One of our friends from retail/e-tail has drawn our attention to the new "maximum 4K random write specification" for the OCZ SSDs that is being added as we speak and it made us dig a bit deeper to see what is currently going on and why such a sudden change is actually happening.

Asking around questions on Friday afternoon isn't exactly a walk in the park, but we did get a confirmation from one of the chaps at OCZ that "maximum 4K random write" spec is being added and a quick check at OCZ.com confirms it. We did notice the maximum 4k random write back when Corsair's Force Series 3 SSDs were launched and honestly just went over it and even made a mistake in our article writing it as "plain" 4k random write. One of the guys at OCZ stated that Corsair was the first to start this, so called "dodgy marketing" and the change is simply made to dismiss the confusion.

The issue isn't that serious, but suddenly introducing the maximum 4K random write spec that only uses 8GB of the drive rather than the whole drive smells like foul play as consumers and most of average buyers are simply looking for a higher number. The 8GB 4K random write is even used by Anand in SSDs tests on Anandtech.com, but Anand always stated that it is 4KB random write, 8GB LBA Space, QD32 and compares all the drives with the same metodology, so it is not a problem.

So in case you are wondering about Force Series 3 SSDs from Corsair, the max 4K random write is set at 85k IOPS. OCZ gave us the updated spec for the Agility 3 that has max 4K random write at 85k IOPS (80k on the 60GB version) and the normal 4K random write at 50k IOPS (45 on the 240GB version).

It is always good to read the specification list and it is always best to check out the performance in review on one of the sites around the net. OCZ just might be the first one to update the specifications of its lineup and we are sure that others will follow.