I’ve had the chance to play with the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD over the course of the past few months and admittedly, it’s fast. Coupled with a 2011 MacBook Pro, this SSD works like a charm. We’ve had the chance to play with the OCZ Vertex II on our 2007 MacBook and the difference between these two are remarkable. While the difference isn’t as night and day compared to a 5400-RPM Hard Drive, the difference in start up and opening up apps is definitely noticeable.
The OCZ Vertex 3 comes in capacities ranging from 60GB to 480GB. We’ve had the chance to test the 120GB unit that has SATA III Read rates up to 550 MB/s and Write rates up to 500 MB/s. When using the drives with a SATA II interface the read/ write speeds cut down to about half at 280MB/s and 260MB/s, respectably.
The first test we tried was a startup time test on the MacBook Pro. For the record, it’s a 2011 MacBook Pro with a 2.2 Ghz Core i7 and 8GB of RAM running Mac OS X Lion. From the moment the power button was pressed, the computer took 22.7 seconds to load up to my login screen and an additional 2.4 seconds to load the programs that were open before shutting down. My startup programs included: iCal, Outlook, iTunes, Word, Calculator, Excel, Firefox, PowerPoint, Activity Monitor, and Skype. It took the computer just under 25 seconds to simultaneously open Final Cut X, Motion 5, Adobe Photoshop CS5, iMovie, iPhoto, Photobooth, and Parallels.
The OCX Vertex 3 SSD works amazingly when rendering on Final Cut and Motion. The drive can export a 10-minute 720p clip in about 4 minutes. When using Compressor to and exporting files that need transcoding the time varies however the Solid State Drive has taken 3/4ths of the time in almost every case, when compared to a 5400-RPM Hard Drive.
The true benefit behind this OCZ Vertex 3 is the fact that you have to wait for very little things. Combined with an efficient processor and a healthy dose of RAM, you don’t have to wait for virtually anything except Internet speed and rendering. Photoshop is a breeze and Motion takes less than a minute to render most things. There’s not really much of a noticeable difference when browsing the web or running Microsoft Word, however. Unfortunately I still have to wait a little while for YouTube videos in 1080p, since that requires a good network connection (points finger at AT&T).
The Vertex 3 comes in a 2.5-inch form factor that fits perfectly into a notebook hard drive bay. However OCZ includes a conversion bracket in order to fit a 3.5-inch desktop hard drive mount. The drive has a stunning 2 million hours MTBF whereas hard drives falter in comparison by as much as 3 quarters. Additionally, the drive is backed by a 3-year warranty from OCZ with toll-free customer support.
We’ve had the opportunity to take a look at other SSDs from a few other competing manufacturers and we have to admit that there’s a significant difference between this SATA 3 OCZ Vertex 3 and other drives.