Hi MDL, recently I read somewhere that OCZ was producing their Vertex 2 Extended series with 25nm MLC instead of 34. This would make the disks cheaper but it turned out the performance and capacity were worse than with the 34nm chips. As I'm currently deciding which SSD to buy I'd like some questions answered, I hope you can help me with that 1. I read somewhere that OCZ was correcting this issue, but the source was questionable. Is it true that they have fixed the issue with new 25nm chips (or otherwise)? 2. Is there any way to tell whether a disk will have this issue before buying it? Thanks
I don't know what your system specs are but looking foward I'd look at the newer SATA 3 6gb/s SSDs that are backward compatable the SATA 2.At some point you will upgrade to a PC with SATA 3 support? I own 2 OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs with 34nm chips and they work great on SATA 2 controllers but I wouldn't buy a SATA 2 SSD any longer because there's add in PCI-e SATA 3 cards to run a SATA 3 SSDs off of.There's a big speed and performance difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 SSDs. The add in cards with Marvell controllers don't perform as well as embedded SATA 3 in Intel series 6 chipsets. If I were you I'd look at the Intel 510 series(34nm chips),Crucial M4,OCZ Vertex 3 or Corsair F series of SATA 3.0 SSDs. If you're dead set on a SATA 2 SSD then the Intel 320 series with Intel controller should be at the top of your list. If the SSD is for a pre Sandy Bridge laptop then the Intel 320 is my recommendation.
The only way to determine that is the serial number of the SSD and a support email sent to OCZ. Or to post a thread at OCZ forums. I have to disagree with some points. SATA3.0 SSD's don't have to be faster. There are manufacturers fooling potential customers with 'SATA-3' label. Intel drives are too expensive. And not really faster therefore. IMHO a waste of money since the development of new SSD's progresses fastly. Price collapse is immense. To get best value for your money you should consider to buy a fast SATA-2 drive. (Or if a SATA3 then OCZ vetex 3, here I agree with it.) Think about for what you need it (sys drive only or storage device)! (Capacity) The boot time of a fast SATA3 SSD is not really shorter than the time of a Vertex 2 SSD, for instance. I'd go for a sandforce controller.