And yet another version of the same drive. This now make #6 (not including Vector and Vertex 450) and the only difference is in the warranty and handicapping the firmware. Please stop the madness and get 1-2 product lines which make sense. At least they are finally up front about Barefoot not supporting low-power states which is probably why their drives were constantly failing in the first place. Too bad so many consumers had to pay the price losing their data. The only positive out of all of this is now when their drives fail, you get a new drive and don't have to hold onto the receipt. Shows they have more confidence in their RMA process than their controller.
I don't know about your experience, but it doesn't mirror most other end users'.
Barefoot 3 has staggeringly low failure rates. It's a clean, consistent controller and the quality of Toshiba NAND is much better than the often second-off NAND they were being supplied by random suppliers during the Sandforce-era.
What is your definition of staggeringly low? It has been well documented that OCZ has significantly higher return rates (7%+ vs <1% from many of their competitors). Toshiba may be providing better flash than in the past but OCZ has yet to prove they have a reliable product compared to their competition. The fact they finally admit the Barefoot design can't handle low power states and requires a respin of the chip should be a dead giveaway to stay clear.
As this is my first comment in regards to this article please allow me to identify myself as a member of OCZ Storage Solutions. Thank you both very much for your comments and we appreciate all input.
In regards to reliability there were indeed some products from the previous organization which used third party controllers and exhibited issues, and the fixes often took a long time due to inability to control the firmware source. There were also some problem products like those in the Octane and Petrol Series that over time exhibited a 6.4% return rate nearly 3 years ago. Much too high, and certainly not acceptable. A lot of this was the driving motivation for the organization, even prior to becoming part of Toshiba, to make great investments in new processes from design through manufacturing, as well solidifying the need to vertically integrate to control everything from the asic through the firmware.
In comparison Barefoot 3 has very low return rates, and extremely low actual failure rates. Over time the failure rates are well below 1% (.1% in some skus) on products like the Vector 150 for example. It is a fact that the Barefoot silicon has never been reved, which is a testament to the controller. Also as part of the Toshiba Group we also are able to lock down the flash we use, all of which is premium SSD grade NAND. This complete access to Toshiba NAND has allowed us to take the controller further than we have in the past while improving reliability at the same time.
We completely understand the quality concerns from the past and appreciate your comments. We have changed everything from the people to the design process, and even the manufacturing and validation, even transitioning to building all our drives at a Toshiba certified partner factory, and are continually investing in this area as it is a key priority for us. Thank you again for the comments and dialogue.
hosps comment is typical of the FUD that followed after the problems with certain SF-based units way back. People just assumed the later models were similarly affected, but that was never the case. The Vertex4 and Vector were excellent SSDs, I have many.
Indeed - while, anecdotally, I've had to return an OCZ Vector (twice) due to the "panic lock" issue (2nd RMA works fine - if they would have given me a tool to unlock it I could have done it myself ;) ), I also have two Agility 3, a Vertex 2, an Agility 2 and now two Vertex 460s that have given me zero problems. Some (most) of those are old drives in the SandForce "problem" era too. While I'd previously only recommend them to users that can stay on top of firmware updates, with their new advance RMA return policy I'd have no issues trying more drives from OCZ. The Vertex 460 drives were plug-and-play, and have been a good experience so far for me.
And for the older SF models, once the firmware is updated, they run just fine. I have about 30 of them, no problems at all. One is running in an SGI with no issues either (120GB 3.5" V2E, soon to be upgraded though as it's almost full), so even under an 'alien' OS, they fare very well. Indeed, one reason whyI chose the V2E is tests showed it performed better than most with OS types that lacked TRIM, which of course includes XP, but in my case it was IRIX. OCZ models also consistenly select the correct speed when connected to SAS controllers in UNIX systems (Samsung SSDs don't, one must use a specific firmware for some SAS cards).
I've also obtained an Agility 4, a dozen MAX IOPS units (UNIX RAID0 testing for Flame), numerous 60GB/120GB V2Es for general benchmarking/testing (multiple CPU/mbd/gfx combos), some Vectors, a Vector 150 and a number of Vertex4s which I really like.
The only down side of modern OCZ units is price. It's hard to ignore the value of models like the X300. However, I'll continue hunting for used OCZs, especially V4s and Vectors.
my vertex4 and vertex 460 are working consistently, but my vector died 3 times, my vector 150 just died and I'm going to RMA it again ... vector is performance monster but
Low-power states have absolutely nothing to do with reliability. The only downside is higher power consumption, which is why Barefoot 3 isn't really suitable for laptops.
Thank you Kristian, you are absolutely correct. The Barefoot 3 controller was originally designed for enthusiast drives and sustained performance was a priority. It was never designed for low power (i.e. DevSleep). As you mentioned this doesn’t have an impact on reliability but agree that it may not be appropriate for some applications that require sleep modes.
7% overall OCZ return rate, with some models goiung as high as 10+%. But even there they already say that in the next period they reached 1%, very likely due to firmware updates. In 2014 they didn't sell many OCZ anymore, but the Agility 3 480 GB (using the same Sandforce controller as the problematic drives "back then") scored 1.3% - which is noch excellent, but alright:
And I forgot: switching to newer and cheaper NAND is NOT just "yet another version of the same drive". It's very similar for sure, but the older one will be retired in due time and the new one will benefit the customer by being cheaper (once the dust from the introduction settles). If they didn't do this someone would complain about a lack of progress. If they just updated the NAND silently someone would complain about them cheating.
Thank you for your question. The 550MB/s does not apply to the M.2, as we have not released any performance numbers as of yet for any of the upcoming drives that will leverage JetExpress. We are excited about this controller as it is native SATA, Native PCIe and NVMe compliant. We can (and will) leverage this controller for a variety of upcoming enterprise and client class drives in a variety of form factors across these interfaces and will share performance data as soon as we can. Thanks.
I've been looking forward to the Vector 180 for a while because of its power loss protection (I asked about it on the OCZ forums recently); pity it's only partial PLP, but that's still more than most desktop models offer. I just hope it's priced to be competitive with the 850, etc.
JetExpress and the Z-Drive 6K sound most intriguing though, could be good candidates for 4K/8K capture & editing. If you can supply any RAID0 or other data for these, do let me know, I'll pass them onto a major movie company I know which is currently evaluating SSDs for 8K work (one Z-Drive wouldn't be enough I suspect). Find me via Google (search for 'SGI Ian', check the Contact page, send to my Yahoo address).
That means nothing, those cores are very weak compared to even ARM A53 (for example), but they are also specialised for the job they have to do, and consume very little power :) They probably have so many cores so they can focus each core to a specific task (eg, core0 SATA comms, core1 PCIe comms, cores2-4 NAND control, core5-6 ECC for example) and be able to shut cores down when they arent needed, further lowering the power consumption
I look forward to continued success for OCZ now that they are a part of Toshiba. It is great to see the forward thinking products that utilize PCIe. I was never a fan of their previous PCIe solutions as the 2.5" drives ended up making more sense to me. These new products are things I might actually buy. Wish I could afford the Z drive 6000, but I doubt it. NVMe and edrive are features I want included.
I think was a good decision for Toshiba buying OCZ. After that Toshiba will not need to use Marvell or another controllers. They will produce their own controllers.
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hosps - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link
And yet another version of the same drive. This now make #6 (not including Vector and Vertex 450) and the only difference is in the warranty and handicapping the firmware. Please stop the madness and get 1-2 product lines which make sense. At least they are finally up front about Barefoot not supporting low-power states which is probably why their drives were constantly failing in the first place. Too bad so many consumers had to pay the price losing their data. The only positive out of all of this is now when their drives fail, you get a new drive and don't have to hold onto the receipt. Shows they have more confidence in their RMA process than their controller.Samus - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
I don't know about your experience, but it doesn't mirror most other end users'.Barefoot 3 has staggeringly low failure rates. It's a clean, consistent controller and the quality of Toshiba NAND is much better than the often second-off NAND they were being supplied by random suppliers during the Sandforce-era.
hosps - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
What is your definition of staggeringly low? It has been well documented that OCZ has significantly higher return rates (7%+ vs <1% from many of their competitors). Toshiba may be providing better flash than in the past but OCZ has yet to prove they have a reliable product compared to their competition. The fact they finally admit the Barefoot design can't handle low power states and requires a respin of the chip should be a dead giveaway to stay clear.ocztosh - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Hello hosps, samus,As this is my first comment in regards to this article please allow me to identify myself as a member of OCZ Storage Solutions. Thank you both very much for your comments and we appreciate all input.
In regards to reliability there were indeed some products from the previous organization which used third party controllers and exhibited issues, and the fixes often took a long time due to inability to control the firmware source. There were also some problem products like those in the Octane and Petrol Series that over time exhibited a 6.4% return rate nearly 3 years ago. Much too high, and certainly not acceptable. A lot of this was the driving motivation for the organization, even prior to becoming part of Toshiba, to make great investments in new processes from design through manufacturing, as well solidifying the need to vertically integrate to control everything from the asic through the firmware.
In comparison Barefoot 3 has very low return rates, and extremely low actual failure rates. Over time the failure rates are well below 1% (.1% in some skus) on products like the Vector 150 for example. It is a fact that the Barefoot silicon has never been reved, which is a testament to the controller. Also as part of the Toshiba Group we also are able to lock down the flash we use, all of which is premium SSD grade NAND. This complete access to Toshiba NAND has allowed us to take the controller further than we have in the past while improving reliability at the same time.
We completely understand the quality concerns from the past and appreciate your comments. We have changed everything from the people to the design process, and even the manufacturing and validation, even transitioning to building all our drives at a Toshiba certified partner factory, and are continually investing in this area as it is a key priority for us. Thank you again for the comments and dialogue.
mapesdhs - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
hosps comment is typical of the FUD that followed after the problems with certain SF-basedunits way back. People just assumed the later models were similarly affected, but that was
never the case. The Vertex4 and Vector were excellent SSDs, I have many.
Ian.
TheTom - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Indeed - while, anecdotally, I've had to return an OCZ Vector (twice) due to the "panic lock" issue (2nd RMA works fine - if they would have given me a tool to unlock it I could have done it myself ;) ), I also have two Agility 3, a Vertex 2, an Agility 2 and now two Vertex 460s that have given me zero problems. Some (most) of those are old drives in the SandForce "problem" era too. While I'd previously only recommend them to users that can stay on top of firmware updates, with their new advance RMA return policy I'd have no issues trying more drives from OCZ. The Vertex 460 drives were plug-and-play, and have been a good experience so far for me.mapesdhs - Monday, January 12, 2015 - link
And for the older SF models, once the firmware is updated, they run just fine. I haveabout 30 of them, no problems at all. One is running in an SGI with no issues either
(120GB 3.5" V2E, soon to be upgraded though as it's almost full), so even under an
'alien' OS, they fare very well. Indeed, one reason whyI chose the V2E is tests
showed it performed better than most with OS types that lacked TRIM, which of
course includes XP, but in my case it was IRIX. OCZ models also consistenly
select the correct speed when connected to SAS controllers in UNIX systems
(Samsung SSDs don't, one must use a specific firmware for some SAS cards).
I've also obtained an Agility 4, a dozen MAX IOPS units (UNIX RAID0 testing for Flame),
numerous 60GB/120GB V2Es for general benchmarking/testing (multiple CPU/mbd/gfx
combos), some Vectors, a Vector 150 and a number of Vertex4s which I really like.
The only down side of modern OCZ units is price. It's hard to ignore the value of models
like the X300. However, I'll continue hunting for used OCZs, especially V4s and Vectors.
Ian.
zodiacsoulmate - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
my vertex4 and vertex 460 are working consistently, but my vector died 3 times, my vector 150 just died and I'm going to RMA it again ...vector is performance monster but
Kristian Vättö - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Low-power states have absolutely nothing to do with reliability. The only downside is higher power consumption, which is why Barefoot 3 isn't really suitable for laptops.ocztosh - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Thank you Kristian, you are absolutely correct. The Barefoot 3 controller was originally designed for enthusiast drives and sustained performance was a priority. It was never designed for low power (i.e. DevSleep). As you mentioned this doesn’t have an impact on reliability but agree that it may not be appropriate for some applications that require sleep modes.MrSpadge - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Hosps, you should update your information from 2012! Yes, what you say was correct back then:http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&...
7% overall OCZ return rate, with some models goiung as high as 10+%. But even there they already say that in the next period they reached 1%, very likely due to firmware updates. In 2014 they didn't sell many OCZ anymore, but the Agility 3 480 GB (using the same Sandforce controller as the problematic drives "back then") scored 1.3% - which is noch excellent, but alright:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c...
MrSpadge - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
And I forgot: switching to newer and cheaper NAND is NOT just "yet another version of the same drive". It's very similar for sure, but the older one will be retired in due time and the new one will benefit the customer by being cheaper (once the dust from the introduction settles). If they didn't do this someone would complain about a lack of progress. If they just updated the NAND silently someone would complain about them cheating.Mikemk - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Does that 550 MB/s apply to the M.2?ocztosh - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Hello Mikemk,Thank you for your question. The 550MB/s does not apply to the M.2, as we have not released any performance numbers as of yet for any of the upcoming drives that will leverage JetExpress. We are excited about this controller as it is native SATA, Native PCIe and NVMe compliant. We can (and will) leverage this controller for a variety of upcoming enterprise and client class drives in a variety of form factors across these interfaces and will share performance data as soon as we can. Thanks.
mapesdhs - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
I've been looking forward to the Vector 180 for a while because of its power loss protection
(I asked about it on the OCZ forums recently); pity it's only partial PLP, but that's still more
than most desktop models offer. I just hope it's priced to be competitive with the 850, etc.
JetExpress and the Z-Drive 6K sound most intriguing though, could be good candidates
for 4K/8K capture & editing. If you can supply any RAID0 or other data for these, do let
me know, I'll pass them onto a major movie company I know which is currently evaluating
SSDs for 8K work (one Z-Drive wouldn't be enough I suspect). Find me via Google (search
for 'SGI Ian', check the Contact page, send to my Yahoo address).
Ian.
Mikemk - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Hopefully it will finally serve as a competitor to the XP941mobutu - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link
meanwhile...http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201501060066...
The_Assimilator - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Holy hell, the JetExpress has more cores than my PC's CPU does.LukaP - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
That means nothing, those cores are very weak compared to even ARM A53 (for example), but they are also specialised for the job they have to do, and consume very little power :) They probably have so many cores so they can focus each core to a specific task (eg, core0 SATA comms, core1 PCIe comms, cores2-4 NAND control, core5-6 ECC for example) and be able to shut cores down when they arent needed, further lowering the power consumptionFunBunny2 - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Welcome to the world of embarrassingly parallel problems.Vanburen - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link
Regarding partial power-loss protection vs full power protection.Do SSDs report the data has been successfully written to the OS, when it has only been written to volatile RAM cache?
I previously assumed the SSD only reported the data was written only when the data has been safely written in the NAND...
shadowjk - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link
Worse, with certain large manufacturer's software cache solution things are reported as written before it even reaches the ssd.eanazag - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link
I look forward to continued success for OCZ now that they are a part of Toshiba. It is great to see the forward thinking products that utilize PCIe. I was never a fan of their previous PCIe solutions as the 2.5" drives ended up making more sense to me. These new products are things I might actually buy. Wish I could afford the Z drive 6000, but I doubt it. NVMe and edrive are features I want included.CrazyElf - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link
How high a temperature does that M.2 SSD controller run at?I remember Puget did a review and well, they ran hot:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Samsung-...
I would imagine that it uses a few watts and ideally, you'd want to attach a copper heatsink onto it.
Lukart - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link
I think was a good decision for Toshiba buying OCZ.After that Toshiba will not need to use Marvell or another controllers.
They will produce their own controllers.
leedreamer189 - Sunday, January 18, 2015 - link
Yeah, its good to be associated with Toshiba. It's good to see OCZ get back on track.