OCZ Agility 3 - Buy or Avoid?


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Thanks for all the responses, everyone. After mulling it over for the past hour, I think I'll keep waiting and set my money aside for a Samsung 830. I'll probably leave it until the next generation graphics card come around, as I'm waiting for those too.

I've had 2 OCZ Agility 3's in RAID 0 for the past year. Great SSD's. Initially I have a few problems with them, but as soon as I found out about the firmware updates, I updated them and they are now flawless! I maintain ~750MB/S r/w in RAID 0.

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.

Every Hd can fail to be honest.

My raptor failed last year. It was around 5 years old. Not that old for a HHD.

It doesn't matter which brand you own you should always back up important data. I have a slow cheap 750GB external HDD that i use to backup all my data including a ghost of the OS. When my raptor died i replaced it with a Vertex 3 and restored the data from the external HDD.

If this is a home computer i would say buy the best bang for the bucks. Everytime i see someone recommending Intel SSDs for home computer i am shocked. You can get a Samsung 830 for like 20$ less in Canada than an Intel SSD. Intel SSDs have always been some of the most expensive on the market. They are not worth it for home computer.

OCZ used to be less expensive and a good buy despite the reliability problems. But it's not really true anymore as the Samsung 830 is now actually less expensive anyway in Canada.

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!!!

You can clone the drive, if the cloning software knows about SSD's and align's it properly.

You can clone the drive, if the cloning software knows about SSD's and align's it properly.

Meh...I wouldn't. Windows 7 does a different type of install for SSDs. It disables parts of the OS (like disk defrag super fetch, etc.) and enables Trim and AHCI for you.

Lol at all the people arguing against OCZ. Here is a list of OCZ drives I have/had owned:

OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB

OCZ Agility 3 240GB

OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

OCZ Octane 512GB

OCZ Vertex 2 60GB

OCZ Vertex 2 120GB

Drives that failed so far: None.

Seems the view on these is polarised. I know people that swear by them and people that have nothing but trouble with them.

Haven't heard anything bad about the 4th gen though.

Meh...I wouldn't. Windows 7 does a different type of install for SSDs. It disables parts of the OS (like disk defrag super fetch, etc.) and enables Trim and AHCI for you.

It also makes the necessary changes on a clone. I had no problem when I cloned my hard disc to my SSD.

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