Jumbo-capacity SSDs, at some level, have
never quite been able to shake the niche label. When SSDs first became a
realistic option for power users, the cost per gigabyte of even MLC NAND was
still high enough that drives over 200GB were a pricey proposition. As such,
most pennywise power users learned to buy just enough solid-state storage to do
the most damage for their dollar. The early days of consumer SSDs conditioned
us to buy drives for the really important stuff Windows and a game, maybe two
games if you were lucky. The rest of our digital stuff had to make do with good
old-fashioned magnetic storage.
OCZ
Vector 512GB
It didn’t help that some truly massive SSDs
actually performed worse than their smaller counterparts in certain operations.
Having a single large SSD that lags behind its smaller siblings is not exactly
what we’d call a winning proposition.
But now OCZ is here to change your mind
with its biggest Vector. At 512GB, this SSD is large and in charge. The drive
has the same DNA as the 256GB Vector that we reviewed last month. For a quick
refresher, OCZ’s Vector drives bring to the table the Barefoot 3 controller, a
product of OCZ’s 2011 acquisition of Indilinx. What’s noteworthy about the
Barefoot 3 is that OCZ developed the entire controller under its own roof.
(Contrast this with earlier OCZ-Indilinx silicon, which still relied on
third-party involvement here and there.) Put succinctly, the drives are worth
the wait.
At
512GB, this SSD is large and in charge. The drive has the same DNA as the 256GB
Vector that we reviewed last month.
OCZ confidently rates the 512GB Vector’s
performance as equal to the 256GB drive. To test this claim, we slipped the
512GB Vector into one our test systems and put it through its paces. True
enough, the biggest Vector delivered as promised; there’s no slowdown here as
you step up to half a terabyte of solid-state storage.
At its current price, the 512GB Vector also
scores a nice psychological victory. You get a gigantic state-of-the-art SSD for
less than a buck a gig. That ain’t bad, especially considering the Vector
drives handle incompressible data (the bulk of your data these days) as well as
compressible data. The rest of the perks that we’ve come to expect are all
here, too; you get a 3.5-inch bay adapter, plus Acronis True Image HD software
for making your system migration a breeze.
At
its current price, the 512GB Vector also scores a nice psychological victory.
We think the time has come to put aside our
notions of saving SSDs for only our most crucial data. The 512GB Vector wants
your Windows installation. It wants your games, and it wants your apps all of
’em. With a drive this big, this fast, and this affordable on a cost-per-GB
basis, the conversation has shifted from “What should you put on your SSD?” to
“What shouldn’t you put on your SSD?”.
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Info
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Price: $499.99
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www.ocztechnology.com
Specs
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Maximum sequential read/write:
550MBps/530MBps;
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Maximum random 4K (QD32) read/ write:
100,000I0PS/95,000I0PS;
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Interface: 6Gbps SATA;
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Five-year warranty
Test System Specs
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Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K;
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Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD4H;
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RAM: 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-133;
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Graphics: ZOTAC GeForce GTX 580 (2x, SLI);
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Storage: 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300;
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Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit
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