The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
OCZ Gets Clever: Agility vs. Vertex, Even Cheaper Indilinx SSDs
Samsung makes SSDs for OEMs, Samsung sells pre-made SSDs to companies like OCZ and Corsair and Samsung also makes NAND flash. Samsung actually made all of the flash that was used in the first generation of Indilinx SSDs. Unfortunately, prices went up.
OCZ was quick to adapt and started making Indilinx drives using flash from different manufacturers. This is the OCZ Vertex, we’re all familiar with it:
This is the OCZ Agility. You get the same controller as the Vertex, but with either Intel 50nm or Toshiba 40nm flash:
My Vertex used Samsung flash, like all other Indilinx drives
My Agility used Intel's 50nm flash
Some lucky Agility owners get Toshiba 40nm flash, which is faster.
The performance is a lower since the flash chips themselves are slower. I'm actually comparing the Vertex Turbo here but my Turbo sample actually runs as fast as most stock Indilinx MLC drives so it provides good reference for an Agility vs. a good Vertex drive:
| Used Performance | OCZ Agility | OCZ Vertex | Vertex Advantage |
| 4KB Random Write | 7.1 MB/s | 7.6 MB/s | 7% |
| 4KB Random Read | 35.9 MB/s | 37.4 MB/s | 4.2% |
| 2MB Sequential Write | 136.3 MB/s | 155.8 MB/s | 14.3% |
| 2MB Sequential Read | 241.3 MB/s | 254.2 MB/s | 5.3% |
| PCMark Vantage Overall | 14468 | 14694 | 1.6% |
| PCMark Vantage HDD | 24293 | 25309 | 4.2% |
The performance ranges from 0 - 5% in the PCMark suite and jumps up to 4 - 14% in the low level tests. The price difference amounts to around 12% for a 128GB drive and 9.5% for a 64GB drive. There's no 256GB Agility.
| OCZ Agility | OCZ Vertex | Price Difference | |
| 64GB | $199.00 | $219.00 | $19 |
| 128GB | $329.00 | $369.00 | $40 |
| 256GB | N/A | $725.00 | N/A |
If you want to make the jump to an SSD and are looking to save every last dollar, the Agility is an option.
I think the Agility line is a great idea from OCZ. I’m not sure about you but personally, as long as the flash is reliable, I don’t care who makes it. And I’m willing to give up a little in the way of performance in order to hit more competitive price points.
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Abjuk - Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - link
Agreed CM, my current project at work takes about six minutes to build from scratch and CPU usage never gets above about 35%. The process is totally IO bound.It really depends on whether you have several large source files or several hundred small ones.
Weyzer - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Good article and testing, but why was the Crucial M225 not mentioned at all? It's performance is similar to the vertex drives, I know, but I think it could have been mentioned somewhere, if it is in the good or bad range.jasperjones - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
javascript:link('frmText') $997 @ Newegg omgomgomgNeedless to say, that price will come down quickly. So more seriously, after reading the article I really feel I understand better what to look for in an SSD. Thanks!
paesan - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Wow, does NE really think that anyone will buy the Intel drive at that price. OMG!!! Funny thing, it is in stock and it says limit 1 per customer. LolCList - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Obviously someone is buying them at that price or they'd lower it. The people who can't wait two or three weeks and are willing to be gouged for these drives are the ones that allow NewEgg to give us low margins on other products while not going out of business :Dravaneli - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
I just decided to buy one and when I opened newegg i couldn't believe my eyes. I hope that is only because they have a few drives left, and once Intel pumps up some stock in the retailers the prices will go back to Intel's retail.Does anyone know what are the production capabilities of Intel's SSD factories? I don't want to wait a whole year until the market saturates.
LazierSaid - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
This article was so good that Newegg doubled their X25M G2 prices overnight.medi01 - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Yep, very impressive advertisement indeed.HVAC - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
I'd rather have ewoks in the sequels than Jar-jar ...Naccah - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Newegg's prices on all the Intel SSDs skyrocketed. The X-25 G2s are $499 now. Is this price a reflection of the high demand or did Intel change the price again?