14 DAY TRIAL // Famous SSD manufacturer OCZ Technology Group, Inc. has just announced the launch of the new release candidate firmware v1.4RC, which dramatically improves the performance of its Vertex 4 SATA 3.0 Series SSDs.
The most significant improvement is the fact that v1.4RC nearly doubles sequential write performance for lower capacity models and significantly boosts sequential read performance at low queue depths.
This will improve general performance under real-world workloads comprising mixed reads and writes. Most likely, the average speed when copying a huge file such as a blu-ray disc image, the copy speed can now surpass 250 MB/s.
Generally, it depends on how fragmented the drive is, but SSDs are much less affected by fragmentation when compared to HDDs.
OCZ modestly says in the press release:
“Despite already achieving breakthrough levels of performance with its flagship Vertex 4, OCZ has taken aggressive strides to further distance itself from the competition and to maintain its undisputed leadership in SSD technology.”
The flagship model is largely unaffected by the sequential performance improvements, but the 128 GB model’s improvement is impressive.
When reading, the 128 GB Vertex 4 can reach a high speed of 550 MB/s. That’s just a 2.8 % improvement, but when writing it will go from 200 MB/s with the current firmware, to a high 420 MB/s.
That’s a 110% performance improvement bringing the performance level to a total of 210% when compared to the default shipping firmware.
The v1.4RC has incorporated a predictive read algorithm which anticipates and responds to commands not yet issued by the host.
Moreover, the new firmware performs more consistently under mixed read-write workloads, increases general stability, and improves compatibility with less-prevalent host chipsets.
They could, on the other hand, reduce the prices a bit, considering that the Crucial M4 356 GB has reached an all-time low.
