New, Compact and Fast OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs Inbound

It appears that OCZ has more than one product that is set to leave its labs soon, in this instance a number of new additions to the now well known Vertex 3 series of solid state drives.

With the 2011 edition of the Computex trade show underway, OCZ, naturally, delivered a number of new products while previewing others.

One of them is the world's first SD/HDD hybrid designed for the PCI Express interface, a product that we covered here.

Turns out that there are other storage devices on their way to the market, although they are more or less regular solid state drives instead of mergers like the one above.

Reports say that the Vertex 3 series will soon grow by several members, all of which will utilize MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips.

Also, the newcomers will boast the SandForce SF-2281 controller, leading to read speeds of up to 550 MB/s.

Needless to say, that performance is nothing to frown upon, although it does rely on the SATA 6.0 Gbps interface standard.

That said, there will be both 3.5-inch and 1.8-inch drives, each with their capacity and write speed limits.

The former are, naturally, the ones with more storage potential, their maximum capacity being of 480 GB, while the 1.8-inch ones have an upper limit of 320 GB.

Finally, in that same order, they can write data at 525 MB/s and 500 MB/s, respectively.

Needless to say, the mere fact that some use the 3.5-inch form factor will be enough of a head turner once these Vertex 3 products finally arrive, since most SSDs nowadays, including the original Vertex 3, have the 2.5-inch size, meaning that they are best suited for notebooks and need special brackets to serve desktops.

Unfortunately, there was no mention of pricing or availability, so consumers will have to wait before deciding if the drives are appealing enough.