Introduction

OCZ is one of the earliest adopters of SSD technology, and their products have always been at the forefront of technology. After all the financial irregularities we've seen in 2012, combined with their falling stock price, it's great to see OCZ alive and kicking, and working on new products. Their latest OCZ Vector 150 is based on the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller: It is, given Indilinx was acquired by OCZ in 2011, the first OCZ controller with 100% in-house technology.

The OCZ Vector 150 uses 19 nanometer NAND flash with the Barefoot 3 connected to a SATA 6 Gbps interface. It replaces the OCZ Vector, which used the same controller but Micron flash chips.

OCZ offers the Vector 150 in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB, which means that, unlike the Vector, the Vector 150 uses overprovisioning, which will help with steady state performance that was already quite good on the original Vector.

Packaging

The Drive

The drive conforms to the dimensions set forth by the 2.5" form factor. It is made of metal, which improves its durability. Its height is only 7 mm, which makes it compatible with Intel's Ultrabook specification.


Like most recent SSDs, the OCZ Vector 150 uses the SATA 6 Gbps interface. The interface is compatible with all older SATA standard, but will in such a case work at reduced performance.


You will find the SSD controller and 16 flash chips on the PCB. A DRAM chip next to the flash controller provides operating memory for the controller, a second DRAM chip is on the other side.


OCZ uses their own in-house Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller on the Vector 150, giving them maximum control over performance optimizations and firmware.


The 16 flash chips are produced by Toshiba on a 19 nanometer process.


A DDR3 memory chip by Micron on the PCB provides RAM for the SSD controller. A second chip is on the other side of the PCB.