OCZ sent along their recently released entry in to the enterprise SSD market, the Vertex 2 EX. The Vertex 2 Ex comes in capacities of 50 Gb, 100 Gb and 200 Gb., today we will be looking at the 50 Gb version. OCZ markets this drive for those who want to be on the cutting edge of technology and also have the piece of mind knowing that data is protected and secure. They promise the best of both worlds, unparalleled reliability and exceptional performance. We’ll run it through the paces and see if it lives up to it’s billing.

First a little about OCZ as taken from their web site.

“OCZ Technology was founded by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, and our commitment to that end-user group has not digressed. Entering the memory market in 2002, OCZ was built around the determination to manufacture the very best high-speed memory for overclockers. In this pursuit, OCZ became the first manufacturer to make dual channel optimized memory kits available to the public, which originally took advantage of NVIDIA’s Twinbank, or Dual DDR architecture, found in their nForce chipset. Over the last decade, we have maintained that thirst for innovation and performance leadership in multiple categories including power management and solid state storage.”

The OCZ Vertex 2 EX is packaged in a box similar to most SSD packaging. The best way to describe the contents of the box is a “booklet” type package with a foam insert that holds the SSD in the booklet. The drive itself is wrapped in an anti static bag to protect it from static discharge. OCZ included a 3.5″ to 2.5″ adapter so you can mount the drive in a standard 3.5″ hard drive bay. There are also mounting screws along with an installation guide/warranty info pamphlet. You will also find a sticker in the box that proclaims “My SSD is Faster Than Your HDD”, a nice little addition if your in to stickers!

The front of the box has a brief description of the SSD inside and the rear of the box goes has a more detailed list of the specifications and a blurb about the performance.

As you will see below the specifications of the OCZ Vertex 2 EX is quite extensive, but what does all this mean to you, the consumer? For starters this is an enterprise drive intended to meet the massive I/O intense environment they need to be able to cope with, including mission critical applications. This means no data loss under extreme conditions such as an unexpected power loss. The Vertex 2 EX has a built in super capacitor which will keep the drive powered long enough to finish the current task during power outages, resulting in no data loss. The drive also features ECC, and a built in capability to to ward off flash block failures similar to that of a Raid setup but on a single drive.

Additional features include the implementation of the SandForce SF-1500 controller and use of the SLC NAND flash memory. The Vertex 2 EX and it’s use of intelligent block management and wear leveling will ensure the data is automatically stored in AES-128 encrypted format which obviously goes a long way in the security of data.

As you have probably noticed, the Vertex 2 EX has a long list of features not found in the standard desktop SSD’s on the market today costing much less. Speaking of cost, it is not an inexpensive SSD by any means. A quick search show the price of just the 50 Gb version is upwards of $900.00 USD. Clearly a price point intended for enterprise use. If you are an enthusiast computer user who likes to be on the cutting edge and no price is too high, then you probably want to know how the drive performs beyond the enterprise use. After you browse the specifications below, read on as we run it through some benchmarks which will answer the raw performance questions.

Specifications

Testing was performed using the following Test bed:

eVGA P55FTW Motherboard
2X2 Gb G,Skill DDR3 2000
i5 661 CPU
ATI HD3870 Video Card
Windows 7 X64
Latest ACHI Driver from Intel

The first benchmark we used was ATTO, an oldie but goodie, as you can see by the results the performance of the Vertex 2 EX is terrific and will beat out most SSD’s on the market. The fact that this drive is designed as an enterprise solution certainly does not affect performance one bit.

HD Tune was our next benchmark, while the speeds did not register quite as high as the ATTO benchmark, the numbers are still quite impressive.

HD Tach was up next and showed an impressive 269 Mbs burst and 252 Mbs average read speed.

Finally we ran CrystalDiskMark which can be run in Random, 0 fill, and 1 fill modes. The random test is obviously the hardest of the three tests whereas the 0 fill and 1 fill tests simply write all 0’s and 1’s respectively.

As you can see by these results the OCZ Vertex 2 EX performed extremely well and is definitely capable of handling the most demanding enterprise environments as well as any enthusiast system out there.

My good friend hokiealumnus over at overclockers.com did a review on the standard Vertex 2 SSD and if you would like to compare the scores above with his review, please visit THIS link. You will see by comparing his results to these, the Vertex 2 EX was right on par and in fact led the way on several of the results.

Often times when selecting hardware for enterprise solutions, a compromise must be made between raw performance, reliability and security. As the test results prove this is not the case with the Vertex 2 EX. It performed as well if not better than any enthusiast SSD out there with the added benefit of the enterprise features. The SandForce 1500 controller, the built in super capacitor, the AES-128 bit encryption, and the ECC function are all features not found in the typical desktop SSD and make the OCZ Vertex 2 EX a viable option for the most mission critical and demanding enterprise environments.

The OCZ Vertex 2 EX without question deserves the Overclockers Tech Gold Award!

Dino DeCesari (Lvcoyote)

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