OCZ Agility 3 (240GB) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 24, 2011 2:53 AM ESTTRIM Performance
In practice, SandForce based drives running a desktop workload do very well and typically boast an average write amplification below 1 (more writes to the device than actual writes to NAND). My personal SF-1200 drive had a write amplification of around 0.6 after several months of use. However if subjected to a workload composed entirely of incompressible writes (e.g. tons of compressed images, videos and music) you can back the controller into a corner.
To simulate this I filled the drive with incompressible data, ran a 4KB (100% LBA space, QD32) random write test with incompressible data for 20 minutes, and then ran AS-SSD (another incompressible data test) to see how low performance could get:
| OCZ Vertex 3 240GB - Resiliency - AS SSD Sequential Write Speed - 6Gbps | |||||
| Clean | After Torture | After TRIM | |||
| OCZ Agility 3 240GB | 238.6 MB/s | 206.1 MB/s | 213.2 MB/s | ||
| OCZ Vertex 3 240GB | 284.4 MB/s | 278.5 MB/s | 286.3 MB/s | ||
The 240GB Agility 3 behaves similarly to the Vertex 3, although it does lose more ground after our little torture session. There's a sharp drop after about 60 minutes of random writes on these 240GB drives, so performance can definitely go lower if you torture for longer - most users should be just fine though.
Power Consumption
One benefit of the asynchronous NAND is much lower power consumption. The Agility 3 posted the lowest idle power draw of any modern drive we've tested and load power is better than any other SF-2200 drive.
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Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
A pair of 60GB Agility 2 costs a lot less and should mop the floor with these. We need sata 3 like we needed sata 2 in 2005.Arbie - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Other sites can provide useful comparative info on SSDs, but what really sets Anandtech apart is depth of knowledge and especially the custom test suites you have developed. They tell the story that I as a home desktop user need to know, and nobody else has anything like them.eric appla - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I wonder if OCZ did something to improve reliability. I have Vertex 2 and it is pain in the back part of my body. I have already third as I had to RMA two of them already and big reseller shops are reporting return ratios as high as 15% for OCZ vertex II series.I wish I never bought it really. Especially in combination with DELL laptop it looks like total fail.
bji - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Yeah I stay away from OCZ products because I have read far too many anecdotal stories like yours, especially in the reviews of OCZ products on newegg, to feel comfortable buying anything from OCZ. All manufacturers have a percentage of failed parts and that's to be expected; but OCZ always seems to have alot more reports of problems than other vendors. Until that changes for a while, I will not buy anything from OCZ.LuvKush - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I agree, we really want to see the corsair force 3 or GT's in action 120gb version and 240gb Thanks Anand. Been waiting for those reviews. Also is the 128gb M4 suffer the same fate as the ocz vertex 3 120gb version? as the nands are cut in half and lost performance too? I have the crucial m4 128gb and would love to know if the performance loss is as bad as the 120gb vertex 3 is to the 240gb vertex 3. Thanks again!StuffOfInterest - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I'd like to see the 60GB Agility benchmarked in a Z68 Smart Response Technology (SRT) configuration. The early tests of SRT showed quite a few tradeoffs between R/W performanc and capacity. Having a SATA-III drive right at the size max for SRT could provide for an interesting comparison against Intels 311 which was designed specifically for SRT.iwod - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
Sequential read performance is lower than the Vertex 3. The 240GB Agility 3 performs more like a 120GB Vertex 2 than its 240GB sibling.Shouldn't it be 120GB Vertex 3?
iwod - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
It would be much more interesting to see how 60GB perform, especially against the Crucial M4 64GB SSD.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
I don't understand why this isn't included in the charts, particularly the current "E" model with 25nm 64-bit NAND.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - link
In fact, there isn't a single Vertex 2 drive in these charts. It's bizarre.People would like to see how the 240 GB Vertex 2 fares against the Vertex 3.