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 is based on the new 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 Vertex 450 uses 20 nanometer NAND flash with the Barefoot 3 connected to a SATA 6 Gbps interface. It replaces the aging Vertex 4 built on a Marvell controller.

OCZ offers the Vertex 450 in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB; their Indilinx M10 controller doesn't use overprovisioning, which leaves more space for your data.

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 Vertex 450 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.


OCZ uses their own in-house Indilinx Barefoot M10 controller on the Vertex 450, giving them maximum control over performance optimizations and firmware.


The 16 flash chips are produced by Micron on a 20 nanometer process.


A DDR3 memory chip by Micron on the PCB provides RAM for the SSD controller. A second solder pad is here too, but it is probably left empty because the controller doesn't require that much memory for the 256 GB variant.