OCZ Vector 256GB Solid State Drive Review

Final Thoughts
If the Vector was the last ditch effort of a dying company it would be a valiant one, but I don’t see OCZ going anywhere.  The Barefoot 3 controller is what OCZ has been working towards for the past few years.  This is why they made the acquisitions they did and I am sure it is going to pay off.  Up until now OCZ used other companies technologies in their solid state drives, much like everyone else in the space.  Doing that it is really hard to stay competitive, I mean look at all the SandForce-based drives, they are basically all the same.  It has been a long rocky journey for OCZ but the Barefoot 3 controller is here, designed completely in-house by OCZ.

The Vector drive sits as OCZ’s new flagship drive and they definitely have a winner here.  As far as performance goes the Vector scored top marks in many of our tests.  One thing I really noticed when testing the Vector was how constant the data transfer was, it did not jump around a lot at all.  This really says a lot for the Barefoot 3 controller.  Another thing you don’t have to worry about is a loss in performance when it comes to incompressible data.  SandForce-based drives have this issue, but the Vector Barefoot3-based drive does not.  In ATTO Disk Benchmark the Vector scored read and write scores of 556MB/s and 534MB/s respectively.

A great surprise with the Vector drive was the new branding and design on the casing.  There is a new sticker that covers the entire drive and just looks great.  The casing now has a cool aluminum look as well.  OCZ does not skimp on accessories either.  Included with the Vector drive you have a 2.5-inch drive adapter, Acronis True Image Software and of course a cool sticker.  Not only that OCZ’s SSD tool can be downloaded it makes it very easy to update the firmware on the drive and perform a secure erase.

I think that the Vector is a step back in the right direction for OCZ.  It has everything you would expect from OCZ before they got into their troubles, great performance, great quality and a good price.  Talking about the price the Vector 256GB which review today is selling at my favorite online retailer for 269.99 and it does come with a 5 year warranty.  Overall ThinkComputers gives the OCZ Vector 256GB Solid State Drive a 10 out of 10 score and our Editor’s Choice Award!

rating10 10 small TC award editorschoice small

Pros:
– Great performance
– Solid data transfer performance
– Acronis True Image software included
– Does not have the incompressible data issue like SandForce drives
– 5 year warranty

Cons:
– None that I found

About Author