OCZ Vertex 4 heading for CeBit

[Peon]

Marvell chip, Indilinx firmware.

AnandTech - OCZ Confirms Octane and Vertex 4 use Marvell based Silicon

I wonder if this is a trend towards consolidation in the SSD controller industry?

Whereas 3 years ago there were numerous SSD controllers, it seems we're now down to just 2 that get licensed out (Marvell and Sandforce) and a 2 more that are for in-house use only (Intel and Samsung), one of which has a bleak future (Intel).

[widezu69]

No, newer controllers are coming out. Toshiba just announced one that does 480MB/s and 350MB/s read and write respectively. Novachip has a new controller on the way with 530MB/s and 520MB/s.

Despite what it looks like, these drives outpace the SandForce drives as those figures are representative of both compressed and uncompressed speeds where as the SandForce drives get their crown from only compressed speeds. It dramatically falls short when benching with uncompressed speeds.

[Peon]

What drive size do these numbers apply to? If these numbers represent 120 GB drives, then performance is stellar and these are definitely next gen controllers.

On the other hand, if these numbers came from 500 GB drives, then it's a small incremental improvement over today's fastest SSDs in Novachip's case and slower than the Vertex 3 on compressed data in Toshiba's case.

[Greg]

Marvell chip, Indilinx firmware.

AnandTech - OCZ Confirms Octane and Vertex 4 use Marvell based Silicon

Ugh...Marvell seems to have a good chip for sure, but OCZ firmware is a no-go. They let too many things slide in their earlier Indilinx and SandForce based products.

[widezu69]

What drive size do these numbers apply to? If these numbers represent 120 GB drives, then performance is stellar and these are definitely next gen controllers.

On the other hand, if these numbers came from 500 GB drives, then it's a small incremental improvement over today's fastest SSDs in Novachip's case and slower than the Vertex 3 on compressed data in Toshiba's case.

Very true nevertheless, it is still good to see near SandForce performance in uncompressible data in the Novachip controller. We shall see what capacities it will come with in the coming months

[chimpanzee]

Ugh...Marvell seems to have a good chip for sure, but OCZ firmware is a no-go. They let too many things slide in their earlier Indilinx and SandForce based products.

OCZ don't have the know how to have their own firmware(thus don't have the ability to fix them either), well probably better now after their indilinx purchase.

Their SF firmware are just SF stock ones.