Intel 320 series or OCZ Agility?

[OOZMAN]

So here's my situation, looking to get a 120GB SSD for OS/DAW. The agility 3 is a little (or quite a bit, depending on who you ask) faster than the intel 320 series, but I'm hearing alot of horror stories including random BSODs and freezes about the agility 3s, which I'm guessing wouldn't be covered by the warranty. In saying that, these claims might be exaggerated.

So what should I do?

Sacrifice some speed for reliability i.e. go for the intel, or take the risk and buy an Agility 3?

Would the speed difference even be noticeable in real-world scenarios?

Should I take an even bigger risk and buy two 60GB agility 3s for RAID0? (Doubling the chance of failure).

Both 120GB Intel and OCZ SSDs are about the same price where I live, while 2x 60GB OCZs adds about $10-$20 total cost.


Thanks in advance!

[OOZMAN]

The little demon on my left says two Agility 3s 60GB, and the angel on my right says Intel. I usually listen to the demon. Quick! Persuade me otherwise!

[BrooksyX]

I have 2x 64gb Samsung 830 ssds in raid 0. Thins are wicked fast and rock solid.

Might be worth checking out: SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064D/AM 2.5" 64GB SATA II...

[OOZMAN]

The cheapest I could find for ONE 64GB Samsung 830 for my location is $179.

Thanks for the reply anyway

[Super XP]

Originally Posted by BrooksyX

I have 2x 64gb Samsung 830 ssds in raid 0. Thins are wicked fast and rock solid.

Might be worth checking out: SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC064D/AM 2.5" 64GB SATA II...

Does your RAID 0 setup support TRIM?

[bbmarley]

i have agility3 60gb did have problems at start
but updated firmware no problems now and drive runs great
had since maybe a week or 2 after release
drive has been used heavily

[BrooksyX]

Originally Posted by OOZMAN

The cheapest I could find for ONE 64GB Samsung 830 for my location is $179.

Thanks for the reply anyway

Oh sorry didn't see u were in Australia. My bad.

Originally Posted by Super XP

Does your RAID 0 setup support TRIM?

Is that supposed to be a trick question? Ofcourse it doesn't but I am pretty sure pretty sure it will when Intel releases the updated support for it.

[s{orpion]

i have two Agility 2 in Raid 0...

blistering fast and rock solid!

OCZ support is amazing!

highly advise the 2nd or 3rd gen (sandforce)...
the original Indalinx had problems... including raid issues.

[TheOne]

Originally Posted by OOZMAN

So here's my situation, looking to get a 120GB SSD for OS/DAW. The agility 3 is a little (or quite a bit, depending on who you ask) faster than the intel 320 series, but I'm hearing alot of horror stories including random BSODs and freezes about the agility 3s, which I'm guessing wouldn't be covered by the warranty. In saying that, these claims might be exaggerated.

So what should I do?

Sacrifice some speed for reliability i.e. go for the intel, or take the risk and buy an Agility 3?

Would the speed difference even be noticeable in real-world scenarios?

Should I take an even bigger risk and buy two 60GB agility 3s for RAID0? (Doubling the chance of failure).

Both 120GB Intel and OCZ SSDs are about the same price where I live, while 2x 60GB OCZs adds about $10-$20 total cost.


Thanks in advance!

They weren't, SandForce has had a pretty rough summer trying to make their latest controllers stable, fighting BSOD's, freezing, and drop outs, which affected a very wide variety of systems, fortunately their latest firmware is far more stable and seems to have addressed the issues for most users.

Of course even though the 320 series is supposed to be pretty stable, it had its own problems this summer with that 8MB bug that would limit the capacity of the drive to only 8MB, of course it has also been fixed.

As you pointed out this is speed vs reliability, would you notice a difference, keep in mind that the OCZ Agility 3 is a SATAIII (6Gbps) drive and that the Intel 320 is a SATAII (3Gbps) drive.

Here is a comparison of an Agility 3 120GB and an Intel 320 160GB using ANAND Tech's SSD Benchmark tool.

OCZ Agility 3 120GB (SATAIII) vs Intel 320 160GB - ANANDTech Benchmark Comparison

Personally I tried a Corsair Force 3 120GB this summer when they first came out, had to go through the recall and when I got the drive it would randomly drop from BIOS a few times a week, so I sent it back to Corsair for a full refund, and at the end of October Newegg had a deal on the OCZ Agility 3 120GB for $125 after a $30 MIR, and since SandForce had just released their latest firmware for the SF-2281 drives I decided to give it a shot, and so far I have had no problems running it with FW 2.15.

Originally Posted by OOZMAN

The little demon on my left says two Agility 3s 60GB, and the angel on my right says Intel. I usually listen to the demon. Quick! Persuade me otherwise!

Which one is usually right?

[Steevo]

I'm rocking two Agility 120's on a controller card and after a bit of a tweak and new firmware they are rock solid.


You might have to add the no power management line to the inf of your drive controller.

[OOZMAN]

Originally Posted by Steevo

I'm rocking two Agility 120's on a controller card and after a bit of a tweak and new firmware they are rock solid.


You might have to add the no power management line to the inf of your drive controller.

According to OCZ's website:

Updating firmware is not supported on drives (Vertex 3, Vertex 3 Max IOPS, Agility 3, Solid 3, RevoDrive
3, and RevoDrive 3 X2) running as the boot drive. Please install the SSD as a secondary drive when
updating the firmware. An alternative way is using a standalone Linux distribution (booting off the CD) to
update the primary boot SSD. See “Updating your firmware with a drive that can not updated as a primary
drive” section for more details.

This is a pain. How did you update your firmware? Clone the contents of the drive to a HDD and boot from that? Don't really wanna do it the Linux way, but if I have to...

Or do you not use your Agility as the boot drive?

[Bo$$]

Look, I have a agility in my brother's pc and it is perfectly fine,fast,stable,reliable.
BUT as a rule Intel drives are more stable than OCZ

OCZ have a rock solid warranty

[Steevo]

Originally Posted by OOZMAN

According to OCZ's website:

Updating firmware is not supported on drives (Vertex 3, Vertex 3 Max IOPS, Agility 3, Solid 3, RevoDrive
3, and RevoDrive 3 X2) running as the boot drive. Please install the SSD as a secondary drive when
updating the firmware. An alternative way is using a standalone Linux distribution (booting off the CD) to
update the primary boot SSD. See “Updating your firmware with a drive that can not updated as a primary
drive” section for more details.

This is a pain. How did you update your firmware? Clone the contents of the drive to a HDD and boot from that? Don't really wanna do it the Linux way, but if I have to...

Or do you not use your Agility as the boot drive?

Moved them to a on-board controller and flashed it, moved it back and it was operational.

Not their suggested way, but it works 99% of the time.

[DM3K]

Dm3k is going to recommend the Intel. Intel has a rock solid reputation and recently raised the warranty to 5 years on some models. In the real world the performance difference between the drives may not matter depending on what you are doing with these. If you are gaming it probably won't matter, if this is for a workstation with high I/O operations then it matters.

[OOZMAN]

Originally Posted by DM3K

Dm3k is going to recommend the Intel. Intel has a rock solid reputation and recently raised the warranty to 5 years on some models. In the real world the performance difference between the drives may not matter depending on what you are doing with these. If you are gaming it probably won't matter, if this is for a workstation with high I/O operations then it matters.

It's pretty much just for my OS and my audio recording stuff. Then just filled up with other less important things. Not sure if they involve lots of I/O operations. Excuse my noobness.

[mrsdnf]

If its any help I've been running the Agility 120 gb since they came out. With every firmware update it got better to the point it's good now. Would buy another if I was in the market. Firmware update is a pain though as suggested.