It’s now more affordable than ever to purchase a large capacity solid state drive to upgrade an existing PC or to install a new one. Today, we are going to test the latest OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB SSD to see how it fares against the competition.

Large capacity SSDs such as the Vertex 4 256 GB are ideal for upgrading laptops, as they will provide enough storage space to fulfill the needs of most users. Desktop PC users can usually combine a smaller capacity SSD with a hard drive to provide extra storage space for media files if required. This option can often be cheaper, so it is worth looking into for desktop PC users.

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 Figure 1: The OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB SSD

Before proceeding, we highly suggest that you read our “Anatomy of SSD Units ” tutorial, which provides all the background information you need to know about SSDs. Both of the SSDs featured in this review use MLC memory chips.

In the table below, we are assessing the OCZ Vertex 4 and the Kingston HyperX 3K, which we are using for comparison purposes. Both units use a SATA-600 interface and occupy a 2.5” form factor.  Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review

In the table below, we provide a more in-depth technical comparison between the two drives.