OCZ Agility 3 240 GB SSD Review

By Joe Evans

OCZ Agility 3 – The ‘Almost’ Vertex

OCZ continues to release updates of their various SSD lines as we’ve already seen with the third installment of the Vertex line. The first generation of Agility drives were pretty close in performance to the more expensive Vertex line and the third iteration will continue that trend by sporting a SATA III interface, SandForce SF-2200 controller and read/write specifications that are only slightly off the Vertex 3 drives with about a 5% difference overall. Think of it as the ‘almost’ Vertex 3. We’ll take a look to see how this plays out in the benchmarks and real world tests.

AGILITY 3 FRONT

Available in sizes of 60 GB, 120 GB, and 240 GB they offer less capacity than the Vertex 3 line which has 120 GB at the low end and a whopping 480 GB at the high end. Commensurate with the reduced performance, the similarly-sized Agility 3 drives are less expensive than the Vertex 3 drives with the price for the three capacities being $139.99, $239.99 and $469.99 respectively.

AGILITY 3 BOX FRONT

OCZ Agility 3 Features and Specifications:

  • 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: 0C ~ 70C
  • Ambient Temp: 0C ~ 55C
  • Storage Temp: -45C ~ 85C
  • 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
  • Part Numbers:
  • 60GB: AGT3-25SAT3-60G
  • 120GB: AGT3-25SAT3-120G
  • 240GB: AGT3-25SAT3-240G
  • 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

    AGILITY 3 BOX REAR

    The color scheme hasn’t changed with black and green being the primary colors. The packaging is very much the same as the Vertex 3 drives with the obvious color difference but absent is the 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter plate found with the Vertex drives. This is not a big deal to many as a lot of cases are now supporting 2.5″ drives natively. A shiny aluminum back plate with an OCZ product sticker adorns the back side of the drive along with the usual warranty sticker.

    AGILITY 3 REAR

    That rounds out the introduction to the Agility 3 so let’s have a look inside.

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