OCZ just released a new firmware (v1.4RC) this morning that boosts the performance of its Vertex 4 SSD (check out: OCZ Vertex 4 Review: A Flagship SSD Powered By...Indilinx?). Random read and write performance hasn't changed, but OCZ has made a few tweaks to sequential read and write speeds that should provide a major performance benefit. Across the entire Vertex 4 product line the data rate for sequential reads now top out at 550 MB/s, a meager 15 MB/s improvement.

Vertex 4 Performance Specifications 128 GB 256 GB 512 GB 4 KB Random Reads (IOPS) 90,000 90,000 90,000 4 KB Random Writes (IOPS) 85,000 85,000 85,000 128 KB Sequential Reads (MB/s) Now: 550Previously: 535 Now: 550 Previously: 535 Now: 550 Previously:535 128 KB Sequential Writes (MB/s) Now: 420Previously: 200 Now: 465 Previously:380 475

With the exception of the 512 GB capacity point, sequential writes see a major improvement. If you own the 128 GB model, you'll see a 210 percent increase in performance, as the data rate is now 420 MB/s. At 256 GB, the firmware tweaks made by OCZ only yield a 22 percent gain - from 380 MB/s to 465 MB/s. The great thing is that these speeds obviously apply to incompressible data, an important distinction considering this is OCZ's first performance Vertex drive that doesn't feature SandForce.