It’s also interesting how the 240GB Vector 150 is slower than OCZ’s own 256GB Vertex 450 in all of our custom copy tests as well as PCMark 7, despite costing more at $1.00/GB versus $0.85/GB. That gap is partly closed by the fact that the Vector 150 offers 256-AES hardware encryption and 150% more writes than the original Vector. Even if we can’t test that claim, OCZ backs it up with a solid five-year warranty.
Additionally, the company ships its new drive with a copy of Acronis’ cloning software, which we’ve had positive experiences with and while this adds to the Vector 150’s value, we think $240 is simply asking too much for the 240GB model. As noted, the 256GB 840 Pro costs $0.83/GB while the 250GB 840 Evo with TLC memory costs just $0.66/GB, Crucial’s M500 is $0.64/GB, Intel’s 530 Series is $0.82/GB and the list goes on. The bottom line is, few if any SSD manufacturers are getting away with charging $1.00/GB or more for a 240GB to 256GB drive and that makes the Vector 150 a tough sell in our opinion. If OCZ prices the range closer to competing drives, we could see the Vector 150’s durable 19nm MLC NAND flash, 256-bit AES hardware encryption and bundled software being enough to justify its results, which were good and not great. Cons: The Vector 150’s performance is largely on par with last year’s drive, which wouldn’t be an issue on its own, but it becomes one with OCZ’s asking price of $1.00/GB or more.
