OCZ Agility 3 - Buy or Avoid?


Recommended Posts

I've been looking into getting an SSD for a while, now someone I know's offered me a 120GB OCZ Agility 3 for around ?50, so obviously I'm tempted. Is it a good buy though? I've read a few SSD guides online before, and the summary of them was to stick to either the Crucial M4 or the Samsung 830. Would it be best for me to keep waiting and go with either of those instead?

The other concern I have with buying an SSD is cloning my drive over to it. My current system HDD is 1TB, so obviously, I'd have to create a second partition on it, and then go back-and-forth moving files over and decreasing the main partition size until it's small enough to fit on the SSD, but would it be safe if I cloned my system to an SSD? My friend recommended doing a fresh install onto the SSD, but I don't really fancy going through all the hassle of setting everything up and installing everything again unless it's absolutely necessary. Also, I recently did the upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro (x64), so I'm not sure if I'd be able to use my serial key again if I had to.

Sorry for all the questions, but thanks in advance to anyone who can answer them.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1117563-ocz-agility-3-buy-or-avoid/
Share on other sites

I own one, and despite what the OCZ haters say it's been a very reliable drive so far. Granted it doesn't have the raw performance of the Vertex 4 or Samsung 8 series but it's still a very good drive for the price. I wouldn't clone from a mechanical drive to an SSD however I would personally advise doing a fresh install as Windows has to configure itself for optimal running on an SSD and I believe it does that upon install.

  • Like 2

More than likely it will be fine, but it is risky since it runs on SandForce. Honestly, you might as well play it safe and buy a brand new Agility 4 or Vertex 4. I don't think it will be too big of a price difference and then you'll get a warranty with it.

Avoid anything OCZ. They just laid of a bunch of people and are going down probably soon. I have a Vertex 3 and it's good---faster than an HDD, and I'm happy with it, but it could be better. Get the Samsung 830. Don't clone the drive!!! Do a fresh install!!!

  • Like 2

Avoid anything OCZ. They just laid of a bunch of people and are going down probably soon.

OCZ isn't going anywhere. Restructuring is a good thing when the market is down. The Vertex is their prized product and is arguably the best SSD on the market, so you can only expect it to get better since they will be focusing more on it.

If you goto OCZ warranty site, there's option asking if this is your "1st RMA, 2nd RMA, 3rd RMA".

I'm on my 2nd RMA after one died after 3 months and another one dead on arrival.

But Agility and Vertex is their flagship line so it has better chance of working well. But the long term reliability, I'm not willing to risk.

In the meantime, I bought a Kingston Hyper X and it was rated 7.2/7.9 on the windows scale. It is working super good right now.

Definitely avoid OCZ - I have personally had a failure 4 months after I purchased my Vertex, and a few other of my friends had their Vertex2/3's fail. For a company that just switched to making just SSD's, they sure suck at it. They also move the largest amount of drives because they're cheap pieces of ****. I would stick with Samsung 830, or Crucial M4 or Intel SSD's.

One other point to note: The Agility 3 doesn't come with a mounting bracket for a 3.5 inch drive slot so you may need to acquire one separately ;)

If you have to ask the question you probably want to avoid them.

I disagree, this thread on it's own seems to show how polarised people are, often it depends on whose opinions you ask. And I find the best opinions come from people to have used the products.

I have a 240GB Agility 3 in my MacBook Pro (dual booting Windows 7 on it too), and it's been very reliable so far. It's faster than anything I've ever owned, so I wouldn't know how much faster other drives would be (or if it's even a noticeable difference), but I believe the newest firmware fixed any reliability issues it may have had.

I have a 240GB Agility 3 in my MacBook Pro (dual booting Windows 7 on it too), and it's been very reliable so far. It's faster than anything I've ever owned, so I wouldn't know how much faster other drives would be (or if it's even a noticeable difference), but I believe the newest firmware fixed any reliability issues it may have had.

This. As long as you have the latest firmware on the 3 Series, you'll be fine. If you get the 4 Series, you won't have to worry about anything since it uses Indilinx, which is super reliable. Plus a 5 year warranty.

Obviously this all depends on who you talk to. I've build about 50 PCs for a client, many of which with an OCZ SSD. Haven't had a single failure yet with those. I've seen one failure, and it was a Kingston, but I wouldn't say Kingston is less reliable than anything else.

I disagree, this thread on it's own seems to show how polarised people are, often it depends on whose opinions you ask. And I find the best opinions come from people to have used the products.

Every product has failures - that's unavoidable. But, OCZ just has high failure rates, and that should be enough as a consumer to sway you away. Why gamble with a product like an SSD? You're storing information, and it's an inconvenience if it fails. In either case, backup your data regardless of the brand. OCZ's tend to be slightly cheaper than the competition, but I would buy Intel, Crucial, Samsung for a few $ more. Having used an OCZ drive, and seeing it fail (amongst my friends') does not put a good reputation of them in my mind.

But, OCZ just has high failure rates, and that should be enough as a consumer to sway you away. Why gamble with a product like an SSD?

Do you have more than anecdotal proof of this? OCZ has been selling cheap SSDs for a long time, I would expect there to be a fair number of failures. But is it really greater than other drive companies by volume sold? It's hard to say.

Unless someone can point to an actual manufacturing flaw, like the IBM Deathstars, it's hard to say they're actually worse.

Every product has failures - that's unavoidable. But, OCZ just has high failure rates, and that should be enough as a consumer to sway you away. Why gamble with a product like an SSD? You're storing information, and it's an inconvenience if it fails. In either case, backup your data regardless of the brand. OCZ's tend to be slightly cheaper than the competition, but I would buy Intel, Crucial, Samsung for a few $ more. Having used an OCZ drive, and seeing it fail (amongst my friends') does not put a good reputation of them in my mind.

I only use my SSD as a boot drive, all my integral data is stored on mechanical drives so I'm covered on that front, but I've simply not seen anything that tells me using an OCZ drive is a risk. The firmware issues that caused the failures have been fixed as articuno1au pointed out, I know signs of disk failures, I update my firmware for products as soon as it's released and I'm careful. I've never seen evidence that owning an OCZ drive is a bigger risk than any other, you'll always get the odd failure, it's just part of the risk of comupting.

I have yet to have an issue with any of the four OCZ drives I have. My Vertex 2 is two years old, Vertex 3 just over a year and two Vertex 4s are a few months old.

OCZ has the highest failure rates, but its negligible (last time I checked they were within half a percent from Intel). The failure rates of mechanical drives are astronomical in comparison.

Every product has failures - that's unavoidable. But, OCZ just has high failure rates, and that should be enough as a consumer to sway you away. Why gamble with a product like an SSD? You're storing information, and it's an inconvenience if it fails. In either case, backup your data regardless of the brand. OCZ's tend to be slightly cheaper than the competition, but I would buy Intel, Crucial, Samsung for a few $ more. Having used an OCZ drive, and seeing it fail (amongst my friends') does not put a good reputation of them in my mind.

As I like to say... If you didn't have a backup then it wasn't important.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I will keep my current devices for several years... no planning in upgrading until these devices stop working. Too pricey.
    • Apple raises MacBook and iPad prices as memory costs surge by Karthik Mudaliar Apple has raised the U.S. prices of several MacBook and iPad models, including the MacBook Neo, which it launched for $599 less than four months ago. The company’s cheapest laptop now starts at $699, while some MacBook Pro configurations have increased by $300. The changes affect the MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. Apple has not changed the hardware or storage included with these models, so customers are simply paying more for the same configurations. Here is how the new US pricing compares with the previous starting prices: Product Previous price New price Increase MacBook Neo $599 $699 $100 13-inch MacBook Air, 512GB $1,099 $1,299 $200 14-inch MacBook Pro, 1TB $1,699 $1,999 $300 16-inch MacBook Pro $2,699 $2,999 $300 11-inch iPad Air, 128GB $599 $749 $150 13-inch iPad Air, 128GB $799 $949 $150 11-inch iPad Pro, 256GB $999 $1,199 $200 13-inch iPad Pro, 256GB $1,299 $1,499 $200 The updated prices are already appearing on Apple’s U.S. online store. The MacBook Neo increase will probably attract the most attention. Apple introduced the laptop in March for $599, pitching it as a more affordable Mac for students and buyers considering Windows laptops or Chromebooks. It uses an A18 Pro processor and originally undercut Dell’s new $699 XPS 13 by $100. Following the increase, the two laptops now have the same starting price. The M5 MacBook Air has also lost the price Apple promoted when it launched in March. The 13-inch model arrived with 512GB of storage for $1,099, while Apple’s store now lists the MacBook Air range as starting at $1,299. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip and 1TB of storage has gone from $1,699 to $1,999. Apple has made similar changes to its iPads. The recently released M4 iPad Air, which launched at the same $599 starting price as its predecessor, now starts at $749 for the 11-inch version. The 13-inch version has risen from $799 to $949. The iPad Pro increases are larger in dollar terms. Apple’s 11-inch M5 iPad Pro now starts at $1,199, up from $999, while the 13-inch version has moved from $1,299 to $1,499. Both base models still include 256GB of storage. Apple blamed the increases on the rapidly rising cost of DRAM and NAND flash, which provide system memory and device storage. The company told Reuters that it had tried to shield customers from the increases but could no longer absorb them. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” Apple said. Tim Cook had already warned that price increases were coming. Cook said Apple’s existing component inventory had softened the immediate impact, but that higher memory costs would increasingly affect the company after the June quarter. Much of the pressure comes from the construction of AI data centers. Memory manufacturers are directing more production toward high-margin server products, leaving PC, tablet, and smartphone makers competing for the remaining supply. Apple has not said whether the new prices are temporary or whether further increases are planned. For now, the changes show that even Apple’s purchasing power has not been enough to keep the AI-driven memory shortage away from consumer devices.
    • Ventoy 1.1.16 is out.
    • This is a none story - these low volume Chinese models will always get new experimental features first because Apple and Samsung can't produce them in huge volume to meet demand.
    • Nvidia GeForce NOW gains support for Dark Scrolls, Empulse, and more by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe The final update of June for Nvidia's cloud gaming service GeForce NOW is now available, and it is touting support for six more games. The company is also drawing subscriber attention towards the summer sales kicking off across stores, so they can stock up on more cloud-supported titles. Of course, the Steam Summer Sale is the biggest promotion, which is kicking off later today. "Supported Steam games can be streamed across devices with GeForce NOW, making it easy to buy a game once, keep progress synced and pick up where the gameplay left off on PCs, Macs, handheld devices, phones, TVs and more," says the company. "In other words, the Steam Summer Sale brings the deals; GeForce NOW adds the flexibility." Don't forget that the GeForce NOW summer sale is still active as well. This limited-time offer drops the 12-month Performance membership from $99.99 to $64.99, saving members $35. At the same time, the 12-month Ultimate membership is currently going for $129.99, dropping the price by $70 from the original $199.99. Here are the games joining GeForce NOW's supported list this week: Dark Scrolls (New release on Steam, available June 22) SAND: Raiders of Sophie (New release on Steam, available June 22) Deer & Boy (New release on Steam, available June 23) EMPULSE (New release on Steam, available June 24) The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales (Steam) FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves (Steam) With the June expansions coming to an end, Nvidia should be announcing its July GeForce NOW plans next week. Keep in mind that, unlike subscription services like Game Pass or EA Play, a copy of a game must be owned by the GeForce NOW member (or at least have a license via PC Game Pass) to start playing via Nvidia's cloud servers. There is also a limit to how many hours subscribers can use the service per month.
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      kinowa earned a badge
      First Post
    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      463
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      171
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      134
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      77
    5. 5
      Xenon
      77
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!