OCZ Vertex 5 Series of SSDs Detailed

OCZ’s Vertex series of SSDs have been highly popular with enthusiasts, particularly their Vertex 4 series which managed to drop the “bad name” that the early Vertex 3 series units had, prevalent failures and causing bluescreens. This is because it made the transition from a Sandforce controller to an Indilinx controller. Their new series, expected to be the Vertex 5 and following on from the Vertex 4 SSDs, is going to fall in between the Vertex 4 and Vector in terms of performance. Currently OCZ’s flagship is the OCZ Vector series which uses their latest Barefoot controller.

The new Vertex 5 series of SSDs is expected to be available in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities. These capacities signal that over-provisioning is not present meaning as expected a Sandforce controller isn’t being used, instead the Vertex 5 series uses the Barefoot 3.0 Indilinx controller that is found on the Vector series. Performance is expected to be around 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write meaning it won’t compete with the OCZ Vector or Samsung 840 Pro.

The OCZ Vertex 5 is expected to use the latest 20nm NAND MLC chips that are produced by a third party for OCZ then branded and labelled in-house, this NAND is actually newer than that found in both the Vertex 4 and Vector series. OCZ are expected to continue to sell the Vertex 4 except they will offer a price cut on it until supplies run out and then they will probably end production. Production has already begun and we can expect a launch sometime at the end of Q2. Apparently OCZ are axing the 64GB model from the Vertex 5 series.

Are you interested in OCZ’s new Vertex 5? Will you be buying one? Do you already own a Vector, Vertex 2,3 or 4 SSD? What do you think of it?

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