OCZ Vertex 3 Low Profile Review

Overview

Perfect for laptop computers that only take 2.5 €“inch, 7mm thick drives, the OCZ Vertex 3 Low Profile, Solid State Hard Drive delivers an upgrade path which is more about efficiency and high €“speed rather than increasing capacity. The drive is an ideal solution for those who want to change to a zippy Solid State Drive from a mechanical drive. As we all know, SSDs offer a myriad of benefits amongst which include high €“speed, no €“frill, cooler operating temperature, and no noise. In addition, a solid state hard drive provides a fairly longer running time when running on battery power.

On the weight front, the OCZ Vertex 3 Low Power is relatively bulky and it weighs up to about 120g. Surprisingly, it has just flash memory chips on the inside, instead of a motor, and metal platters. In spite of that, it still feels about same weight as a 2.5 €“inch mechanical hard drive. The drive is a sturdily built, metal SSD that comes with a tough enclosure. Therefore, if you install this unit in your laptop computer with the hope of reducing your laptop’€™s overall weight, you will end up being disappointed.

On the contrary, where you wouldn’t be disappointed is on the speed front. It goes a step further than a standard drive when it comes to overall system responsiveness and throughput. Where you may have a slight issue here is during installation. You need to be very careful when installing it in a laptop especially on those designed to take more or less than the required 7mm thick bay for this unit. But on laptops with regular €“thickness of 7mm thick bay, installation shouldn’€™t be fiddly.

When it comes to specifications, the unit comes with a SandForce SF €“2281 controller, a SATA 3 (6GB/s) interface, and uses a MLC (multi-€“level cell) variety flash memory technology, which is usually featured in lower–priced solid state hard drives. In the same vein, the Vertex 3 LP supports TRIM €“a command designed to enhance write performance by retrieving space on deleting files so as for new data to be written in the same space.

Performance of OCZ Vertex 3 Low Profile

The performance is excellent, especially in terms of reading data. It pulled off 423MBps of read rate in CrystalDiskMark, which is about 327MBps faster than the Western Digital 500GB Scorpio Black hard drive. It is not the fastest read rate seen on the market though, but it’€™s really worth its salt. On the other hand, its write performance isn’t as fast as its read rate in CrystalDiskMark (though not too many solid state drives are). It clocked 174MBps of write rate which is still a very fast rate as it is 77MBps faster than the earlier mentioned Western Digital drive.

In conclusion, if your laptop is designed to take a 2.5 €“inch, 7mm drive, then the OCZ Vertex 3 Low Profile Solid State Hard Drive is ideal for you. Compared with a mechanical HDD, it delivers fast speeds along with all other benefits of SSD storage including less heat, no noise and great energy efficiency.