The Vertex 3 series is made of MLC NAND Flash and uses SATA III

Feb 19, 2013 16:03 GMT  ·  By

A new solid state drive line has been launched by OCZ Technology Group, one that comes in 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB capacities.

Called Vertex 3, they use LSI's SandForce SF-2200 controller chip, which is why they achieve transfer speeds of 550 MB/s when reading and 530 MB/s when writing.

On that note, random read performance is of up to 35,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second) and random write performance goes up to 65,000 IOPS.

The SATA III interface (SATA 6.0 Gbps) is what allows those high numbers.

As for the memory itself, OCZ chose to employ 20nm MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash units.

OCZ did not specify a price for its 20nm-based SSDs, but it did, at least, publish the product page. The 480 GB drive will take more time to start shipping than the other two.