Introduction

OCZ have targeted the SSD market in a more aggressive manner than any other manufacturer in the last 12 months, they also halved the retail prices with the release of the Core series, followed by the release of the Core V2 series which utilized a second revision JMicron controller a month later.

After Intel released expensive faster drives, OCZ developed the Apex series drives which utilized two JMicron controllers paired together via a integrated RAID chip and offered them at much lower retail prices. But as enthusiasts began feeling uneasy about buying drives utilizing JMicron chips and Intel made bold price drops, OCZ felt that a new high performance SSD was necessary.

Today we will have a look at a SSD drive from their latest series which aims to compete directly against Intel's MLC drives, the Vertex. The Vertex not only utilizes a different controller than its predecessors, it also has a 64MB on-board cache which helps it achieve even higher performance levels. We will thoroughly test it in this review and compare it against its cheaper Apex sibling, as well as wide range of mechanical drives.

Manufacturer's Features & Specifications

- Capacity: 120GB
- Cache: 64MB
- Read: Up to 200MB/sec
- Write: Up to 160MB/sec
- NAND Flash: Multi-Level Cell (MLC)
- Interface: SATA-II
- Low Power Consumption
- Lightweight (77g)
- Shock Resistant
- Warranty: 2 Years