OCZ Summit 120GB SSD Review

Conclusion

If anything, the Summit 120GB really is an intriguing SSD drive. In many ways it exhibits a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mentality since on one hand we have an outdated firmware yet on the other hand we have test results which put many other drives to shame. While older Firmware isn't usually an issue, it becomes a serious problem in this case since it doesn't even have Idle Time Garbage Collection let alone TRIM. This means that over time your drive IS going to get slower and slower unless OCZ and Samsung release a customer-based firmware update utility. To be honest with you, this review has been sitting on the back burner for more than a month while we waited with crossed fingers for a firmware updater that is available to the public. We would still be waiting if it was up to Samsung.

This lack of additional firmware support can't be blamed on OCZ but in the end, it is a drive with their name on it that will suffer. As we mentioned in the review, we place the blame firmly on Samsung's shoulders since they seem to be letting their OEM customers like OCZ and Corsair fend for themselves. This isn't acceptable. We believe OCZ when they say that they are going to take care of the firmware issue and they have shown us the light at the end of the tunnel by offering free firmware flashes to anyone who sends in their drive. New drives are also shipping with the revised firmware but this also raises another point: there is absolutely no way for a customer to know which firmware revision they are getting until their drive is unpackaged. Unfortunately, SSDs live and die by their firmware and what OCZ is doing is nothing more than a band-aid solution. We will add our voices to all the others who are experiencing slowdowns on their Samsung-based drives by saying: Samsung, get off your asses and release a firmware flasher that is available to end users!

The Summit is certainly a very good introductory drive and unless the price difference was massive we would chose this drive over the Agility line any day of the week and twice on Sunday. This drive really does have top notch NAND flash and doesn’t cut any corners in that area. However, when it comes to the Summit vs. Vertex things are not so clear cut. On the one hand, The Vertex's OEM Indilinx is being much more proactive on the firmware front and because of this, their drives to kick butt and take names. On the other hand, the larger cache of the Samsung unit does make for a very compelling argument in real world usage scenarios.

Indeed, it seems that Samsung drives do not slow down as fast as others, so the whole wiper.exe and ITGC issues are less important than it would be on an Indilinx drive. However, as it stands right now the Summit has older firmware, no ITGC and no TRIM; whereas the Vertex (via 1.4x firmware) has IMPROVED and refined ITGC (or Indilinx’s version “Nand Launderer”) AND native OS TRIM functionality. Granted, the Vertex is an altogether higher-end drive but we would gladly pay the price premium when it comes to questions over sustaining long-term performance.

When you add it all up the Summit makes a good mid tier solution but it is priced like an enthusiast class one. In the enthusiast class arena you have Indilinx and Intel slugging it out and the Summit is left on the sidelines. In the mid tier arena, OCZ has some stiff competition with Corsair as they have this exact drive with newer firmware backed by their own kick ass warranty and support. In the end, only you can decide what combination of price, performance and upgradeability is right for you; however to us the Summit is best summed up right now as: “neither fish, nor fowl nor good red meat.” OCZ needs to get on top of the Samsung firmware issue ASAP and then maybe it would be truly award winning drive. The potential is definitely there in spades.



Pros:
- Very good synthetic performance
- Extremely good real world performance
- Massive 128MB of cache
- Backed by OCZ’s amazing customer support


Cons:
- Price
- Outdated firmware
- No firmware upgrade program at this time
- WILL slow down without a firmware update
- Sending SSD for a firmware update = less than optimal solution