A Closer Look
The drive itself represents what we have become accustomed to as far as shape and size are concerned. Standard Serial ATA connections are present as are the mounting holes on the bottom and sides of the drive. The color scheme is present as are the logos and other markings. Pretty standard so far! The intriguing part for me is the construction. The alloy casing is very tough and gives the feeling of quality. I have held other solid-state drives that were a bit lighter and constructed of plastic; and let me tell you they felt cheap. When it comes to my personal data, cheap is not a good feeling to have. However, the Vertex 460 drive is exactly the opposite of that as it feels very tough!
An Even Closer Look
Before we begin the next portion I would like to state that in no way, shape, or form are we trying to encourage users to disassemble their hardware. Even if you are a seasoned veteran, accidents can and will happen; and voiding your warranty will occur as well as the possibility of ruining your hardware. This next section is for informational purposes only and is not part of the installation process.
Removing the bottom plate of the drive in order to access the circuitry is simple enough, just by removing the four retention screws. After that, we remove four additional screws to remove the PCB from the casing. As expected, eight 19 nanometer NAND flash chips are present on both sides of the PCB for a total of sixteen. Like the Vector drive that we previously reviewed, the Vertex 460 is also equipped with Toshiba chips. The INDILINX Barefoot 3 M10 controller chip is connected via a SATA 6.0 GBP/s interface has a thermal pad which will aid in the transfer of heat away from the chip. Also present are two DDR3 Micron DRAM chip on both sides of the board that provide RAM for the SSD controller.
Now that we have taken a closer look at the Vector 150 drive let us move on to the testing portion of this review, which will show some interesting numbers to say the least!
