OWC appeared on the SSD scene in partnership with Apple, though they sold drives to PC users as well. Their current generation uses SandForce’s Release Candidate firmware for the SF-2281 controller as opposed to OCZ’s official firmware that is present in the Vertex 3 SSDs. That is not the only difference, OCZ rolled their own PCB while OWC went with a design that caused a few raised eyebrows at AnandTech. Read their full review to see how the performance evened out.
"I still don’t get how OWC managed to beat OCZ to market last year with the Mercury Extreme SSD. The Vertex LE was supposed to be the first SF-1500 based SSD on the market, but as I mentioned in our review of OWC’s offering – readers had drives in hand days before the Vertex LE even started shipping.
I don’t believe the same was true this time around. The Vertex 3 was the first SF-2200 based SSD available for purchase online, but OWC was still a close second. Despite multiple SandForce partners announcing drives based on the controller, only OCZ and OWC are shipping SSDs with SandForce’s SF-2200 inside."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Corsair Performance 3 2x128GB SSD RAID Report @ Tweaktown
- OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB SSD Review – 500MB/s Sets The New Standard @ The SSD Review
- Intel SSD 320 Series (25nm) – 300Gb @ Funky Kit
- Intel SSD 510 Series 120GB @ TechSpot
- OCZ Technology Vertex 3 120GB Retail Solid State Drive @ Tweaktown
- Kingston SSDNow V+100 vs. Samsung 470 Series 256 GB SSD @ Hardware Secrets
- Icy Dock MB991IK-B @ Hardware Bistro
- Netgear Stora Home Media Network Storage Review @ Legit Reviews
- Icy Dock SSD 4 in 1 SSD RAID Cages and SSD Conversion Kits – A Quick Look @ The SSD Review
- ICY DOCK MB974SP-B Internal 4-bay Enclosure Review @ ThinkComputers
- LSI 9265-8i 6Gbps MegaRAID Card RAID 5 Tested! – Just The 9265 & 8 Micron C300 SSDs @ The SSD Review
- Patriot LX Pro 32GB Class 10 SDHC Memory Card @ Hi Tech Legion
- Patriot 32GB Supersonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review @ Madshrimps