OCZ SSD question.

[ingeborgdot]

Does anyone know anything about the
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)?


I can get it for a real good price but some of the reviews on newegg are pretty bad because once you get it you need to do a firmware upgrade. Anyone?

[profJim]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

Don't buy any sata3 ssd that uses asynchronous Nand. Their is a significant performance penalty compared with a similar SSD that uses synchronous Nand. Check out http://forums.tweaktown.com/storage-...rformance.html for more information. Many other quality web sites have documented the inferior performance of asynchronous drives. Check out OCZ Technology Agility 3 240GB SSD Review :: TweakTown USA Edition for an excellent review where the Agility3's shortcomings are compared with the somewhat more expensive Vertex3 model.
The performance penalty is not unique to OCZ ssd's.

Updating firmware for my OCZ ssd is straight forward, but the ssd needs to updated from windows when the ssd is not running as the operating system drive.
The easiest way to update the firmware is to connect your OS boot drive as a secondary drive to another computer.
The OCZ ssd forum has a lot of information; OCZ Forum - SSD ABC Guide

[ingeborgdot]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

So, can you recommend one in the 240-256GB range?

[profJim]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

I can't recommend a specific sata3 ssd from personal experience, but I've been very impressed with the newest Kingston HyperX synchronous models. The Crucial M4 models should be checked out. They have some good information at Crucial Solid-State Drives. Some of the M4 benchmark scores seem to be a bit lower in some areas, but they are generally very highly rated by reviewers and customers (e.g. Newegg.com).

My preference is to buy a brand where the manufacturer has toll-free tech support, along with excellent support from their official forum.
Don't get hung up with ssd benchmark scores, you'll get a major headache trying to make sense out of the numbers, many of which don't really relate to real world performance.

My ssd upgrade breathed new life into my system. Absolutely no regrets.
I hope this helps.

[scajjr29]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

Even the sync memory models have been having issues. Jut look at the OCZ, patriot, Crucial, etc., forums and you see all the SATA III SSD mfgrs are have some issues. I have a HyperX 120Gb and have had a couple freezes and a BSOD in the little over a month I've had it. So I would say right now you have just as much a shot at getting one you never will have a problem with as you do getting one that will have issues. Crucial's M4 does seem to have a bit fewer issues.

sam

[profJim]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

Good points Sam.
What puzzles me is the high number of customer problems with hard drive reliability with brand new bare drives.
There appears to be quite a few horror stories as you've described. I've had no problems with either of my ssd's in each of my older systems.

The major safety measure I've used is that the data hard drive on each system has an empty, bootable primary partition in reserve. If an ssd suddenly dies or becomes unrecognizable, it will take less than 10 minutes to restore a backup image of my operating system partition onto the hard drive. In theory this approach sounds great, but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet. I know, shame on me.

[wazza300]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

@sam,is that with using a p67/z68 mb on Intel sata3 ports? You might have issues on older Marvell ports or on b1/b2 revision sandybridge mb's in which your entitled to a free b3 replacement

[scajjr29]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

@sam,is that with using a p67/z68 mb on Intel sata3 ports? You might have issues on older Marvell ports or on b1/b2 revision sandybridge mb's in which your entitled to a free b3 replacement

No I'm running a Biostar TA870U3+ AMD NB870/SB850 board.

I upgraded from an 8 month old OCZ Agility 2 120Gb which gave me zero problems to the HyperX mainly cause I was hoping Kingston's later entry into the SF2281 based SSD market meant they may have had a fix for the problems.

TA870U3+
X3-720BE
8Gb DDR3-1333
MSI Twin Frozr II HD6950 2Gb
HyperX 120Gb SSD
Hitachi 3Tb SATA III HD
WD Black 1Tb SATA III HD

Sam

[ingeborgdot]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

How does the raptor compare to ssd?

[profJim]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

A web search using ssd vs raptor should answer your question.

[scajjr29]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

Had my HyperX disappear/drop off again last night, while I was doing something on the computer this time, computer wasn't sitting idle. Have emailed Kingston support, we'll see if they still claim they haven't had reports of problems.

Was reading through the Patriot and OCZ forums last night on both of their latest firmware releases. Both are getting mixed results in the early going.

Sam

[ingeborgdot]

Re: OCZ SSD question.

Anyone know anything about the Plextor PX-M2 Series PX-256M2S 2.5" 256GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)? Good deal right now.