Only a little while ago we visited OCZ at CES and they showed us some of their upcoming solid state drives. These new drives feature the SandForce SF-2200 controller and boast blistering fast speeds. OCZ has been at the forefront of SSD technology and this year they are going to be releasing a ton of new drives. One of the first drives based on the new SandForce SF-2200 controller is the Vertex 3. This drive has a max read of 550MB/s and max write of 525MB/s! Those are some of the fastest advertised speeds we have seen in a consumer drive! OCZ was nice enough to send us an engineering sample version of the drive with BETA firmware on it, so let’s take a look!
Performance Specifications
– Max Read: 550 MB/s
– Max Write: 525 MB/s
– 4KB Random Write (aligned): Up to 60,000 IOPS
– *Achieved on Intel Sandy Bridge platform which is recommended to show full potential of the drive
Key Features
– SATA III / 6Gbps
– Implements SandForce 2281 Client SSD Processor
– Enhanced BCH ECC capability
– Supports SATA-7 Security Erase
– Efficient Write Amplification Factor of less than 1 (4K database transfer workload)
– Significantly improved performance over previous generation
– Delivers 20% faster IOPS, and 40% faster sequential read/write throughputs
– Consumer solution that implements cost-effective2Xnm MLC NAND Flash to deliver an excellent balance of performance and reliability
– MTBF: 2 Million Hours
– 3 Year Warranty
Packaging
This is a BETA version of the drive so there is no real retail packaging. It just comes in a cardboard box. Inside you will find the drive in an anti-static bag.

