OCZ Agility 4 (256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on September 1, 2012 1:00 PM ESTFinal Words
To date, we have only seen asynchronous NAND in SandForce SSDs and now I can see why. SandForce gets away with asynchronous NAND because it does real-time compression, meaning that it writes less to the NAND and hence there is also less to read. That's why Agility 3 performs so well and in most cases its performance is equal to the Vertex 3. Compression is an efficient way of eliminating the NAND bottleneck as long as you're dealing with compressible data. Once you switch to incompressible data, there is a big difference between Vertex 3 and Agility 3, all due to the NAND interface.
Without a real time compression engine, the Agility 4 is considerably slower than its counterpart equipped with synchronous NAND. It's clear OCZ is using its clever performance mode to hide a lot of the limitations of using asynchronous NAND. As you fill the drive the Agility 4's peak write performance drops considerably.
While Agility 4 is priced competitively, it's not cheap enough to be worth it. However, Vertex 4 is most likely a better investment in that case since it's only $5-20 more anyway.
Where the Agility 4 makes sense is when it's heavily discounted. As of late we've seen a couple of really hot deals on older SSDs. If you can find an Agility 4 for significantly less than the Crucial m4 or Samsung SSD 830 then it might be worth it. It's definitely faster than a mechanical drive at least. But at normal prices, the m4 or 830 for a little more would be a much better purchase.
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Qapa - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
Yes, please do it :)Italic / special background color / anything
(just also indicate that at the start of the article)
Mr Perfect - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Yes, good idea. I generally assume most of the text on the performance pages of a SSD article is boilerplate and just skip it. I was surprised to find unique bits of information on the performance pages.Death666Angel - Saturday, September 1, 2012 - link
Thanks for the review! I'm kinda missing the power consumption part though. :DDeath666Angel - Saturday, September 1, 2012 - link
Nevermind, just saw the other comment about it. Hope you can add it in the future though. :)ajp_anton - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
"Pricing is very close to the Vertex 4"I'd say. It's identical, except for the 120GB one. With the Ag/Vx 3, the Agility is actually more expensive at that size.
Are you sure you got that table right?
CaedenV - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
All the sudden I am not so sad about using the Agility 3's for my system drive. Agility 4 came out shortly after I purchased my first Agility 3 and I was kicking myself, but now it looks like it was not too bad of a move.SanX - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
"But at normal prices, the m4 or 830 for a little more would be a much better purchase..."830 consumes 2 times more - hell 5+ Watts - then all others in the market
claysm - Monday, September 3, 2012 - link
But is 5 watts really that much? 830 ftw even if it's 15 watts more.erple2 - Monday, September 3, 2012 - link
In a desktop environment, no, it doesn't make a significant difference. However, the mobile market is where every extra watt will make a significant difference in battery life. I've been considering buying an ssd for my laptop for a while, and the high power usage in the 830 is why I've taken that one out of the running.Wanou - Monday, September 3, 2012 - link
back in 2000, OCZ was known for their bullshit marketing selling DRAM.Then, they sold PSUs.
I bought one for myself... Guess what ? It was bullshit: Expensive for no more than a cheap crappy PSU in a classy box.
When OCZ started making SSDs, I thought:" I will never buy one from them".
But the Vertex 1 and after, the Vertex 2 looks so good, I bought one. And another. And another for my mother, another for my dad...
They all worked great and are still working !
So, I decided to get every PC where I'm working with a vertex 2 SSD. We are using huge mailboxes (Several Gb). So it was damn fast.
May I say that It was just AFTER OCZ switched silently to 25nm ?
Two friends of mine bought also one VTXE.
When the first one bricked, it was bad luck
The second started BSO before dying. Bad karma.
The third locked Windows and was not detected on reboot.
As for the 4th, the 5th, the 6th, the 7th...
Each time, the bricked VERTEX 2E SSDs were replaced by Agility drives.
I've switched to Samsung 830. So far, with more than 20 SSDs installed during the last 4 month, I've not suffered from ONE defect.
Today, i'm waiting for the replacement SSDs for my 8th in row FAILED OCZ VERTEX2.
One product can fail.
But when you get 8 failed products on 16 products coming from 2 batches and 2 different sizes (90/120Gb), you should take care and stop using the -still working- remaining ones.
And never buy OCZ Again.