OCZ Vector 180 960GB Solid State Drive Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The review is being released at the same time as the drive which means that the prices will be the recommended manufacturers price and actual store prices may vary. We will update this part of the review once the shops have it available. The tested OCZ Vector 180 960GB SSD comes with a £429.99 MSRP which is pretty good for an entry-level server SSD. The 480GB will cost you £224.99, the 240GB £119.99, and the 120GB model can be yours for £74.99.

Conclusion

The Vector 180 is OCZ’s new mainstream performance drive that is perfect as entry-level server SSD. It is also a drive that lives up to the category with both performance and reliability. We saw a great performance throughout the benchmarks with transfer speeds peaking at 550MB/s at reading and 510MB/S at writing – just as advertised. The random read performance was equally impressive with up to 95K IOPS.

The outer design follows OCZ line with a simple sticker on the top, containing the company logo and drive series name in the series colour, in this case it is black. The information sticker is located on the bottom of the drive and it contains everything we could need on relevant drive information such as firmware it was shipped with, serial numbers, capacity and so forth.

OCZ’s Vector 180 has the great Indilinx Barefoot 3 SSD controller in the heart of the drive which is coupled with Toshiba’s latest A19nm NAND chips. This combination will not only give you a great performing drive, but also one that will last for a long time. It comes with almost all the features you could want, including S.M.A.R.T., Trim, Garbage collection, and Power Failure Management Plus protection. The PFM+ is a great safety that prevents excessive data loss in the event of a power failure as well as protecting the drive itself from being damaged. The only thing that is missing a little bit, is the DevSLEEP power saving function. On the other hand, it isn’t really relevant to a drive that is aimed at the home performance PCs and servers rather than ultrabooks and laptops.

The endurance of the drive becomes clear when we see the 50GB/day rating. When we coupled that with OCZ 5-year ShieldPlus warranty, you know you have a drive that will last a long time and that’s easily replaced if it should fail.

OCZ always packs a great bundle for you and it’s no different with the Vector 180 drive as it comes with both a 3.5-inch adapter bracket and a copy of the Acronis True Image disk cloning software. I’m seriously considering replacing my current boot drive with the Vector 180.

Pros

• Great speeds and endurance
• 3.5-inch adapter included
• Acronis True Image disk cloning software
• 5-year ShieldPlus Warranty
• Good price

Neutral

• Occasional speed drops in ATTO. This is due to the new PFM+ mechanism and something that’s only visible in the synthetic benchmarks. It has no effect on the real-world performance.

“OCZ’s Vector 180 960GB is a great performing drive that doesn’t just come with a big endurance rating, but one that’s also backed for 5 years with one of the markets best warranty options.”

Thanks to OCZ for providing us with this sample