OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Review by Wavey Davey : Blindingly FAST Speeds--The 2nd Time Around -1st One FAILED!

First, the good news: OCZ has fixed the Sandforce 2281 controller in notebook environments, apparently, as my SSD use is an example of that: It's installed in an Asus G73SW-3DE laptop with the 6GB/sec SATA 3 interface. My first Vertex 3 failed outright, and there was no way to update the firmware, unfortunately also. I went to the OCZ web site, where I am a member, and asked of the experts the EXPERT's way to update the firmware in a notebook...listen to this sad story and weep, as the OCZ Toolkit still does not support updating where the SSD is the boot HD in a system, end of story.

It will be a good day when OCZ finally wakes up and hears the music and constructs a toolkit that works, and works in the Windows GUI! If Intel can figure out a way to update firmware in the Windows desktop then why can't OCZ do it? There are a plethora of notebook users out there today with the fabled SATA 3 interface, and there will be more as the days go on as it is the standard for high performance notebooks presently. Those notebook users, myself included, would surely like a way to update their SSD's and keep them current with up to date firmware, but we literally have no way to go there now the way things are.

For that reason, and the failure of my first Vertex 3 SSD, I am rating the SSD with three stars (3), as originally I had it rated at 4 stars, just deducting one star for the lack of a firmware update kit for notebooks. But overnight I've thought about it and I should have rated the SSD 3 stars all along, thus the review is hereby updated to reflect reality with the problem with updating and the failure accounting for a 2-star deduction.

The experts in the OCZ Forum showed me that you can make a Ubuntu Linux USB boot Flash Drive with the update tool inherent in the OS, which is true and nice for those which this system works for. I tried until I cried baby tears to do the update, but somehow Windows puts a lock on the SSD, EVEN IF YOU PHYSICALLY UNHOOK the SSD from the SATA bus, then re-attach it to break the "lock" the OS puts on the SSD...sad to say even that extreme technique failed miserably, and none of the experts at OCZ could figure out how to make the USB Ubuntu boot USB Flash Drive technique work in my notebook. I still have the USB flash drive with Ubuntu loaded on it, just for grins, and will undoubtedly find a use for it at some point.

That 1st Vertex 3 failed outright in the notebook about a week after the attempt to flash the SSD, no doubt it was going to fail in spite of getting flashed it turned out. The first couple hundred of the SSD's that were released for retail sale had a firmware bug in them, and the SSD's would seize up and freeze in the Windows GUI out of the blue, until finally the drive froze solid and left town for good! OCZ was very quick to replace the faulty SSD also, getting me a new drive drop-shipped out of China, where the SSDs are made apparently: it shipped China to Anchorage, Alaska, to Oakland CA, to Southern California in less than 36 hours, go figure! THAT was International Priority Dispatch Shipping all the way!! Nice job, OCZ!

I have been pleased with the performance of this 2nd SSD, as it has firmware 2.06 instead of 2.02 like the first drive had on it, but again, I have no way update the firmware in the notebook, so I am stuck for life unless I remove it from the notebook altogether and mount it into a desktop with a SATA 3 controller, and use it as a 2ndary drive of some kind, and then I can flash the SSD...or so they tell me! I am want to NOT go through any of that with my notebook's SSD, will just tough it out with the OEM firmware for the duration, and will hope for the best, sad to say.

In the higher register of file sizes (128KB and larger) I am getting the fabled 450-550MB/sec reads and 425-500MB/sec writes out of this SSD, and I've published one of the screen shots for ATTO Tools Benchmark of the SSD in action so you can all see for yourselves how fast it really is...and it IS realllly fast! There is no way to describe how rapid it is to the layperson, who has never used an SSD, but suffice to say it's literally twice as fast as a SATA 2 SSD, which is saying something big!

Launching a web page is a blink of an eye, and launching Adobe Photoshop in any iteration takes less than 10 seconds to full desktop status...for example. Calculations in the GUI are instantaneous also, such as for math programs or a graphics interface for 3D for example, all happens extra fast.

Of course there's no sound or phasing with an SSD so you don't know it's even working until you hit any key to launch a program or write something quickly, and it will be quickly I assure you. In short this is the biggest upgrade that can be had for a laptop, any laptop, even a SATA 2 laptop, but the real benefits come when you have an AHCI SATA 3 controller that does the 6GB/sec up front, and then you get to see stars!

I have no regrets about the failed laptop SSD, as I honestly expected something bad in that first batch of the Sandforce 2281 controller SSD's, and I was right on the $$ about things it turned out. I always caution about being an early adopter of new technology and this was no different. I had a full backup of my SSD and all media anyway, and this notebook has twin HD's so that I was covered 100% when it failed.

Overall I recommend this SSD for desktop and notebook use, both, no question this is a fine upgrade to do for your favorite toys! Let's just hope and pray that OCZ gets wise and writes a firmware update tool for notebooks, and any single-drive system for that matter...that is my only reservation for recommending the Vertex 3 SSD. Now that the price point is less than $200 after rebate it's time to GO GO GO! Get yourself one of these Vertex 3 SSD's like right now while the gettin's good!

Wavey Davey - 7-2-2011

OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Review by T3 "T3" : Check motherboard compatability

It is a very fast drive but specific motherboards are able to get the rated speeds of 500/550.
My motherboard's (ASUS P6X58D-E) Marvell 9128 controller only caps at 242/365 ATTO disk benchmark.
It is still fast but not even getting 400s

I'm disappointed in that I waited for the drive to come out and there was no mention that x58 motherboards using the Marvel 9128 sata III controller not able to achieve the rated speeds due to limitations.

OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Review by __SAREK__ : like a big player

I am impressed with you load times this drive gives me in online play. If you are looking for some impressive data read times . . . get it NOW!

OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Review by dhyard : Amazing SSD

Great fast drive, put this on a new Sandy Bridge system with Win 7 64bit, and am very happy with the performance. Programs start fast and everything happens almost instantly. I use the sleep a lot and it sleeps and wakes almost immediately. Doesn't start quite as fast as I thought, but think that's mainly because my bios takes longer to boot. But so far this drive is perfect.

OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Review by oldtaku : So Fast! Here's how to upgrade.

You want this bad boy as your boot drive - it's wasted on anything else. Though if you can afford RAIDing these just to hold your mp3 collection, go for it. This cut my Win7 boot time in half. Apps launch instantly. Win7 is smart enough to TRIM the drive and not page files that are on the drive, since it's just as easy to read them directly.

It'll still be fast under XP, but not as fast, and performance will degrade due to lack of TRIM support. And you want 6Gb SATA support on your motherboard for best performance, but even with 3Gb it'll be screaming. Normal drives waste almost all their time seeking around, this has zero seek time.

Edit: I had a section here on how to use Easeus Todo Backup to do the migration here, but H. Heller pointed out that this utility doesn't guarantee cluster alignment, which means you will have reduced performance. I got lucky since my desktop SSD ended up aligned, but that may not happen for you.