OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive Review

OCZ Vertex 3 Overview
Once again this is a pre-release engineering sample of the drive so the drive itself is plain.  OCZ is still using the same 2.5-inch form factor as most of their solid state drives.  The drive has a black aluminum casing.

OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive

Flipping the drive over it is also plain except for a sticker showing the serial number etc.  Just like all SATA drives on the back you have your power and data connections.

OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive

Ok so I know you’ve been waiting for this, let’s open the drive up.  To do so just remove the 4 small screws on the back of the drive.  Once you do that carefully remove the backside of the drive to reveal the green PCB on the inside.

OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive

The first thing that stands out when you open the drive is the SF-2200 controller, which sits towards the center of the drive.  The SF-2281VA1-SDC-ES chip boasts read speeds of 550MB/s, write speeds of 525MB/s and 60K+ IOPS!  Moving on down the drive you have 8 MLC flash NAND chips.

OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive

If we remove 4 more screws we can take the entire PCB out to reveal 8 more flash chips on the back.  They are labeled 29F128G08CFAAB, I really could not find out much information on these chips, but OCZ tells us they are the new Micron 2Xnm NAND components.  Each of the 16 chips have a 16GB capacity, giving you a total of 256GB.  The drive is advertised as a 240GB drive, so the extra space is left over for over provisioning.

OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Solid State Drive

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