OCZ Apex

Yes the Vertex is a none jmicron controller with 200mb read 160 write, <.1ms access time

Apex on the otherhand is cheaper but still uses the jmicron controller but has it operating in internal RAID 0. Which gives 230mb read 160mb write and <.2-.3 ms access time.

Apex is what you want if you have a hardware RAID card otherwise you probably want Vertex :-)

Apex is significantly cheaper at higher capacities than Vertex though :-)
 
Does it mean that Apex will still suffer from lag and slow downs like Core series?
What does that internal RAID 0 mean? Does it mean that 60GB will actually be 2x 60GB in raid?
 
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Surely as it has an internal raid.. then the raid controller will have some cache and potentially solve the issues of the core series.

This is purely a guess but.
The jmicrons only issue is its lack of cache, The vertex uses a totaly new controller which has cache - hence why the random writes issue is fixed. If the jmicron controller doesnt have the random write issue when run with a hardware raid (additional controller card) then i assume having an internal raid with a small cache would be equivalent but still cheaper because of the cheaper overhead from having the old jmicron controller.

Vertex = new controller + cache. = fixed issues
Core v2 = old controller = stuttering issues.
Apex = old controller + raid(small cache probably) = fixed issues.

Granted if there is no cache for the internal raid controller then these are going to be just as useless outside of an external Hardware Raid With cache as the core v2.

RO
 
ROfu said:
Vertex = new controller + cache. = fixed issues
Core v2 = old controller = stuttering issues.
Apex = old controller + raid(small cache probably) = fixed issues.

RO
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I was reading on another forum that they had a G.Skill Titan 120Gb which uses the same controllers in raid as the OCZ Apex still had stuttering issues but only on certain apps.

Surely it would make more sense to add a wee bit more cache.
 
shame sounds like there's either no cache or way too small on the raid controller.
I'm still waiting on the vertex to be honest, seems like the only drive with a fair price and speed and cache.. although im sure there will be other issues to come with those :/
 
Hmm... I ordered 2 of these as soon as they came available earlier, but it still shows as 2 being in stock over 2 1/2 hours later.... /shrug

Anyone else ordered them too?
 
I received two of the 60gb Apex drives yesterday afternoon (thanks Overclockers UK) and I have to say that my initial reaction is that I've just totally wasted £400 :(.....

The 2 drives are setup as raid0 128k stripe size and connected to my Asus Blitz Extreme motherboard via the ICH9R controller. I have a Q9550 cpu @ 3.4ghz with 4gb DDR3 ram.

I have installed Vista64 with all updates, I have the correct 64bit chipset drivers installed together with the correct Intel Matrix storage manager.

I used to have 2 WD 150gb RaptorX drives running in raid0 and according to HDTune Pro I used to average around 115mb/sec. According to HDTune pro I am currently averaging 147mb/sec with the 2 Apex drives, but during normal use it's a totally different story :(.

Windows does boot a few seconds faster with the Apex drives, but I'm getting many random system freezes that last upto 30 seconds when using the drives. Normal system performance is abysmal, if for example I delete a small file from the recycle bin it takes around 15 seconds. I tried copying my music folder (12.4gb, 2884 files) to a new folder and the file transfer rate was around 1.8mb/sec - the same process on a second computer achieved 38mb/sec (2x150gb WD Raptor drives Raid0).

Opening and closing windows on the desktop is extremely laggy.

Now, before I ring Overclockers and ask them to take these drives back is there anything anyone can think of that I could try that would get these drives to achieve anything like the performance they are supposed to achieve according to OCZ?
 
Review of the Apex... http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=661

I need to first explain some problems we had with our IOMeter testing and the new OCZ Apex SSD. The first returned results from this benchmark were absolutely abysmal for three of the four tests (the web server scenario for some reason was immune) and included IOs per second in the teens. Consider that the Intel drive was going over 14k IOs per second in the web server tests this was obviously an eyebrow raiser. We initially thought we were seeing an incompatibility with the Apex internal RAID-0 configuration and the way that IOMeter does its hardware level testing and that may still be the case. OCZ eventually found us a work-around by telling us to set the "starting disk sector" to something like 512 or 1024 and then set the "maximum disk size" to anything reasonable like 2,000,000.

That did improve our results and allow the Apex 250GB SSD to give us "normal" testing scores. That being said, there is something amiss with this application and this particular drive as no other HDD or SSD has exhibited any similar results. I am going to continue looking into the incompatibility with IOMeter in the coming weeks hoping to find the culprit and thus be sure there is nothing wrong with the JMicron-based internal RAID architecture design.
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Source Here

Final Thoughts

The OCZ Apex is a new take on the solid state drive that offers both high performance and the low cost of multi-level cell technology. Does this drive have enough to completely unseat the Intel X25-M when it comes to raw performance? Not quite, but it does offer enough performance and price/capacity benefit that I think a lot of users will find it more appealing in the long run. If you wanted a new SSD for your laptop or desktop but were scared off by either the price or performance of other options, the OCZ Apex series is just what you are looking for.
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So there seems to be an issue with the standard drive configuration - shortening the drive means it's easier to cache... so to me this is a completely flawed test!
 
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Iyoung - you need to buy a raid card with cache on it .. not use the onboard as it doesn't.. or RMA them if you can.
Sounds like the internal raid setup isn't helping out on the stuttering issues due to the jmicron controllers.
Now i wish the damn vertex drives would get in stock so someone can actually test them.

Cheers
ROfu
 
For a single Apex drive connected to ICH9R
Align the partition to 128 sectors offset (64KB)

HDtach64k.png


For RAID you need a 256K stripe size and align the partition to 512 sectors offset (256KB)

256stripeHDTach256k.png


You wont be able to set a stripe size of 256KB on ICH9R, you need a hardware RAID card to set that size.

These drives fly. ;)

256stripeATTO256k.png
 
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