Single review: OCZ Vertex 4 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX4-25SAT3-256G

OCZ Vertex 4 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX4-25SAT3-256G

2.5"
256GB
SATA III

Fantastic drive, TERRIBLE support 03/06/2013

This review is from: OCZ Vertex 4 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX4-25SAT3-256G

Pros:

The drive is excellent; Bought one on launch day and it performed as advertised, topping out well above 500MB/s read/write in ATTO. Once upgraded to Windows 8, boot times were hitting 5-6 seconds.

Prompt firmware updates were provided back in the pre-1.5 days to address performance issues and bugs present since launch day. Live USB environment is provided for flashing the drive if you are not running Windows.

The drive's build quality is great. It has a heavy, sturdy chassis that you would expect in a flagship device.

Cons:

Failure can happen to any drive of any brand, and I understand that. But if you expect OCZ to provide reasonable, timely warranty service in the event of drive failure, look elsewhere right now.

After about half a year, I started getting kernel crashes and performance had dropped to roughly 280-300MB/s on a good day. I put in an RMA request, and it took several days just to hear back from someone. After a thorough explanation of my issue, including all the steps and diagnostics I had done to reasonably deduce that the SSD was at fault(I am a tech/sysadmin, btw), they still asked me to redundantly re-do diagnostic steps that I already told them I had done. By the time they offered a replacement, it had been well over a week since the RMA was started. Within that amount of time, the drive had suddenly failed completely after one last kernel crash. It's seen in the BIOS but no live environment at all, Knoppix or Hirens even, could mount or access any active partitions.

OCZ does not offer advance replacement by default, they want to receive the defective drive and then ship a new one out. You have to ask for advance replacement, and even then you are still going to be waiting. I was given a poorly-explained reason of why it would take another week just to have a drive sent to me for advance replacement after providing credit card details to secure payment in the event of me not returning the original SSD.

I gave up and bought another drive locally from a brick & mortar store to bring my system from the dead, because I could not afford the downtime that OCZ apparently does not care about.

Overall Review:

For the price and performance, the drive is top notch. Just hope it doesn't fail on you while you have no spare drives, because you will not get the fast support, advance replacement, etc that you might be used to with other storage brands like Western Digital or Kingston.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AC513,

Hearing of this delay and lack of urgency shown by our Support is troublesome and not the norm. We do offer Advanced Shipment/Replacement upon request (USA and Canada only). I am happy to investigate this matter and figure out why you experienced a delay and discuss findings with staff accountable. I will also make sure you receive your replacement if you are still experiencing delays. Please contact me at rcampbell at ocztechnology dot com with your RMA number and I will investigate this matter.

On behalf of OCZ, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards,
OCZ Support

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Anonymous
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Owned For: 1 month to 1 year

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