Review SSD OCZ Agility 3 120GB: SandForce 2 on a Budget

Author

Oik Yusuf Araya

Reading time:

Storage Devices

December 30, 2011

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Test Results

HDTune

Here we can see that the 120 GB version of Agility 3 performs only around half as good as its 240 GB sibling. A bit surprising, really. But does this benchmark tell the whole story?

Crystal Disk Mark

Crystal Disk Mark yields the same results. Agility 3 120 GB’s read and write performance is good, but nowhere near the 240 GB version.

PCMark 7

As expected, the slower data transfer rate also reduces overall system performance, although not by much. You’d still get exponential increase in speed over conventional HDD.

File Transfer Test

This small test further shows that the Vertex 3 120 GB is constantly outperformed by its larger-capacity sibling. Surprisingly enough, it was beaten by an ordinary hard drive in one particular scenario. Perhaps this is an anomaly caused by suboptimal firmware implementation?

Conclusions

Our tests show that the Agility 3 120 GB does not perform as wonderfully as OCZ’s 240 GB offering. Make no mistake though, the Agility 3 120 GB is no slouch. It’s still way faster than any hard drive you can find. After all, you can only expect hundreds of megabytes per second from an SSD.

The OCZ Agility 3 120 GB should be more affordable than the 240 GB version. As such, it’s suitable for professional users (video editors, servers), gamers, and enthusiasts who want to cut application loading times but don’t necessarily require 240 GB of super-fast storage. If you can find a good bargain on this, the Agility 3 120 GB is worth considering.

Pros:

+ Positioned below Vertex 3, translates into lower price.
+ Armed with the venerable SandForce 2 controller.
+ Uses SATA III interface.
+ Very high performance under certain circumstances.

Cons:

– ONFi 1.0 asynchronous standard limits performance.
– Sub-optimal TRIM implementation.

Technical Data

Manufacturer	OCZ
Info	http://www.ocztechnology.com/
Price	–
Distributor in Indonesia	Spectrum
Phone	021 612 5505
Memory Type	Multi Level Cell
Capacity	120 GB
Interface	SATA 6 Gbps