The new drives from OCZ, the Vertex 2 and Agility 2 are based on the SandForce SF-1200 chipset, a big change for drives who’s first generation were Indilinx based.  The lack of any DRAM on the drive is also a big change, as OCZ is attempting to use some interesting compression and deduplication techniques to avoid problems with NAND write amplification, which you can learn more about at AnandTech.  At the end of the review it is obvious that Sandforce will give you the fastest performance, but at a price premium that is perhaps high enough to deter some enthusiasts.

“OCZ released many other derivatives based on Indilinx’s controller. We saw the Vertex EX which used SLC NAND for enterprise customers, as well as the Agility EX. Eventually as more manufacturers started releasing Indilinx based drives, OCZ attempted to differentiate by releasing the Vertex Turbo. The Vertex Turbo used an OCZ exclusive version of the Indilinx firmware that ran the controller and external DRAM at a higher frequency.

Despite a close partnership with Indilinx, earlier this month OCZ announced that its next generation Vertex 2 and Agility 2 drives would not use Indilinx controllers. They’d instead be SandForce based.”

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