OCZ Vertex 460 240GB review

The OCZ Vertex 460 is the latest SSD from the newly resurrected OCZ. Declared bankrupt in late 2013, the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba. However, OCZ retains its branding.

The Vertex 460 uses 19nm Toshiba NAND flash, but unlike Toshiba-branded SSDs it doesn’t use a Marvell controller. Instead it uses OCZ’s own Barefoot 3 M10 controller which is the same controller used in the older Vertex 450. The Barefoot 3 M10 is based on controller technology that OCZ acquired when it bought the previously independent SSD controller company Indilinx. OCZ claims the Barefoot 3 M10 controller is superior to the Sandforce controllers used in some other SSDs as it can transfer both compressed and uncompressed files quickly, whereas Sandforce controllers struggle with compressed files.

Our demanding file transfer tests verified these claims. Large files were written at 394.5MB/s and read at 397.7MB/s. Small files were written at 152MB/s and read at 87MB/s. All this makes the Vertex 460 far faster than any of the Sandforce-based SSDs we’ve seen. However, it doesn’t fare as well against other non-Sandforce SSDs. The Crucial M550 (see What’s New, Shopper 317) was significantly faster at copying large files, although its small files speeds were almost the same as the Vertex 460’s.

The Vertex 460 doesn’t rely on performance alone. Despite its low price it comes with a mounting bracket for fitting the 2.5in SATA SSD in a desktop PC’s 3.5in disk bay. There’s also a licence key for a downloadable version of Acronis True Image HD for cloning the contents of your current SSD or hard disk to the Vertex 460. It’s also not a bad looker with a silver, grey and blue appearance that’s surprisingly attractive even though you’ll most likely never see it again once you’ve installed it in your computer.

The 240GB OCZ Vertex 460 is by no means a bad SSD. It’s fast and costs 54p per gigabyte which is what we would expect an SSD of this capacity to cost. However, the 256GB Crucial M550 is much faster at copying large files yet costs less. The M550 doesn’t come with a 3.5in bracket, both have three year warranties. Unless you can find the OCZ Vertex 460 substantially cheaper, the Crucial M550 is far better value.