"Intel’s SSD 510 costs more and it can serve up better sequential numbers than Vertex 3. However, it’s actually slower than its predecessor in situations where you’re working with lots of small files. The applications where this 250 GB drive makes sense are fairly clear cut. But again, it looks like you’d get a better all-around experience from OCZ’s Vertex 3 when it becomes available." [1]
"My biggest complaints about the 510 actually aren't about Intel's use of a 3rd party controller, instead they are about the drive's lackluster random read performance. In a horrible bout of irony Intel fixed its sequential performance and moved backwards in the random department. Random read performance, as it turns out, has a pretty major impact in the real world.
Random write performance is also pretty low by today's standards, however the impact on most of our real world performance tests is minimal. It looks like we may have hit the upper limit of what we need from 4KB random write performance (at least given current workloads)." [2]
The reliability problems with the Vertex 2 make me wary of anything from OCZ. There are many, many reports of OCZ drives failing within a few days of use, some within minutes of booting up. Plus there are well-documented problems with power-saving modes.
Frankly, SSD failure rates from most manufacturers are so high it should be a scandal. Intel is the only company I'm remotely comfortable buying an SSD from right now.
"My biggest complaints about the 510 actually aren't about Intel's use of a 3rd party controller, instead they are about the drive's lackluster random read performance. In a horrible bout of irony Intel fixed its sequential performance and moved backwards in the random department. Random read performance, as it turns out, has a pretty major impact in the real world.
Random write performance is also pretty low by today's standards, however the impact on most of our real world performance tests is minimal. It looks like we may have hit the upper limit of what we need from 4KB random write performance (at least given current workloads)." [2]
[1] http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-510-solid-state-6gbp... [2] http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review
From what I can tell, it's worth waiting for the OCZ Vertex 3, which will be faster, and quite possibly cheaper too.