OCZ Shipping 25nm SSDs, customers not happy over lack of change?

[BatBoy]

Came across this article over @ storagereview. Looks interesting. This is what caught my eye...

OCZ made the switch to 25nm NAND last week. The only problem is they didn't make any branding or packaging changes.

The net result, is consumers are getting a product with a fundamental technology change and a material change in capacity for drives under 180GB.

Customers pay the same price for a smaller capacity drive and OCZ nets higher profits with the reduced cost of the smaller 25nm flash.

This is obviously an issue. I'm a bit amazed OCZ went this route.

full article is here -
SSDs Shifting to 25nm NAND - What You Need to Know | StorageReview.com

Thoughts?

[chimpanzee]

I am surprised the article said that the cost reduction is only that small(< 20%). So are they using the same number of chips ? If that is the case, it is hard to explain the servere drop in write speed.

[Tsunade_Hime]

o_O wow that's pretty bad. Guess early adopters keep on getting burned pretty badly!

[chimpanzee]

ok, found the official message in the mentioned article

Guide New update on the 25nm OCZ SSD drives

They do change to use 2x density die(64Gb vs 32Gb) which explains why the write speed drop by half. Same situation as in 80G vs 40V in Intel's case as the channels/blocks have been reduced by 1/2.

The only difference is that Intel made it crystal clear what you are getting, not so for OCZ. Not sure about other vendors of SF.

[BatBoy]

The only difference is that Intel made it crystal clear what you are getting, not so for OCZ

Yep, and thats why so many folks are up in arms over this. I was considering replacing my current drive with an OCZ. Going to wait and see how all of this plays out first.

[chimpanzee]

I would forever ignore OCZ products unless they go bankrupt and start from new(with new management). A company with this management style cannot be trusted and a company you don't trust is not a company you want to deal with.

edit:
BTW, the 'explanation' of their official staffs about the reason is very fishy to me, telling you how sincere they are.

[Tsunade_Hime]

Wait...they only changed it since last week? I just got an OCZ Vertex 2 80 GB for my Latitude 13? Does that mean the 25nm SSD haven't been shipped yet?

[chimpanzee]

80GB ? That sounds like a 25nm to me.

The raw size is usually 96GB(64+32) and they would use some of those as OP. Though taking a whopping 16 sounds a bit too much. puzzled.

[Tsunade_Hime]

80GB ? That sounds like a 25nm to me.

The raw size is usually 96GB(64+32) and they would use some of those as OP. Though taking a whopping 16 sounds a bit too much. puzzled.

Man now you are starting to scare me...though WEI is useless, it only rates my SSD @ 5.9 with latest IRST, when my old 30 GB Vertex on my i7 desktop is a 6.9.

When I go home from work, I'll run Crystal Disk Mark on it...

Is there a way to tell from the SSD the fab?

Edit: When the Intel G3 SSD come out, the Vertex 2 is leaving the Latitude 13.

[chimpanzee]

I think they posted the detail model number of which is which. Though CDM with random data fill would tell you the answer as there is no way to dance around if the channels have been reduced.