OCZ Boosts Vertex 4 SSD Performance with New Firmware; Launches 64GB Model

OCZ today is throwing Vertex 4 solid state drive (SSD) owners a bone with release candidate firmware v1.4RC, which "dramatically improves" performance, the company said. And by that, OCZ means it nearly doubles the sequential write performance for lower capacity models and boosts sequential read performance at low queue depths. General performance is improved too, OCZ says.

Here's a look at how it breaks down when applying the new firmware:

• 128GB Max Read: 535MB/s --> 550MB/s
• 128GB Max Write: 200MB/s --> 420MB/s
• 256GB Max Read: 535MB/s --> 550MB/s
• 256GB Max Write: 380MB/s --> 465MB/s
• 512GB Max Read: 535MB/s --> 550MB/s
• 512GB Max Write: 475MB/s --> 475MB/s

 

"OCZ strives to deliver new features and superior performance with our premium Vertex 4 solid state drives by continuing to enhance our firmware and making those improvements available to all our valued customers," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "With firmware v1.4, OCZ continues to fulfill its promise of delivering the most innovative, and highest performing SSDs on the market, regardless of file and data type, I/O workload, queue depth, and drive capacity."

In addition to new firmware, OCZ also added a new 64GB model to the Vertex 4 family. These drives will be available in the coming weeks (no word yet on price). The updated firmware is available right now via OCZ's website.

We did some testing after updating our 256GB and 512GB Vertex 4 drives and can corroborate OCZ's claims of improved performance. Here are a couple of before and after benchmarks comparing the Vertex 4 with the latest 1.4RC firmware, versus the OCZ Octane and Vertex 3 drives...

As you can see, the 256GB drive shows a huge improvement in write performance, while read performance is slightly better or unchanged depending on the transfer size. The 512GB drive also shows minor performance improvements in both the read and write tests.