History of OCZ

[Turab]

Looks good an article that written about history of OCZ. But it is in Turkish unfortunately.

http://www.ssdlabs.net/makaleler/ocznin-tarihi-mercek-altinda-bir-pegasusun-seyri/



And a gallery that includes all of OCZ's legacy SSD solutions from the very first drive of their:

http://www.ssdlabs.net/galeri/

 

[Elixer]

Meh, what good is their history now that they are "dead"?
By that, I mean that back then they had a hand in everything, RAM, PSUs, you name it.
Then they were one of the first with affordable SSDs.

Unfortunately for them QA issues for their RAM, PSUs, and... and worst of all, the firmware for the sandforce drives still had quite a few issues.
They suffered for being first out with that controller.
Then they bought a controller company thinking it would help them, but, it was too little, too late, and they were going under, they were basically dead in the water.

As luck would have it, Toshiba came and picked up & revamped OCZ's SSD business.
They basically did a complete turnaround for OCZ, and now, they have good SSD products, and a very good warranty service that beats out other OEMs.

So, in short, the "dead" OCZ of the past is still dead.
The new OCZ of the present is doing much better thanks to Toshiba's tech, and knowledge.

IMO, they should have renamed the company as well, but, I guess we will see how that goes down the road.

 

[Z15CAM]

Gotta say OCZ made the BEST DDR PC3200 OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K Platinum Dims ever made - Still got 6 sticks of it - Wonder what 218 Mhz 2-3-2-5 1T 2.8mV DDR sticks are worth today. (Approx $20 apiece on eBay today - Hate to tell you what I paid form them back then)

I got 2 Iconic Gigabyte nVidia Chipped GA-K7N400 Pro2 and GA-K8N-SLI MB's to go with them along with AMD Barton Single core 2500Mhz and 64 Bit Dual Core 2800Mhz 939 socket respectively - Humm.

They smashed Intel at that time.

Actually that K8N-SLI is still in service with an EVGA GTX 280 running Win7 - A friend is using it. The K7N is dissembled but I got a running 1600 Mhz (Capable of 148/1800 Mhz's) VIA Chip ASUS Slot 1 P3V4X with a Taulatin on WinSE in a closet with a Radeon 2900XT - Eat your heart out Abit BX 440 - LOL

Gotta a Radeon 9800XT on hand.

Them where OCZ Days.

 

[Mortius]

Then they bought a controller company thinking it would help them, but, it was too little, too late, and they were going under, they were basically dead in the water.

Ah yes. Their first Indilinx based drive was a record breaker.

52.07% return rate, and a clean sweep of the board for return rates above 5%. (French, but easily understandable)

 

[Mortius]

For the post acquisition history of OCZ, there is also Anandtech's rather flattering interview with them.

A pity it isn't always clear which of the content is from the interviewer and which is from the interviewee.

 

[bradly1101]

IMO, they should have renamed the company as well, but, I guess we will see how that goes down the road.

Yeah once you have a bad experience it's hard to go back to that vendor. I bought some OCZ 533 RDRAM that would only run at 400. I just returned it, started using another brand and all has been well. So I don't feel compelled to try anything from OCZ now.

 

[Charlie98]

IMO, they should have renamed the company as well, but, I guess we will see how that goes down the road.

I agree... As well as Toshiba seems to be doing with it, I think it was a pretty big miscalculation keeping the OCZ name, which is almost synonymous with BAD (Bad tech, bad CS, etc.) But, hey, they must have talked it over, first... it's their money.

Having said that, I still have my 60GB Agility3 in service and it's still rocking along as a laptop drive after 3+ years and 9000 hours with never a hiccup.

I'd try a new OCZ/Toshiba SSD if it was a better deal than what's out there now (read: Crucial, Intel, etc.) but it's not. FWIW, I didn't include Samsung in that list because of my bad experience with my 840Pro failure, and the horrible RMA process... I'd probably buy an OCZ/Toshiba SSD before I'd buy another Samsung. Just saying.

 

[ronbo613]

Many manufacturers have a run of defective products sooner or later, what they do about it is more important than the products, which change over time.

OCZ had a lot of defective products. If you got one, you had to go to through the OCZ forums for support. Before you got an RMA, you were belittled and insulted by the "members" of the forum who questioned your technical ability. These same forum "members", sponsored by OCZ, showed up on computer forums, including here at AnandTech, to counter every negative post about OCZ products.

Poor product design and quality control, terrible customer service and dishonest marketing; that's the history of OCZ. OCZ deserves to be dead and I wouldn't buy a Toshiba product now either. Too many other companies with good products and have some semblance of respect for their customers.

 

[goobee]

Bah, I never forgave OCZ for their past malfeasance (overclocked ram anyone?). I am surprised they lasted as long as they did.

 

[bononos]

I agree... As well as Toshiba seems to be doing with it, I think it was a pretty big miscalculation keeping the OCZ name, which is almost synonymous with BAD (Bad tech, bad CS, etc.) But, hey, they must have talked it over, first... it's their money.

Having said that, I still have my 60GB Agility3 in service and it's still rocking along as a laptop drive after 3+ years and 9000 hours with never a hiccup.

I'd try a new OCZ/Toshiba SSD if it was a better deal than what's out there now (read: Crucial, Intel, etc.) but it's not. FWIW, I didn't include Samsung in that list because of my bad experience with my 840Pro failure, and the horrible RMA process... I'd probably buy an OCZ/Toshiba SSD before I'd buy another Samsung. Just saying.

From the AT interview article:
"During the meeting, Mr. Schmitt shared that OCZ decided to keep the Vertex 460 lineup around because it's very popular in certain regions (e.g. countries within EMEA and Eastern Europe) because of the Vertex brand that has been around for so long (remember, not all buyers are as well educated as our readers)"

I'm not sure why EMEA is "less educated" when a French website published the crappy return stats of OCZ ssds.

 

[Charlie98]

From the AT interview article:
"During the meeting, Mr. Schmitt shared that OCZ decided to keep the Vertex 460 lineup around because it's very popular in certain regions (e.g. countries within EMEA and Eastern Europe) because of the Vertex brand that has been around for so long (remember, not all buyers are as well educated as our readers)"

I'm not sure why EMEA is "less educated" when a French website published the crappy return stats of OCZ ssds.

That's what's funny... the Vertex was the worst one!