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OCZ Vertex 3 SSD 120GB ~AU $150 Delivered (US $149.99 + US $7.21 Postage)

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OCZ Vertex 3 SSD 120GB ~AU $150 Delivered (US $149.99 + US $7.21 Postage)Affiliate
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PShrewdOrJustTight on 07/03/2012 - 21:11 amazon.com (1119 clicks)
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What? It's been more than three days since anyone has posted a Crucial M4 deal?? Wow.

Well, for those with withdrawal symptoms, perhaps have a look at Amazon's price on OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs. I know a lot of people will bring on the hate about reliability, but a deal is a deal.

These have come down in price somewhat but seems like Amazon is still $40+ (inc delivery) cheaper than the cheapest on static ice.

Disclaimer: I actually don't have one but I've read good reviews and hear about good experiences - mainly relating to performance. Personally, I use 4x Crucial M4 myself.

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel.
Computing 120GB Computer Component OCZ SSD

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  • 51ngh on 07/03/2012 - 21:18

    How does this compare to the M4 ?

    • Doge on 07/03/2012 - 21:36
      +6

      The M4 is more generally more reliable (see below). But the OCZ has faster reads/writes and IOPS.

  • Alzori on 07/03/2012 - 21:21
    +2

    Not a bad deal, but yeah I too would go with the M4 just based on what I've heard.

    Sick name btw :P

  • Cluster on 07/03/2012 - 21:26
    +5

    After the multitude of Amazon postings about the Crucial M4 I purchased a 512Gb SSD last week. It arrived on Monday, and worked for about 10 minutes before returning constant I/O and parity errors. Reflashing the firmware to the latest version (0309) had no effect, and the drive was tested on three PCs. Check the Crucial forums: multiple threads about sudden drive death.

    I emailed Crucial the same day for an RMA (their RMA form specifically precludes RMAing SSDs) and have yet to hear back from them. I took advantage of Amazon's generous returns offer and sent the drive back for a refund yesterday via registered post. Amazon will even credit me US$15 to cover postage (not quite enough). The Crucial M4 has been the worst drive I have owned in two decades of storage experience.

    Take away message: Amazon's returns process is great. Buy the OCZ, stay away from Crucial. Yes, this is an anecdote with a sample size of 1.

    • danj303 on 07/03/2012 - 21:34
      +10

      "Buy the OCZ, stay away from Crucial" Thats a pretty generalised statement. I also bought the m4 from amazon and it has been running brilliantly. Also based on Amazon's reviews the m4 is a whole lot more reliable.

      • Cluster on 07/03/2012 - 21:43

        I agree that my level of annoyance is out of proportion to the problem, and I'm sure Crucial have many happy customers. I wasn't one, especially after spending $675 on buying one of their products. It is the worst storage device I have ever purchased, based on lifetime and price. Amazon reviews are of course mostly very positive, but browse at the 1 star level and you'll find reviews of the drives dying after hours or months.

        Crucial M4 also had the 5200 hour bug, where the drive would reset the system every hour after those power on hours were reached. Its been fixed since early this year, but makes you wonder what other bugs exist in Crucial's firmware.

        • Jabba the Hutt on 07/03/2012 - 21:49
          +2

          Perfectly understandable to be annoyed and to want to put a negative experience on record as a reminder that things don't always go as swimmingly as the torrent of positive reviews suggests.

          The take away message to buy another brand makes less sense, and you acknowledge that by pointing out it's a single anecdote, but seemingly more as a preemptive middle finger to anyone who'd suggest that thinking is irrational :D

        • Cluster on 07/03/2012 - 21:55
          +1

          I do wonder where I've put up a preemptive middle finger to anyone who'd point out a point of view is irrational. It was a comment that yes, anecdote != data, and that it's my personal experience with an expensive solid state storage device that would customarily be expected to be more reliable than spinning platter storage. I've lost count of the number of flash cards, flash USB drives, and similar storage devices that I have purchased that worked first time and continued to function. The most expensive device purchased died before the first hour of use.

        • assailantsky on 08/03/2012 - 15:20

          I don't think your experience justify your original statement: Buy the OCZ, stay away from Crucial. You had a problem with Crucial, have you had experience with OCZ? Your statement is based on an assumption that you have never tested. Based on your post, you have not said you've used OCZ before? How do you know its better or worst?

          I have 2 OCZ drives (Vortex 2s) and I've never had any problem with them even if other people have. I also bought the m4 and its been faultless so far. I would recommend both brands based on my experience.

          I've also had to return my original m4 to Amazon but that was due to shipping damage. Amazon was amazing in the returns department, sent the replacement with express post at no extra cost. I got my replacement within 4 days!

    • Elijha on 07/03/2012 - 21:35
      +1

      Dang - hopefully that's just some bad luck. Mine arrived today and is a box next to me .. feel less excited about installing now. Fingers crossed.

      Also since SSD's seem of interest to a lot of people - I read a TomsHardware.com review [http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-review-benchmark,3139.html] on drives on the weekend that makes the Chronos look like excellent value in the 240GB range.
      http://www.ramexperts.com/mushkin-mknssdcr240gb-dx-solid-sta…

    • nfr on 07/03/2012 - 21:59

      Did Amazon offer the postage credit or you had to ask for it?

      • Cluster on 07/03/2012 - 22:03

        Amazon offered it as part of their refund process. The other option was to request an exchange where Amazon would immediately send a new drive before the faulty drive was returned. I opted for the refund.

        • Vladdo on 07/03/2012 - 23:04

          I'm going through an RMA process now with amazon for a $600 video card.. It's going to cost me $70 to post back.. they're going to credit me with $15 return post.. lol..

        • Cluster on 07/03/2012 - 23:16
          +1

          Registered air mail for a 250g package was $23, so I'm lucky that the US$15 goes a long way to covering it. Normal air mail was only $11, but I wasn't going to risk the package going missing.

          Paying $70 and getting compensated $15 is unlucky, although I must still give credit to Amazon for offering to cover any postage at all. Seagate and WD HDD returns to Sydney/Singapore do not offer any.

        • BigDirtyNoob on 08/03/2012 - 07:58
          +1

          "I must still give credit to Amazon for offering to cover any postage at all". I completely agree with that statement Cluster. Virtually all online shopping stores clearly state that they won't cover shipping costs from your end but it's great to see that Amazon does this (not to mention, for international orders as well)!

        • Savabuck on 09/03/2012 - 10:05

          Interesting point. Might be going a bit off topic here, but - as consumers we should be entitled to better sales terms when making a purchase. Some suppliers will cover full postage costs on items that are DOA (dead on arrival), as yours esentially was. Perhaps we could use our strength as a lobby group to 'encourage' suppliers to provide better terms. Maybe our own supplier rating system so the Ozbargain community can take this into consideration when making a purchase. Just a thought - but the 'feedback' system seems to work great for eBay.

    • skinny on 07/03/2012 - 22:31

      I had the same problem with OCZ - Luckily was purcahsed locally and hence had it replaced straight away. SSDs tend to be hit and miss.. I am staying away for OCZ - gave that one to my partner :)

      • Horizon on 08/03/2012 - 07:29

        …gave that one to my partner

        Ummm…I like your style!

    • CLoSeR on 08/03/2012 - 09:00
      -1

      Do one better, buy Intel SSD.

  • TimeOrMoney on 07/03/2012 - 22:36

    Benchmark comparison:
    http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/350?vs=425

    Seems the m4 is a little better with Read speed, and the V3 is much better with Write speed.

  • RtN on 07/03/2012 - 23:21
    +3

    My crucial m4 has been going strong, no issues here.

  • theguyrules on 07/03/2012 - 23:30
    +3

    I'm the opposite to Cluster, I had an OCZ drive that failed, replaced it with a Crucial M4 and its been going strong.

  • Adamiam on 07/03/2012 - 23:56
    +3

    The general consensus is that the M4 is significantly more reliable than the OCZ. Yes, you will always face a risk with buying any electronic product, but playing the numbers game, you should still be buying the M4 for reliability.
    It's also got 8GB more storage, and only about $10 more from Amazon.

  • strat on 07/03/2012 - 23:58
    +2

    I have had 6 crucial's now 2 before (c300) and current have 4 x M4's

    Friends have had a handful of other ssd's which have failed and i can remember at least 2 were ocz and none were crucial.

  • Newtz4 on 08/03/2012 - 01:05
    +2

    I bought a crucial m4 about a month ago, mines running perfectly. Cant speak for the vertex though as I haven't had one..

  • moda on 08/03/2012 - 01:18

    My Vertex 3 has been running flawlessly ever since I got it (must have been about 9 months or a year now)

    Flashed to fw2.09 when it was released.

    According to SSDLife Pro, 100% health, 2063 hours worktime, total data read/written 2476/3108gb, power on times 295, etc etc etc. Still running brilliantly :)

    YMMV

  • CuteBirdy on 08/03/2012 - 01:21

    Does Amazon give that $15 credit for shipping RMA, for the duration of the product's warranty (in this case 3 years)?

  • Thiefsie on 08/03/2012 - 08:36

    Note that the OCZ includes a caddy, the crucial does not.

    I just bought a Crucial and it is great (after painfully having to format windows as the AHCI setting even when done properly caused my computer to crash on boot or just after booting constantly - even after removing the SSD and trying to go back to the original drive) (ASRock Extreme 7 Gen 3.

    So might get this one for my laptop.

  • Matt88 on 08/03/2012 - 08:54

    Not bad. However, SSD's are going to have to hit the $1 per GB before I jump in.

  • casey2 on 08/03/2012 - 10:20

    I'm checking these deals again because my A-RAM Pro 128GB Just died 5 days left on the 2 year warranty. I'm hoping they'll just honour it and send me a new one. That's pretty amazing you can't RMA an SSD from Crucial. It is soooo slow working from my platter in the mean time :(

    • Cluster on 08/03/2012 - 10:26
      +1

      Just to clarify, you can RMA an SSD with Crucial, but you can't use their standard online form to do it.

      http://www.crucial.com/support/returns.aspx

      "Note: This form CANNOT be used to return SSDs or any of the following compatible accessory products — CT2SVD53Z, CTC9P4LPN, CTXHS5JWS, CTL7DEDG6, CTG7YHWVF, CT2E47P7F. Please contact Customer Service for assistance. "

      I emailed Crucial for assistance and got a generic reply 3 days later asking for more information. Returning the drive to Amazon seemed so much easier so that's the path I took.

      Another important thing to note about Crucial's warranty is that although it's for 3 years, the terms and conditions specifically state it covers the first purchaser only. If you sell the drive to someone else Crucial regards the warranty as expired. I don't know whether this is standard practice with computer hardware these days, but I thought the T&C was pretty mean.

      • CuteBirdy on 08/03/2012 - 10:56
        +2

        That's bad of Crucial, hate it when manufacturers make warranty only for first purchaser. It shows they want to find ways to weasel out of warranty where possible.

  • Greazy Baush on 08/03/2012 - 12:19

    Gettins some double sided tape to mount mine this arvo M4 that is.

  • MrGrinchy on 08/03/2012 - 13:32
    -1

    Is this the same as the other OCZs that are sold as 120G, but infact, before even formating the OS reports it as a 115G. (Pure utter lies about being 120 - ACCC should slap their asses)

    So after formating that 120G , I mean 115G, becomes now a 107G.

    Note: this was for their OCZ Vertex 2's

    Are they still liars?

    • Cluster on 08/03/2012 - 15:05
      +2

      The origin of the problem goes back to the 1980s.

      Hard drive manufacturers have for decades regarded a kilobyte as being 1000 bytes while your computer uses 1024. That small difference plus various overheads the drive has to store accounts for the unformatted drive difference you see reported by Windows versus what's on the box.

      SSD makers have gleefully followed the HDD makers in using weasel bytes, even though SSD makers also usually make RAM which is always correctly reported. 2Gb of RAM sticks doesn't suddenly turn into 1.9 when you place it in a computer.

      When you format the drive you store all sorts of extra information for whatever file system you use, so the storage area for your data reduces again. This is unavoidable and not fraud.

      So yes, all HDD and SSD manufacturers are liars, at least on the first point.

      See this for more details than you probably want to know:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Units_of_storag…

      • MrGrinchy on 08/03/2012 - 20:23

        No, this isnt the GB GiB problem, the Vertex 2 drive is detected as a 115GB. A 120GB is 111GiB, and 115GB (Or BB, as in billion bytes) is 107.1 GiB

        Its no where near 120, or a math error, its just less.

        Seagate dont lie when I see N LBA sectors, or clearly labeled as 2TB = 2,000,000,000,000 bytes.

        • Cluster on 09/03/2012 - 01:21

          Install PassMark Software's DiskCheckup and see how many sectors and available space there is. Don't rely on Windows to show an accurate result.

          BTW - The ACCC has no power over OCZ or any of the other SSD/HDD manufacturers.

      • MrGrinchy on 09/03/2012 - 20:27

        I couldn't reply to your message below, but dude, im not a dumb Duck ok. Ive used storage media since 5.25in floppies and knew my bits and bytes inside out since 1986.

        Read http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?84598…

        OCZ used more of the nand, ie 1 DIE of the chip, for over commissioned 'reserved space' because the 25nm NAND is more unreliable.

        When I say the BIOS reports lower size, that means NO WINDOWS at all.
        And yes, windows will give accurate results, ever used DISKPART.EXE, type in LIST DISK, and it shows the true GB of the drive in 1024 land.
        Or I can boot into UBCD, and use many disk tools to show the true LBA size too.

        So ACCC has no power? But what if I sell you a carton of bear thats clearly labeled, 24 PACK, and once you open it up, you find out it only has 23 bottles in it. Is that legal. What if you buy that 150sq foot house, only to find out once you measure it its only 135sqft, the other 15 is the patio.
        What if I sold you my 900TB raid server, but once opened up, its only 2TB.

    • TimeOrMoney on 08/03/2012 - 20:12

      120GB = 111.8GiB

      Think of it as the difference between the marketing department and the technical department.

  • Oliver on 08/03/2012 - 17:14

    What's better, OCZ Vertex 3 or OCZ Agility 3?

    • MHLoppy on 08/03/2012 - 21:57

      Vertex 3 has higher performance (but also costs a bit more)

  • PeppeX on 08/03/2012 - 18:20

    They are now $169.99 :(

  • [Deactivated] on 08/03/2012 - 18:53

    Good price but by the time they get all the way to aus it might be just as cheap as buying one in store

  • Thiefsie on 09/03/2012 - 09:32

    Amazon is fast. Got my crucial in a week

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