OCZ's budget SSD is anything but a
rip-off
Last month, we took a look at OCZ's Vertex
4 SSD. It features some pretty amazing tech, making it on par with some of the
market's fastest SSDs at the moment. This time, we get to play around with the
OCZ Agility 3, yet another zippy SSD in OCZ's stable of memory and storage
products.
OCZ
Agility 3
The Agility 3 is one of those ‘budget’ SSDs
that PC enthusiasts look for when they don't want to fork out too much money
for components. Whilst the term ‘budget’ often meant that performance has to be
sacrificed for price, technology has caught up in such a way that you can get
away with paying less while still get top-notch performance from your components.
This is evident with the SandForce SF-2281
used here, which is widely considered to be one of the best controllers in the
market right now. In terms of storage capacity, users get to choose between
60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 180GB, 240GB, and 480GB for a wide variety of use.
As with most, if not all SSDs launched in
the past half year or so, the Agility 3 utilises SATA 3.0 connectivity, which
allows for insane transfer speeds. As a matter of fact it performs almost as
good as the Vertex 4 that we reviewed last month, with somewhat slightly better
read speeds.
As we ran several benchmark tests on the
Agility 3, it became apparent to us that OCZ isn't just planning on making
cheap SSDs, but to make the Agility 3 a budget offering that appeals to the
enthusiasts as well. On storage benchmark software CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD,
the Agility 3 recorded a stable rate of 490-500MB/S read time and 350MB/S write
times, which is a highly impressive feat.
If we had one thing to nitpick about the
Agility 3 however, it would be about its TRIM feature. This is basically a
feature that enables the operating system to tell the SSDs which information
can be deleted (usually old cache) from the drive. While an excellent feature,
we've found out that the SSD stutters from time to time (usually once or twice
a day) due to this. It's inconsequential, but this may annoy some people after
a while.
The
OCZ Aglity 4 uses SATA 3.0 connectivity, which
offers nifty, performable speeds
Pros and cons
Pros: Affordable Good performance
Cons: Some TRIM
issues
Benchmark results
CrystalDiskMark (Read): 500MB/S
CrystalDiskMark (Write): 250MB/S
AS SSD (Read): 490MB/S
AS SSD (Write): 260MB/S
Chip conclude
The OCZ Agility 3 is most definitely one to
consider if you're looking to get yourself an SSD, but aren't willing to part
with a whole lot of cash for it Works great as an OS drive, and a fast storage
solution if speed is what you need.
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Specifications
Price: $90 (60GB), $129 (90GB), $158
(120GB), $251 (240GB), $706 (480GB)
Website: www.ocztechnology.com
NAND Controller: Indilinx Everest 2
Storage: 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 240GB, 480GB
Mean Time Between Failure: 2 million
hours
Data Encryption: 256-bit AES-compliant,
ATA Security Mode Features
Dimensions: 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm
Ratings
Performance: 4/5
Features: 4/5
Value: 4/5
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