OCZ debuts faster SSD, previews Thunderbolt-based Lightfoot

From CNET News.com: Germany--OCZ unveiled a new solid-state drive here, its higher-performance Vertex 4, and said it'll ship an SSD called the Lightfoot using the Thunderbolt interface later this year that'll be even faster.

Many SSD makers use a controller chip from Sandforce, but OCZ acquired a competitor called Indilinx, and its Vertex 4 uses the Indilinx Everest 2 controller. Where Sandforce gets a performance boost by compressing data, the Indilinx technology uses faster uncompressed links, said marketing director Joost van Leeuwen, speaking here at the CeBIT tech show where it unveiled the products.

The Sandforce-based Vertex 3 products can perform about 40,000 to 45,000 input-output operations per second (IOPS) in real-world use, but the Vertex 4 line will reach 90,000 IOPS, van Leeuwen said. It can reach read speeds of 550MBps and read speeds of 550MBps.

The Vertex 4 will ship in March or April, he said, for a price yet to be determined. It'll support capacities up to 2 terabytes in a 2.5-inch drive package.

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