The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the OCZ Vector 150, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro 4.61, Anvil's Storage Utilities and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the OCZ Vertex 450, Silicon Power Slim S55, Samsung SSD 840 EVO, Seagate 600 SSD, SanDisk Extreme II, OCZ Vector, Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme, Samsung SSD 840 Pro, Samsung SSD 840, Kingston Ultra Plus, OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Agility 4, Kingston SSDNow V300 and Kingston HyperX 3K.
Like the original Vector, the Vector 150 is based on the Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00 controller platform. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that, unlike SandForce controllers, it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 OCZ Vector 150 120GB |
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB |
According to OCZ, the 120GB Vector 150 is capable of reading at 550 MB/s and writing at 450 MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. While the drive performed well, it came up a bit short of these numbers in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write speed tests.
 OCZ Vector 150 120GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 SanDisk Extreme II SSD 240GB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The Vector 150 performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 502.8 MB/s and write at 438.9 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the Vector 150's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the Vector 150 had average read and write speeds of 335.4 MB/s and 277.2 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 363.2 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the Vector 150's sequential read and write speeds. The tests were run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 OCZ Vector 150 120GB |
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB |
When tested with ATTO, the Vector 150's read speeds topped out at about 556 MB/s and its write speeds at 445 MB/s.
