OCZ Updates Vector Series with Vector 150 SSDs

OCZ Technology has just launched the Vector 150 series solid-state drives, a welcome update to its flagship Vector brand. Amongst the changes, the 25nm IMFT NAND is out in favor of 19nm NAND from Toshiba. The drive continues to use OCZ’s in-house Barefoot 3 controller but receives a long-awaited tweak to give it AES-256 support. Previously, some lower tier models shipped with AES-256 support but the original Vector flagship model didn’t offer hardware encryption support which left some consumers flummoxed.

Perhaps the most noteworthy change is the endurance rating itself. The Vector had a typical 20GB/day for 5 years endurance guarantee. The new Vector 150 is far less conservative and offers a full 50GB/day for 5 years NAND endurance rating. While that is an impressive rating, it is worth noting that this isn’t so much due to much more durable NAND as it is simply OCZ being much less conservative in its ratings. OCZ clearly wanted to impress upon any enthusiasts concerned about decreased endurance with the switch to smaller process node NAND.

The Vector 150 also maintains the same five-year warranty, although it’s worth noting this warranty does expire if the user exceeds 91TB in writes, which is the total amount given by the endurance rating (50GB writes x 365 day x 5 years). For our astute readers, yes this endurance warranty applies to all models regardless of capacity. It therefore is a safe bet the 240GB and 480GB models will each last significantly longer beyond the 91TB rating.

Not much else has changed, the Vector 150 maintains the svelte 7mm aluminum alloy housing and obligatory SATA 6Gb/s interface. The Vector 150 SSDs are already available from online retailers, and should be a welcome update to the already wicked fast Vector series.