Good to see OCZ stepping up and starting to offer native PCIe controllers. Really looking forward to seeing what they can manage on the price/capacity scale. I'd really love to start deploying 1TB units in workstations but thus far cost and questionable endurance have kept it from becoming a reality.
Is it possible to boot from these drives? I guess with a "normal" mainboard the answer is no? But is boot support something that is doable over PCIe at all?
Since there is no SATA involved I don't think it can be AHCI compliant, which means at the least it is unlikely it'd be plug and play like PCIe SSDs which do that. If it's not out there already I hope the industry can come up with something similar, or maybe even incorporate it into a 1.4 revision to AHCI post haste. Native PCIe looks exciting, but the thought of having to always deal with special drivers for storage like the bad old days is significantly less exciting.
While there is no native SATA, they could provide a software emulation layer on the controller to adhere to existing standards and allow booting. This is just technical speculation on my part.
Any long term reliability tests done on the Vertex 4? I don't think I've read about any BSOD problems. The only complaints on Newegg are on firmware upgrade inconveniences.
I've had a 128GB Vertex 4 for about 2 months now (since launch) and it's been rock solid. The access times definitely make a difference compared to the Sandforce drives. The new FW made a big difference too.
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vectorm12 - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Good to see OCZ stepping up and starting to offer native PCIe controllers. Really looking forward to seeing what they can manage on the price/capacity scale. I'd really love to start deploying 1TB units in workstations but thus far cost and questionable endurance have kept it from becoming a reality.happycamperjack - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Vertex 4 is good enough for workstations. Servers + databases benefit more from these guysnathanddrews - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Good enough?No such thing. :D
SleepyFE - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Vertex 4, Samsung 830, Intel 520, 720, 910Per Hansson - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Is it possible to boot from these drives?I guess with a "normal" mainboard the answer is no?
But is boot support something that is doable over PCIe at all?
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
There are many PCIe SSDs that support booting. At this point it's hard to say if this one supports booting, though.zanon - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Since there is no SATA involved I don't think it can be AHCI compliant, which means at the least it is unlikely it'd be plug and play like PCIe SSDs which do that. If it's not out there already I hope the industry can come up with something similar, or maybe even incorporate it into a 1.4 revision to AHCI post haste. Native PCIe looks exciting, but the thought of having to always deal with special drivers for storage like the bad old days is significantly less exciting.Kevin G - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
While there is no native SATA, they could provide a software emulation layer on the controller to adhere to existing standards and allow booting. This is just technical speculation on my part.SleepyFE - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Do the ones that support booting have native PCIe SSD controllers?ctyau - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Do you know if this is NVMe or another PCIe to SATA/SAS bridge card?FaaR - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
It says right in the article this is a NATIVE PCIe solution, if you just bother to read it properly. :) It doesn't use SATA/SAS.ctyau - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
Ok...so is it NVMe or a proprietary PCIe implementation?etamin - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
Any long term reliability tests done on the Vertex 4? I don't think I've read about any BSOD problems. The only complaints on Newegg are on firmware upgrade inconveniences.josephjpeters - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 - link
I've had a 128GB Vertex 4 for about 2 months now (since launch) and it's been rock solid. The access times definitely make a difference compared to the Sandforce drives. The new FW made a big difference too.