OCZ Vertex 60GB or OCZ Agility 60GB?

[lsquare]

A couple of minutes after asking whether I should go with the Intel 40GB Value drive, I'm now thinking just picking up the OCZ drive for about $80 more. It'll just write faster and I won't have any reason to bitch and moan about its performance. I'm just going to use it strictly as a boot and application drive. I will use my 2x2TB setup in RAID 1 configuration for storage.

My question here is which of the two 60GB drives will give me better bang for the buck? Since both SSDs are much faster than my current 150GB Velociraptor, I don't think I'll lose out much if one is 10MB/sec slower than the other. Which one should I go for?

Also, what's with the EX and LE labelling? Man, I'm so confused here. Is the Vertex EX faster than the regular Vertex drive?

 

[c0balt]

The OCZ support forum is great for specifics about their hardware, have you checked it out?

As far as the choice, I'd go with 2 smaller drives in RAID for the performance. I'd go with either OCZ 30GB or Intel 40GB. You're already going to have the controller in RAID anyway, so you're relying on GC until TRIM works with RAID. Why not use two smaller SSDs for the increased performance?

 

[lsquare]

The OCZ support forum is great for specifics about their hardware, have you checked it out?

As far as the choice, I'd go with 2 smaller drives in RAID for the performance. I'd go with either OCZ or Intel. You're already going to have the controller in RAID anyway, so you're relying on GC until TRIM works with RAID.

Nah, it's not worth it. There's a Hardocp article mentioning RAID 0 SSDs doesn't bootup faster than a single SSD. I don't want to throw money away for no practical reason. 1 SSD is more than enough for my needs.

 

[c0balt]

Nah, it's not worth it. There's a Hardocp article mentioning RAID 0 SSDs doesn't bootup faster than a single SSD. I don't want to throw money away for no practical reason. 1 SSD is more than enough for my needs.

Have you seen the benchmarks for the respective configs?
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?67821-FW-1-5-Results-and-General-Questions/page14

With two drives you also have two pieces of hardware to use to troubleshoot against if something goes wrong. Of course you have two points of failure instead of one, as well. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it. I just bought my first SSD last week and I wish I had gone with two smaller drives now.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1...patriot_warp_2_ssds_up_to_660mb_s/index4.html

 

[Engineer]

The Agility and the Vertex are nearly the same drive. The Agility uses various NAND chips running at several speeds (not much difference between them all) while the Vertex is supposed to have the best of NAND. It's been reported that the Agility can actually have a faster NAND than the Vertex though.

As for the EX, as far as I know, it's uses SLC NAND vs MLC NAND and is much more expensive. The NAND will last alot longer (100,000 writes vs 10,000 writes for MLC IIRC) but there is a premium for that performance.

OCZ has one of the best support forums that I've seen yet. Tony and RyderOCZ do a great job (I don't know how they stay sane with all of the people flying around over there, lol).

 

[Emulex]

wait are we benchmarking 120 or 60? big difference..

 

[Engineer]

wait are we benchmarking 120 or 60? big difference..

Quite a bit but not earth shattering (based on posted benchmarks at the OCZ forums by users). However, the OP states 60GB Vertex and 60GB Agility in the title, so I'm assuming it's a comparison between the two listed drives in the title. Also, the new Solid 2 drive, which is a tad slower than the Agility and uses the same Indilinx controller with even slower NAND "could" be considered (it's also cheaper).

 

[lsquare]

Quite a bit but not earth shattering (based on posted benchmarks at the OCZ forums by users). However, the OP states 60GB Vertex and 60GB Agility in the title, so I'm assuming it's a comparison between the two listed drives in the title. Also, the new Solid 2 drive, which is a tad slower than the Agility and uses the same Indilinx controller with even slower NAND "could" be considered (it's also cheaper).

It's an unproven SSD and I'm hesitating to try something new especially after the JMicro fiasco regardless of the controller used in the Solid 2 drive. You think the Agility 60GB be a massive upgrade from my Velociraptor? Best buy of the 2 drives?

 

[Engineer]

Yes, I would be hesitant too on the Solid 2 drive but it is basically the same drive with slower NAND (uses Indilinx controller), but until more people post benches, point taken.

I don't know if it's "massive" or not compared to the Velociraptor. Going from a 640GB Caviar Blue drive to the 120GB Vertex (which is faster than the 60GB versions) didn't feel that much faster....until I went back to the 640GB drive for a day. The 640GB drive felt very slow after going back. It's all relative...but in my opinion, it's not always a "massive" upgrade. As for the Velociraptor, it's already a fast drive. The Agility/Vertex would whip it in random reads/writes but the raptor should win the sequential war. Worth it I'm not sure.

 

[lsquare]

Yes, I would be hesitant too on the Solid 2 drive but it is basically the same drive with slower NAND (uses Indilinx controller), but until more people post benches, point taken.

I don't know if it's "massive" or not compared to the Velociraptor. Going from a 640GB Caviar Blue drive to the 120GB Vertex (which is faster than the 60GB versions) didn't feel that much faster....until I went back to the 640GB drive for a day. The 640GB drive felt very slow after going back. It's all relative...but in my opinion, it's not always a "massive" upgrade. As for the Velociraptor, it's already a fast drive. The Agility/Vertex would whip it in random reads/writes but the raptor should win the sequential war. Worth it I'm not sure.

What's the difference between sequential and random read/write performance?

 

[Yuriman]

What's the difference between sequential and random read/write performance?

I'm not sure if this is a good example, but I tried copying some 28,000 tiny log files (.txt) on my old mechanical drives, and did the same thing again on my SSDs. While the rated sequential read is maybe only 5x faster, and write, 2x, the actual copy time of 28,000 small files was something like 30 minutes vs 30 seconds.


From what I've read, these are the most common reads and what really make or break how fast a drive "feels". Random performance is where the Intel drives pull ahead of others.

 

[Engineer]

Solid 2 numbers from a user at the OCZ forums...(120GB version)

This is what I was looking for last week, couldnt find any reviews on the net.

My hdd broke in my laptop 3 months ago and I had been trying to buy a 80gb G2.
But with inflated prices and low/no stock of the G2 over here in the UK I decided to buy the OCZ Solid 2 120gb.
Best price I could find here in the UK was £210inc vat, Ebuyer.com.
I think the Solid 2 uses the same 32nm memory chips as the Intel G2s but with a indilinx controller.

CrystalDiskMark 100mb, OCZSSD2-2SLD120G, AMD 3.2ghz x2, AMD SB750 SATA2
READ
Seq. 250.4mb/s
512k 184.2mb/s
__4k 26.0mb/s

WRITE
Seq. 172.3mb/s
512k 159.0mb/s
__4k 10.9mb/s

CrystalDiskMark 100mb, OCZSSD2-2SLD120G, intel t1350 1.86ghz Solo, ich7 SATA
READ
Seq. 128.7mb/s
512k 116.4mb/s
__4k 26.2mb/s

WRITE
Seq. 126.8mb/s
512k 125.9mb/s
__4k 10.5mb/s

I was hoping 4k writes where going to be faster... but its definitely not slow.
Oh and OCZ warranty info on the site says 3 years. But in my box install and warranty info says 2 years.

Hope this helps.