First Look: OCZ Apex SSD

The OCZ Apex Series SSD introduces new architecture to deliver the manufacturer-rated bandwidth speeds. On the outside, this 120GB SSD (model OCZSSD2-1APX120G) looks like all of the other Solid State Drive products OCZ offers in their current product family.

When it comes to the appearance of notebook drives, it must be understood that the product you're looking at will be hidden away from plain view once installed. Keeping in mind that this product is solid state, and therefore offers no amount of noticeable physical activity, it takes some special attention to presentation in order to help keep the consumer feeling comfortable with their premium purchase. Unlike the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) storage products, SSD's are practically impervious to impact damage and do not require special vibration dampening or shock-proof enclosures. OCZ utilizes a metal enclosure for the Apex series, which fastens with four small counter-sunk screws on the underside.

Standard 2.5" drive bay mounting points are pre-drilled and threaded into the Apex SSD, which allows for quick upgrade or addition into any existing notebook or desktop system. The mounting positions matched up to the drive bracket on my laptop, and after only a few minutes of drive cloning I was quickly loading Windows XP.

Unlike desktop computers which utilize a SATA cable system to connect drive to motherboard, nearly all notebooks allow the 2.5" drive to simply slide directly into a connection bay within the system. In addition to notebooks and desktop computer usage, this OCZ Apex Solid State Drive can be utilized for mission-critical backups or high-abuse data systems. One unfortunate omission from the Apex series was the integrated High-Speed USB 2.0 Mini-B seen on the Core v2 SSD.

Now that you're acquainted with the basic exterior features of the Apex SSD, it's time to peek inside the OCZSSD2-1APX120G enclosure and inspect the internal components...

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