OCZ has dipped into the very high end of solid-state drives this week by launching the Vertex EX series. The line is one of OCZ's first recent storage options based on single-level cell (SLC) flash storage and is aimed at servers, workstations and other computers where longevity and performance matter more than a low price: in addition to taking longer to wear out than multi-level cell (MLC) drives, speeds peak at a high 260MB per second for reads and 210MB per second for writes.

As is the case for most SSDs, the Vertex EX range uses significantly less power than rotating hard drives and is both quieter as well as skip-proof. The SATA II drives will initially come in 60GB and 120GB versions and should be available shortly. Prices aren't published by OCZ.