & the early adopters are going to be penalised, left in 12-18 months with second class kit worth only a tiny fraction of what they initially paid for it.

I like the speed, the reliability, and the noiseless of SSD's, but not for me yet. Look how expensive 1Tb HDD's were when they first emerged & look how much cheaper and more reliable they are now. I shall wait till advances in technology & manufacturing procedures, coupled with an increase in production eventually drive prices down & capacities up.

[TooNice]

Not sure why the call it "limited edition". There is already a thread about it on OCZ forum. It is using the Sandforce controller. Seems to be like a pre-launch "test" batch of Vertex2

Because apparently the Sandforce SF-1500 is too expensive, so OCZ is dropping it (and the Vertex 2 Pro with it). http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sho...spx?i=3747&p=1

On the subject of reliability, well, the Vertex 2 Pro Anandtech received died some time after the review. So yeah, as a technology, the potential for reliability over mechanical drives may be there, but it might be offset by the lack of maturity.

And as for hybrids drives, the first (only?) drives were simply not that great (couldn't consistently beat mechanical drives - and I am not even referring to Raptor class) and it wasn't given a second chance.

[ayembee]

Certainly is quick -- quick to turn into a brick. Lasted 6 days, now it's dead. Not even recognised by the BIOS; not exactly what you expect for your $1000... Fingers crossed it can be revived.