Although SandForce controllers have powered much of OCZ"s solid-state lineup, the company is shifting to its own solutions after purchasing Indilinx early last year. The "Octane" flash drives were the first to use the Indilinx Everest controller last holiday season and now that its SF-2281-based drives are over a year old, OCZ has begun phasing Everest into the rest of its offerings, including the Vertex series.
The Octane drives demonstrated impressive stability and speed, boasting read and write performance of 520MB/s and 410MB/s, which is competitive with today"s high-end SATA 6Gb/s SSDs. Despite being a solid series, it hasn"t been a particularly popular option among enthusiasts because of pricing. Even today, the 256GB model costs $300, while the 240GB Vertex 3 can be had for as little as $210.
Since the Octane"s launch, OCZ has whipped up a second-gen Everest controller, the silicon behind the company"s new Vertex 4. Despite touting more performance than the Octane series, the Vertex 4 appears to be competitively priced with existing SandForce, Samsung, and Marvell-based drives, which should make it a more viable option -- if not the de facto choice -- among high-end system builders...
Read: OCZ Vertex 4 256GB Review
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