33 replies to this topic

[MightyJordan]

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.

[Javik]

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.

[Astra.Xtreme]

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.

[Tyler R.]

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!!!

[Mindovermaster]

I have a Samsung 830 128GB and a OCZ Vertex 2 60GB, both of them are fast, yes, but the 830 is ton better.

[Javik]

The Vertex 2 is a SATAII drive, the Samsung 830 is a SATA III drive, of course it's going to be faster.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Tyler R., on 06 November 2012 - 14:30, said:

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.

[mr_sock_00]

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.

[tsupersonic]

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.

[Javik]

I've had my drive for almost a year now and not so much as a sniff of a reliability issue so far. I guess some are more lucky than others.

[+articuno1au]

Any decent SSD is an enormous improvement over HDDs.

I had an OCZ Vertex 2, Agility 3 and now a Vertex 4. I'm happy with all of them and would suggest them readily enough

For 50 pound, worth it imo.

[Tony.]

Been running my Agility 3 for 6 months without issue now.

[+jamieakers]

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

[Javik]

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

jamieakers, on 06 November 2012 - 14:43, said:

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.

[threetonesun]

The 4 series isn't much more, and has a better controller.