OCZ Agility 3 120GB Solid State Drive
Introduction
OCZ Technology is undoubtedly one of the top guns in the PC industry when it comes to high performance memory products. In less than a decade of existence the dedicated team behind OCZ has been able to revolutionize the performance standards of the industry. With an initial focus on memory modules and power supplies, OCZ is now thriving to become to top notch producer of Solid State Drives (SSD).
Today we take a look at a new line of SSD drives which have been designed to take advantage of the latest SATA III 6Gbps interface speeds and Sandy Bridge Architecture. The series 3 of OCZ SSD drives come in 3 offerings, namely value, mid-range and high performance. The drive we’re reviewing today falls into the mid-range category and is called the Agility 3.
The OCZ Agility 3 SSD drive is offered in 3 variants; 60, 120 and 240GB respectively catering to diverse requirements and budgets. The Agility 3 shares most features offered by its higher performing sibling, the Vertex 3; both are based on the same SandForce SF-2281 controller, provides native TRIM support and a 6Gbps SATA interface. In hindsight the Agility 3 and Vertex 3 looks almost identical until you open things up. The real difference in performance between these two drives come from the NAND memory; The Agility 3 uses Micron asynchronous NAND while the Vertex 3 uses Intel synchronous NAND which gives it the performance boost you see in the specs. Unless you’re a serious performance freak I believe most people can be very comfortable with the Agility 3’s performance. Before I jump the gun however, lets first take a closer look at the drive and see how well it performs in real life.
Specifications and Features:
- Available in 60GB, 120GB, and 240GB Capacities
- MLC NAND Flash
- Interface: SATA 6Gbps / Backwards Compatible 3Gbps
- Native TRIM support
- Seek Time: .1ms
- Slim 2.5″ Design
- 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm
- Lightweight: 77g
- Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C
- Ambient Temp: 0°C ~ 55°C
- Storage Temp: -45°C ~ 85°C
- Low Power Consumption: 2.7W Active, 1.5W Idle
- Shock Resistant up to 1500G
- RAID Support
- Compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP 32-bit/64-bit, Mac OSX, Linux
- MTBF: 2 million hours
- 3-Year Warranty
60GB Max Performance*
- Max Read: up to 525MB/s
- Max Write: up to 475MB/s
- Random Write 4KB: 50,000 IOPS
- Maximum 4K Random Write: 80,000 IOPS
120GB Max Performance*
- Max Read: up to 525MB/s
- Max Write: up to 500MB/s
- Random Write 4KB: 50,000 IOPS
- Maximum 4K Random Write: 85,000 IOPS
240GB Max Performance*
- Max Read: up to 525MB/s
- Max Write: up to 500MB/s
- Random Write 4KB: 45,000 IOPS
- Maximum 4K Random Write: 85,000 IOPS
*Max performance achieved using Native SATA 6Gbps chipset. Please refer to product sheet for additional performance metrics