OCZ Vector 180 960GB SSDs in RAID 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

It was a pleasure to have the OCZ Vector 180 SSDs on the test bench once again, and even more at the performance we saw. Whether you want to go for data protection, extra speed and performance, or just a bigger single drive; the result will be a great one.

The Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller and Toshiba A19nm MLC NAND also performed a great job in the RAID setups. We saw sequential speeds that got very close to the 1100MB/s mark at both reading and writing operations, depending on setup and test. The random 4K performance went all the way up to 166K IOPS which is quite nice too. Getting a setup like this won’t be the cheapest on the block, but you get a lot of capacity and superb performance for your money.

Drive features include 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 drive is one we can expect to last a long time with the official endurance rating of 50GB per day. The OCZ Vector 180 comes with both a 3.5-inch adapter bracket and Acronis True Image disk cloning software. When we coupled all that with OCZ 5-year ShieldPlus warranty, then we know that we have an amazing drive in our hands.

Pros

• Great speeds and endurance, also in RAID
• 3.5-inch adapter & Acronis True Image included
• 5-year ShieldPlus Warranty
• Good price

Cons

• Getting two of these drives might be too costly

“The OCZ Vector 180 960GB more than convinced us once again. They performed great in RAID setups where they doubled the performance as they should. Definitely a drive worth buying.”

OCZ Vector 180 960GB SSDs in RAID Review

Thanks to OCZ for providing us with these test samples