Terminal Thoughts

Although it'south however early in the year and nosotros anticipated information technology was going to become decorated with new generation solid country drives, the OCZ Vertex iii is going to be the one to beat. The Intel SSD 320 series is limited to SATA 3Gb/s and therefore stands no risk in the performance department, while the highly regarded Crucial RealSSD C300 simply looked outdated. Nosotros'll accept to bank check out Crucial'south new m4 before we tin can laissez passer last judgment on where the visitor stands, and nosotros plan to exercise so in the coming weeks.

Intel's 510 Series (Elm Crest) is likewise on our to-practise listing. This will be the side by side SSD we review, information technology's coming very soon, nosotros promise. At to the lowest degree on paper it appears the Intel 510 is in direct competition with the Vertex 3 as 120GB versions of both products are currently retailing for ~$300, while the 240GB Vertex 3 is about $50 cheaper.

OCZ is reportedly shipping the final Vertex 3 drives to retailers as we publish this, though most stores appear to be out of stock. If we could get the Vertex 3 120GB downward to the suggested $249 list price whatsoever time soon, that drive would exist a steal when you lot consider that Intel's SSD 320 120GB is currently selling for $239. Based on reviews we've seen elsewhere, Crucial's m4 doesn't offer much of a performance gain over the existing RealSSD C300 and its 128GB model is also meant to sell for $250.

In that location's one thing nosotros know for certain: you shouldn't fifty-fifty consider the Vertex 3 unless you have a quality SATA 6Gb/due south controller, otherwise its operation will exist severely hampered. Folks with new Intel Sandy Bridge-based machines will exist able to fully use the drive, as will those who accept recently purchased a motherboard that features the updated Marvell 88SE9182 controller.

After suffering the pains of hard bulldoze upgrades that offered modest performance bumps, say when going from 7,200 RPM to 10,000 RPM HDDs (and still paying a ton for the luxury), it seems incredible to think that in only 1 year SandForce has updated its controller to roughly double the operation of its predecessor.

Outstanding product: OCZ Vertex three 240GB SSD

Solid country drive technology is still far from becoming mainstream, only the introduction of faster SATA 6Gb/s drives will surely aid to push down the toll of slower products like the Vertex 2. Previous generation 3Gb/s drives still provide considerable performance gains over hard disk drives and as nosotros've been saying for years, they're the single best upgrade yous tin brand for improving accommodating performance.