OCZ Launches 2.5-Inch 6Gb SATA Vector SSDs Up to 512GB

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. announced the availability of its new SATA III-based Vector SSD Series featuring the company’s next-generation Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller.

OCZ’s technology hardware and firmware teams developed the new controller silicon and firmware in-house to enable design control over the Vector SSD Series roadmap, while delivering I/O performance, enhanced reliability and endurance, and a host of differentiated features to empower high performance laptops, desktops, and workstations with storage capabilities.

Vector SSDs provide IO/s performance and the Barefoot 3 controller delivers superior sustained performance over time regardless of whether the data streams are in compressed or uncompressed formats. As a result, this SSD series provides faster file transfers and boot-ups, and a quicker, more responsive storage experience.

"The development of the Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller architecture is a crowning achievement in our company’s history, being our first controller silicon and firmware completely designed in-house from start to finish using all of the OCZ technology development teams," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO for OCZ Technology. "These are the first SSD products delivered under the new OCZ and leverages cutting-edge controller technology to deliver a groundbreaking level of sustained performance and reliability for customers seeking a superior SSD for their high performance computing applications."

The Vector SSD Series is available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities, and delivers read bandwidth of up to 550MB/s, write bandwidth of up to 530MB/s, random read performance of up to 100,000 IO/s. The Vector’s ultra-slim, 7mm sleek alloy housing supports a spectrum of computers including the latest thin form factor notebooks, and each SSD is also bundled with a 3.5-inch desktop adapter bracket and Acronis True Image cloning software to enable data transfer from legacy HDD.

Endurance was a major priority in the design of the Vector Series, and the intelligent Barefoot 3 controller includes an suite of flash management tools that can analyze and dynamically adapt to increasing NAND vulnerabilities as flash cells wear or process geometries get smaller. In this way, the controller overcomes the shortcomings associated with MLC NAND flash memory and is specified to deliver 20GB host writes per day for 5 years. This 5-year warranty ensures that Vector SSDs can be reliably used in a range of HPC environments over an extended lifetime.