New Vector SSD looks very interesting. Is this the BEST NEW SSD for 2013 ? - Page 3

You will notice in the disclosure the author is Long on OCZ and Micron. Interesting. I thought the article was actually pretty good and accurate. Thanks for the share.

I def tend to agree with author that on the lower end- the actual NAND manufactures will lead the market because NAND is the largest cost in making SSDs and the makers of NAND obviously have advantage there. Samsung is the only NAND maker that also makes controllers- so I see them doing well. They already have a good reputation- and also well known for high performance. I would expect that success to continue and assume they will be profitable since they use their own economies of scale.

Of coarse Samsung is such a huge company that what they do in the SSD market has little effect on their stock price. It's a very small part of their global business. But I would expect them to really lead the market in the future based on what I am seeing, and what they have to work with as a company.

Their controller is superior to the LSI controllers (sandforce) and Marvel Controllers (like in Crucial M4) so unless a newer and better controller comes out - other MFG's might have a tough time competing against Samsung. Samsung can lead on price and performance- that's a deadly combo from a big company with a good reputation and proven reliability record. OCZ leads on price and performance too- but they don't have Samsung's assets, economies of scale, or reliability and reputation records so they might sell a ton of cheap drives but they make no money doing it. OCZ exiting the lower end is a blow to consumers more than anyone else. But someone will always step up and be the next guy. I think Samsung is just positioned well to lead. Intel isn't a bottom feeder and they certainly are not worried about having the lowest price or highest market share.

My $49 120GB Vertex3 arrived today. I thought I was done with these but for $50 how could I resist ?

Your right. They certainly led in being the most aggressive. But that hurt them as much as helped them.

Selling crappy and cheaper Agility and Octane drives lowered the overall perception of OCZ as well as their reputation. Rushing to market to be first with original VERTEX line was bold move- but it had growing pains and hurt company image. Being first is not always best.
Then selling for less in the ultra aggressive price wars somehow re-enforces the idea or perception with consumers that OCZ SSD's are "cheap" or "not worth as much" so that is good- but it also has side effect at eroding perception too.

Plain and simple they sold a ton of drives, made a ton of good drives- but got nothing for it. No good reputation. No good profits.

I think they realize the higher quality stuff is where they can lead and make money. Leading the bottom end has no reward other than bragging rights for market share. OCZ can give up some market share. They sell plenty.

I think they need to work on their perception, company image and reliability. Re position themselves are a top tier MFG of top tier products. Shake the negative they have now. Then if they want to drop their pants again on price for old models or whatever-- go for it. Consumer might react better.

Right now people only buy OCZ drive because they are outstanding value. They are cheaper in price. Make the price the same as others- and people see the alternative as a safer choice. Until they fix that- They should give up the low end.

I am not sorry to see the lower end model go. People don't realize how slow an agility SSD really is. It's a dog.

Yeah I am not sure what happed. Didn't see that last night. My browser crashed while posting so something odd happened. I deleted five duplicates. Lol...

Interesting but in a non enterprise application I am not sure consumer joe needs that.

I think consumer joe cares his SSD is reliable, affordable, and provides a good user experience at acceptable performance levels.

I don't think a consumer drive needs to be highly predictable and I doubt consumers would pay for that.

Reality is while intel might be reliably the exact same predictable performance all the time drives like the vector are always fast just sometimes a bit faster or not depending on circumstances.

That accuracy isn't required on a home server or home consumer pc.

Interesting note : I am reading AMD is going to make a serious push into SSD with Radeon branded SSD drives.

OCZ is really the only one doing this... at least affordable.

It's makes sense. A bigger PCI card hits amazing speeds. Beyond what SATA3 can deliver.

I wonder what the VECTOR based drives will do.

The MAX IOPS are already faster and they use the older slow controller. If you can get them under $500 and they prove reliable and compatible that seems the way to go on the high end.

To answer your question... I do not know. I wish more made them.

Right.

And I am pretty sure the OCZ cards use two Sandforce SSD controllers instead of 1 because almost all SSD controllers are designed around the SATA3 speed limitations of 525MB sec. Making a controller faster than a SATA3 port is not worth it so none of them are.

Making a PCI card and using a PCI slot can remove the SATA3 bottleneck... but if you simply put the SSD controller on a PCI card your still hitting the same speeds because the controller is now the bottleneck since it was designed for a Sata3 port.

So- Now you must add another controller to split the data between two SSD controllers... and then you can hit 1000MB/sec like you see on the OCZ cards.

But if you figure out that you now need two (2) SSD controllers, and another RAID controller before them to split data between them- Plus your probably need a faster variety of NAND and usually more of that NAND to notice the speed increase- It's just way more $$$ for a PCI card that is going to deliver really good performance.

You can't see a benefit at a 120GB size with a PCI card that is why they don't make them. The writes and reads are not split across enough NAND. The Nand performance is the bottle neck there.

512GB you can for sure. But we all know 512GB SSD's cost money because the NAND is the largest cost in SSD. The cost of a RAID controller and two SSD controllers certainly is not going to make it any cheaper. Plus there is cost of design, testing and production that must be allocated. When you realize those costs must be distributed over a very small unit of sales- it adds even more. In contrast SSD's sell like crazy.. so a dollar per SSD is not an extreme production or design cost as compared to perhaps $75 per unit on a PCI card based SSD due to lower sales.

End result no one makes PCI SSD cards because no one would buy them because they cost too buy because they cost too much to make.

I guess that makes sense.

Yeah. This is a general annoyance around here of mine too. It's not like anyone is saying you need or must use a high end SSD in a basic HTPC build. I think everyone is agreeing it's not needed at all. But the automatic criticism and nit picking always annoys me. It happens with CPU and video cards too.

Anytime someone wants an i5 or i7 - there is a few people jumping on them how it's overkill. Then 4 pages of bickering results- and it's generally revealed 50% of the time or more that the OP is gaming, or encoding, or into video editing or something and has a valid reason for choosing the higher CPU.

It's like people don't respect anyone right to chose high performance - or not settle for ordinary.

There a variety of different income levels and value systems too. For many people an extra $50 for a very fast SSD, or an extra $100 for an i7 CPU is not a big deal at all. They waste that on a bottle of wine at dinner every Friday night so in comparison to spend the same amount on a home theater that runs in their living room and get's lots of use seems like a great deal.

If I was wealthy and realized a faster CPU and faster SSD would save me a small amount of time- I think it would be worth the cost for me given I appreciate the performance.

It's nice to have nice things that work really nice. Not saying you need it or anyone should do it. Just saying I respect the opinion and decision and right for someone to chose that. It's not my place to tell them no or question them.

I generally inform them a CPU is overkill, then explain sometimes it's cool just because you don't need it. If they choose to get it anyways it doesn't bother me like it bothers many here.

I am not sure it it's jealousy or what that makes people behave this way. As an enthusiast I appreciate the advancements and improvements in these technologies.

You make this argument too often.

There is a natural transition and relation between the two you must assume.

It's far more likely and logical to assume it's a possibility someone might want to game on their HTPC or might want to do some HTPC stuff like watch movies on their gaming rig -than it would be to make the blink and automatic assumption no one does it.

There is a ton of gamers that want to do movies too. And with modern surround and displays- Gaming from your PC on your main TV and system is popular and easy. The excitement of the bigger screen and better sound is nice for many gamers. Gaming on a theater system has a natural transition into HTPC.

Also- having a PC hooked up to your TV is a big draw to game with if your a video game player.

I think your wrong on this one. It's not like gamers are going to take over the forum here. But assuming no one does it- automatically is a mistake IMO.

sometimes I get the feeling that the pure HTPC guys despise the gamers and want them to leave the forum based on so much criticism I see. I do both so I understand the natural relationship of gaming and watching movies and tv shows on a HTPC, or any computer connected to a theater system.

Perhaps it's not a pure HTPC with a tuner card- but it's a computer on a theater system so it's just plain logical to assume the possibility. The gamers never think it's odd to play a movie from the gaming machine so why do the HTPC guys think it's odd to try to play a game on their theater system ??

@ assassin

No I don't want to merge or anything and I agree it's what makes this forum great- because it's HTPC centric. It should be that.

I just think sometimes we take it too far or give the cold shoulder to HTPC people that are not only pure HTPC. Any gaming rig or workstation has the ability to be a fully capable PC. I do HTPC on my desktop, even though I own and use constantly a pure HTPC. I started on a desktop before I build a HTPC.

I think we need to assume this is natural. That's all I am saying.

Amen brother.

+1.

Your right. The reason why I hang here is because of the posters and the mass amount of knowledge found here. Interesting discussions and the like. I think this Vector thread is part of that type of thing.
It's just odd when it's met with so much hostility or defensive posturing like it's inappropriate. I assumed it might just be some anti-OCZ feelings.. those always pop up. But in general this forum does have a small group that's loud about criticizing any non pure HTPC products - when in fact many of those products are superior to the crappy cheaper ones that are common in cheap HTPC's.

i7's get beat up a lot around here. In most PC forums you get a high five and congrats.
Fast SSD's get beat up alot around here- Same thing.
Even large amounts of DDR3. I remember seeing "you don't need 8GB" often for the last year. It's mostly going away now. I was always vocal about spending the extra $20 just in case.


The funniest thing to me is I see people spend an extra $100 on the HTPC case and pay a massive premium without blinking an eye just to make it cool or small, dump another $50 in silent or cooling products, overspend on a PSU- and then claim $30 more for a higher end CPU or SSD is waste of money.

Each their own I guess. I'm not criticizing anyones decision. I am actually defending everyone's right to choose. No universal law exists making choices either right or wrong- but I think there is some popular social opinion about proper choices.

I've built far more low end builds this year than high end builds. I love the passion around here for low end value or great deals- but I think we are insensitive and ultra critical of people who choose to try to be better than ordinary.

I would use the Vector as example: You certainly don't need an SSD of that level of performance to enjoy a HTPC but I think there is a line that should exist before people just hammer someone choosing it- or question how appropriate it's existence even is.
Sure it's more than you need- Isn't that why people would want it ? That's what makes it bada-ssed IMO.

Going high end on performance for a premium price is what makes a HTPC special or interesting. It's no different than spending a premium amount of money on trying to make a HTPC ultra small and quiet. It's the same thing to me. One is met with OOOHHs and AAAAAAH's..... the other is met with hostility and criticism. I think when it comes to HTPC- Going extreme in any direction is what makes it interesting.

Extreme small. Extreme Quiet. Extreme Cheap. Extreme Expensive. Extreme Big. Extreme Performance. It doesn't matter. More extreme the more interesting. At least to me.

I think people who are into one thing should just be considerate of people who might be into another thing. It's easy to let personal bias and opinion effect that. I have that problem myself.

@ Assassin- I was not talking about you specifically. Just some general thoughts I had. I know it might seem that way since we are having a three way conversation. Sorry I didn't make that clear. I think you are generally pretty open and unbiased, or at least polite about it when your not

I've done it. I own and have owned various levels of performance.

I actually upgraded my HTPC (dedicated with no gaming) from a G630 CPU to a 3570k. Same SSD drive and DDR3. The boardboard changed from Z68 to Z77 both Asock.

There was a very small difference. I'm totally convinced I could have kept the G630 happily even today. I only upgraded because my mom needed a PC, and my G630 was perfect for her. I basically paid $129 for the 3570k which was perhaps a bit overkil, but about the price of the i3's I was looking at so it seemed a good choice.

I've built multiple HTPC's with G530, G620, G630, i3 and i5's in them. The only one that was clearly a POS and frustratingly slow was the i3 with a 2TB WD Green for the OS install and storage drive. It's was clearly worse user experience than any of the celeron or pentium based HTPC's I made for much less $ with SSD. Adding an SSD would obviously benefited this system- but the user wanted storage and did not care if it was fast.

For a HTPC the faster SSD and CPU might benefit a large library loading milliseconds quicker.. but I honestly think your like 95% right and for a pure HTPC save your cash.

Now- For my desktop that's a total different story.

I run i7 2600k, and sometimes run and overclock 4.5ghz. I have dual Radeon Video cards, and dual SSD's in RAID 0 for one OS, and a MAX IOPS toggle mode NAND SSD for the other OS. It's clearly way faster. I have it set up with mediabrowser just like the HTPC and launching mediabrowser it's pretty obvious it's faster as the screen literally flashes it's so fast. Launching something I do both on- it's pretty obvious too. The only problem is that it's probably too fast and/or you really just don't need that. So again-- your still 95% right.

The 5% where your wrong is when you find a power user that starts doing stuff with the PC that's above and beyond what a normal HTPC would do. Someone like me that runs 2 or three monitors- and does 10 things at once. Something like:

4 Instances of MakeMKV. 2 off the two BluRay drives. 2 off 2 ISO folders. Being output on storage drive.
Mediamaster running on a TV show folder for updates.
Downloading in one browser.
Surfing the web on another monitor and browser- usually 10 tabs open (facebook, AVS, Anandtech, newegg, NFL.com, Netflix, etc.. )
Itunes running. - playing music.
Handbrake going.
VLC constantly launching and playing back movies to test them
Terracopy moving large movie files with copy and paste function.

All of those things are pretty HTPC centric- and certainly most HTPC can do them. But could they do them all at once with ease? Could it satisfy someone with an impatient personality type that knows the difference between great performance and ordinary performance?

The answer is no. So for the 25% of the people that build all in one PC's that function as a workstation, gaming rig, HTPC, and storage server as opposed to the 75% of people here making dedicated stand alone pure HTPC's I think the performance thing is a bit more important.

I would crush a normal HTPC from this forum if I used it for my everyday PC. Even that I game less than 10% and more than 80% of my duties are HTPC and theater centric. I would get angry and end up smashing it or replacing it- it would certainly lock up and crash on me.

I know I am extreme- and I know I am not normal. People watching me use a PC even at work with dual monitors are just blown away I think like that- and my brain goes fast enough to multitask like that.

So my point was not to argue or say your wrong. Your 95% right.

My point was I think sometimes people come down too hard for builds and products that fall outside the normal performance category. In my case- I am not screaming out that people need to build HTPC's with high end parts and I often recommend some really inexpensive products around here. I never once even said in this thread that a Vector or Samsung840Pro level SSD should be used in a basic HTPC. I'm just saying I think people come down on the option too hard for no apparent reason- and just assume context too often. If I was saying you should use a vector SSD it would be appropriate for you to chime and and remind people it's overkill and possibly a waste of money. But I am not saying that... so you come across out of context a bit. Pointing out there's no need for and ultra fast SSD when no one is saying you need it is in not necessary IMO. I understand you don't want people to think they need to get this SSD, that makes sense but I think this entire thread has been pretty clear about it already. Even the PRO performance advocates are conceding your right... so no reason to beat a dead horse. Just keep an open mind where high performance SSD's make sense.

I think high performance SSD's make sense for:

-higher end gaming rig
-higher end workstation
-enthusiast level users
-All in one mega PC build with HTPC, Gaming Rig, Workstation, and Sever ALL IN ONE.
-Someone that earns income 2.5x or greater the average of the forum user that sees the extra costs as insignificant.

Sure.... This is not the majority here but it does exist. Your universal in your approach and you assume too much trying to make your advice and opinions fit in line with the norm - when this entire thread from the beginning has been about higher than the norm. I guess it all goes back to keeping an open mind. No one is saying you need this level of SSD performance, or extreme performance in a basic dedicated HTPC so you shouldn't get so defensive about us talking about it by pointing out it's not needed. It could be needed in special circumstances. And- At least for me it's fun to talk about new products. SSD's are probably one of the most interesting products to me because they are highly affordable and new technology that's faster changing than a CPU/MOBO or HDD/PSU. That makes it interesting to talk about and discuss the changes. Again sorry to come down so hard... because I think if you draw a bell curve of the forum users here and how they use HTPC's the majority of them will fall into the area where your advice and opinion is true and correct. I'm just pointing out the smaller area where your not 100% correct and playing devil's advocate.

One last thought:

At least to me- I's very hard to hate something for being too good. Deciding you can live with less is what most people do, but it's always nice to dream.

Example:

I play guitar and drums so I will use that first

I own some nice guitars and drum sets. But they are normal collection pieces for an aged guitarist. My most expensive guitar is probably a couple thousand new and about a thousand dollars used. That's not expensive at all for guitars. I've been buying and collecting them for 20 years. I started when I was a kid and I am 34 now. That does not stop me from dreaming of owning a guitar that is much better and more expensive-- even though I realistically can't afford it and I don't need it My interest in guitars makes me interested in it. My some of my favorite guitars were Charvel's- which basically went out of business then got bought by another company (Fender now). It would seem odd for someone to tell me they are not needed or no good for me because the fret board plays way to fast compared to a normal Fender or Gibson guitar- or the 18 volt Livewire pickups were too sensitive or too good and not needed. It would seem odd that someone pointed out the financial problems of the MFG or the uncertainty of it's future like it somehow made the guitar I like play worse or sound worse. The truth is some of the Charvel models I love with Livewire pickups are just awesome shredder guitars, playing faster and having better pickups than most ordinary guitars. It's clearly superior in neck speed and pickup output than 99% of the stuff out there. But for the 99% of the guitarists out there they are probably not into shred metal or hard rock or speed playing screaming leads- so that type of guitar is overkill. But it doesn't make it any less awesome for what it is- and no guitarists question it's existence or how appropriate it is for most guitarists.

Another example:

Cars. We all have one probably. I lease a 2011 Mazda. It's nice. But I still dream of a Ferrari or BMW. It's interesting to me when I get a car magazine about the new super car that comes out. I don't have hundreds of thousands of $$ to go buy one- But it's still interesting to talk about and learn about and read about and discuss. Even though there is a very small chance I'll buy it or ever need it. In car forums the guys talking about the launch of the new super car don't say it's more than most people need or try to cast a negative light on it. I think most of them realize it's overkill, but that's what makes it interesting.

That might help explain my point better.

No one is saying you need an OCZ Vector in HTPC. We are just computer geeks talking about the launch of a new product. Deciding if it makes sense for someone should be decided on an individual use basis IMO.

I think your missing my point and taking this too far.

I'm only arguing that the conversation about the Vector product launch is appropriate in this forum. Your suggesting like it is inappropriate. You post links to game forum, and remind us it's HTPC forum. But we are telling you that we are first and foremost computer geeks here. And the HTPC forum is so great because of the high number of posters with good PC knowledge- Not just about HTPC's but PC's too.

I am only saying defending that the conversation about the Vector is appropriate in this forum. The conversation only. I never once said it's purchase or application was appropriate to everyone. I think your still assuming that, and your trying to not show your bias against OCZ but it's coming out pretty clear. You have some legit reasons so that doesn't need further discussion IMO. I'll concede it's your right to have your opinion, and no opinion is wrong.

But I think your reaching.

I get your defense and position. You don't want people to think this SSD is the best SSD for HTPC use or think they need to spend this amount of money to get good performance. I agree with it.

I just think your reaching.

No one has said that- and certainly the topic has now been expanded and clarified so I think we can call a truce?