On the back we get to see a larger white sticker, with information like power rating, capacity, serial number or product code name:

One of the chassis screws is covered by a warranty sticker, which, when damaged, the warranty will be void:

Right after opening the SSD, we can see that the PCB is properly fixed to the chassis with 4 extra screws, something we haven’t seen at the previously tested products:

On the frontal side of the PCB we will find the SandForce processor, along with eight MLC NAND Flash memory chips:

On the back there are eight additional NAND Flash chips:

Like on the SSDs we have reviewed before, the Vertex 3 also comes with the SandForce SF-2281VB1-SDC processor, which interacts directly with the modules (there is no need of additional RAM) and supports Flash capacities from 12GB to 512GB. It can work with both MLC and SLC Flash types:

The NAND Flash is composed from Intel MLC 25nm 29F64G08AAMEI chips:

The SF-2281VB1-SDC processors also have integrated enhanced DuraClass technology that is architected to leverage today's densest SLC and MLC NAND flash memory. The processor is built to deliver best-in-class performance, endurance, security and power efficiency in a “DRAM-less”, single chip solution.

The incorporated DuraWrite technology optimizes writes to the Flash memory over conventional controllers increasing the overall endurance and reliability of the complete SSD. Highly intelligent block management and wear leveling also extends the overall endurance.

SandForce SSD Processors deliver performance that maximizes the throughput of a 6Gb/s SATA interface with balanced read/write speeds.

DuraClass technology automatically stores data in a highly secure AES-256 & 128 hardware encrypted format that double encrypts the data.

The SF-2200/2100 SSD Processors provide data protection that surpasses the leading high performance enterprise HDDs used today. This comes from a combination of a superior higher-level BCH ECC algorithm with up to 55 bits/512 Byte sector protection and the unique RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) technology. RAISE provides the protection and reliability of RAID on a single drive without the 2x write overhead of parity.

SF-2200 Family Block Diagram