HOT 240GB OCZ Agility 3 - $240 after $30 MIR

I

Impulse

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 5, 2001
Messages
10,232
I'll preface this by saying that I probably wouldn't buy a Sandforce drive right now... But that's mostly because I'm too busy to bother with potential compatibility issues or a product return. Hence why I bought a Samsung 830 a couple of weeks ago, third SSD I've purchased. Also, somehow people have created this bad reliability rep for SF and OCZ when the main issue was always one of drive compatibility, not failure or reliability.

That being said, if you don't mind the potential hassle should your system configuration be one of those configs that just doesn't get along with SF drives, then this is a pretty darn good deal on a rather large drive. Yeah it has slower NAND than the Vertex line, still faster than many other other SSD tho (easily faster than any previous gen stuff).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227727

Sale's not up yet, its the 10am (PST) ShellShocker. It's getting a $50 discount basically, not earth shattering but better than most anything I've seen on larger SSD deals... Seems like all recent deals were either on smaller drives or older gen drives (or a combination of both).
 
Is this a bad SSD to try? I went ahead and ordered 1. Should I cancel it?
 
neokeelo said:
Is this a bad SSD to try? I went ahead and ordered 1. Should I cancel it?
Click to expand...

I'm using an Agility 3 240GB right now as my main drive, it's fine. Stupid fast and I've had no problems with it (no problems with my 120GB Agility 2 either, which is now in my laptop). It'll probably come with the latest firmware, but if it doesn't just boot from a thumb drive wuith linux distro that OCZ has on their forums for firmware updates.
 
I know OCZ says not to upgrade firmware if you don't have problems but is it a good idea to go ahead and do that anyways before you install Win 7? Im gonna be running it on a P8Z68-V Pro Asus MB.
 
neokeelo said:
Is this a bad SSD to try? I went ahead and ordered 1. Should I cancel it?
Click to expand...

They've improved a lot in terms of reliability, but apparently there are still issues with compatibility.

If you're planning on storing any critical data on these things I'd probably steer clear of anything SandForce, even with their recent improvements. Samsung/corsair performance pro series/crucial/intel/plextor are the better choice but often more expensive
 
neokeelo said:
Is this a bad SSD to try? I went ahead and ordered 1. Should I cancel it?
Click to expand...

OCZ has a lot of quality control issues in general and a lot of their products ship before they are ready. Their 3rd generation of SSDs has had fewer issues then their 2nd gen, but I personally would go with Intel, Crucial, or Samsung before any other brand. Those manufacturers don't offer a drive this big in this price range though...
 
I guess I will keep it and put the most recent firmware on it, worth a shot at this price. I just think 120GB drives are way too small in this day and age and the other 240GB drives are too expensive still.
 
I also bought one back when they had the OCZ ssd coupon. Good drive so far, no issues.
 
Personally I would check the firmware first thing if you are buying this drive. That said, my SF drive has been OK. Even with a copy of windows I ghosted from an old disc drive. Not a bad deal for a 240gb drive. I would bite if I had money for sure
 
You pussies complaining are probably still running Raptors. Fuckin lames...

I know theres been some issues with OCZ and bullshit surrounding, but Ive owned 3 of their drives and never an issue. My 240gb Agility2 has been excellent!
 
why do you think OCZ has been ~$1/gb EVERYWHERE for the last couple months? They probably can't sell sht with the publicity they've recently been receiving, warranted or not.
it seemed like one day talk started spreading like wildfire that you shouldn't touch their drives with a ten foot sata cable. Nobody had a good word to give about their SSDs.
They're probably choking profits to get their drives to the consumer so that (if they're not as bad as the tech community has been making them out to be) some positive experiences will start rolling in.

I'm still leery nonetheless, but a 240gb/$240 is pretty killer considering the typical ratio for larger drives.
 
weuntouchable said:
OCZ has a lot of quality control issues in general and a lot of their products ship before they are ready. Their 3rd generation of SSDs has had fewer issues then their 2nd gen, but I personally would go with Intel, Crucial, or Samsung before any other brand. Those manufacturers don't offer a drive this big in this price range though...
Click to expand...

I'm gonna have to agree with you here. While the OP (or was it the first reply?) said that it is a matter of compatibility and not reliability, I'm gonna have to say: what is the difference? Whether it is an actual firmware issue or just isn't compatible with certain mobos or hardware or whatever; the fact is that OCZ drives have a LOT more issues as a whole than any other major SSD brand. The newest generation, which this is part of, seem to not be nearly as bad as some of the others, but I still wouldn't use any of their drives personally.

Like someone else said, I don't want to have to deal with a potential issue, or have my drive crash or constantly lockup or blue screen my system. The real killer with the OCZ drives is that it isn't just one issue. There isn't just one easy fix if you do have problems, it could be a multitude of things, or it could be incompatible, which in that case it will never work good with your system.

But all that said, this is a pretty nice deal for a SSD of this size, it is certainly cheaper than similar sizes from other brands such as Samsung or Crucial. But personally, I decided that in the long run it was worth going with a more reputable brand and paying a bit more for peace of mind. I would much rather pay an extra $100 than spend hours trying to troubleshoot a drive and pulling my hair out.

I know SSDs are new technology, but I feel like they should be getting to the point where they are more or less as easy to use and reliable as traditional HDDs. I want to just be able to pop it in my system, format, and then never have to worry about it. So far that has been all I've had to do with the 3 Crucial drives I have. But if you feel like gambling to save some money, then good luck. Hopefully it will turn out good. :)
 
turbogeek said:
why do you think OCZ has been ~$1/gb EVERYWHERE for the last couple months? They probably can't sell sht with the publicity they've recently been receiving, warranted or not.
it seemed like one day talk started spreading like wildfire that you shouldn't touch their drives with a ten foot sata cable. Nobody had a good word to give about their SSDs.
They're probably choking profits to get their drives to the consumer so that (if they're not as bad as the tech community has been making them out to be) some positive experiences will start rolling in.

I'm still leery nonetheless, but a 240gb/$240 is pretty killer considering the typical ratio for larger drives.
Click to expand...

Not for nothing but the Intel 320 was $1/GB thru Cyber weekend (80GB, 120GB, and 160GB) and it is probably the most reliable and validated drive there is... I mean, it's based on the old X25-M controller (yet Intel still let one bug slip by, tho it's been fixed in firmware).

I wouldn't make anything out of the price, OCZ and SF drives in general have always been sold at very competitive prices... Intel's always charged a premium, so much so that their 510 has priced itself out of people's mind. Regular pricing on the Vertex 3 line isn't any lower than the M4 or 830.

I'm not trying to make apologies for SF, but I do think singling out OCZ is silly, half a dozen other manufacturers making SF drives had the same issues and OCZ gets firmware updates before any of them you're better off with them... Like I said, I wouldn't get a SF drive myself because I just don't have the time to troubleshoot or RMA if it doesn't jive with my system, but I wouldn't consider them toxic either.

Chances are if you have no issues with a SF drive in the first month, you're no worse off than with any other drive... And they are the best performing drives (at least with compressible data). I'm not sure where this notion of the newest generation being slightly better comes from either, it has better GC but the compatibility issues centered entirely around the newest gen (Vertex 3, Agility 3, etc.); AFAIK 2nd gen didn't have that widespread issue.

Honestly at this point SF (and by extension, OCZ) just have a huge PR problem with the echo chamber of so-called experts on the net just parroting every random complaint about them. SF got bought so they'll be alright, OCZ is probably worse off in the long run.
 
TLDR version: It's very simple, if you have the time or don't mind returning a drive if it happens to have issues with your system (and you'll know relatively quickly), SF drives are amongst the best there is and often priced to move. If you have a Mac or a system without TRIM they also handle GC a little better than anything outside an Intel 510. If you can't be arsed to mess around (like me), get a Crucial M4 or Samsung 830. If you can't afford those there's always last gen drives like the 470 or Intel 320.
 
Those who are calling people pussies for being wary of drives haven't had an SSD just randomly not boot, cause a random blue screen, work fine for 6 months, then do the same shit over again.... Weekly backups or more often are a life saver :|

I will never buy another OCZ drive out of annoyance, I own a OCZ Vertex and an OCZ Agility drive (both 1st gen obviously) and have not had the best luck with them. More than once especially on the Agility drive have I had to put it in debug mode (jumper) and run the firmware utility to reset the drive to revive it. (No longer shows up in windows, makes computer move at a snails pace before failing if you try and boot from it). I do sincerely hope the newer drives are getting better.

I'd rather buy an intel that I know has been tested and has a quality name to stand behind it. My intel 120gb has been perfect in my work laptop since the day I bought it without a hiccup.
 
I've owned a vertex 2 and 3 now for months and both have worked flawless... 1 person with a problem and 1000 people hear about it, 1000 people with no problems and no one hears about it.
 
tazeat said:
Those who are calling people pussies for being wary of drives haven't had an SSD just randomly not boot, cause a random blue screen, work fine for 6 months, then do the same shit over again.... Weekly backups or more often are a life saver :|

I will never buy another OCZ drive out of annoyance, I own a OCZ Vertex and an OCZ Agility drive (both 1st gen obviously) and have not had the best luck with them. More than once especially on the Agility drive have I had to put it in debug mode (jumper) and run the firmware utility to reset the drive to revive it. (No longer shows up in windows, makes computer move at a snails pace before failing if you try and boot from it). I do sincerely hope the newer drives are getting better.

I'd rather buy an intel that I know has been tested and has a quality name to stand behind it. My intel 120gb has been perfect in my work laptop since the day I bought it without a hiccup.
Click to expand...

If you are keeping things on a SSD that you MUST backup weekly, you are either not very smart or too rich for most of us if you can afford SSDs for storage.

Ive had SSDs of all makes and models. Bad things happen. Im sure youve had Mobo, VC's, and other things go bad as we all have. These drives are NOT as bad as people make them out to be. I wonder if theres failure rate numbers that are real on these.
 
tazeat said:
Those who are calling people pussies for being wary of drives haven't had an SSD just randomly not boot, cause a random blue screen, work fine for 6 months, then do the same shit over again.... Weekly backups or more often are a life saver :|
Click to expand...

That's all well and good, but I've had an agility 2 and agility 3 as the main drive for two separate computers and not once had an issue.

There's always the other side of the coin, and I think the problems with the OCZ drives are the exception not the rule. People who have had problems tend to be more vocal about the drives than people who haven't.
 
Nexus6 said:
That's all well and good, but I've had an agility 2 and agility 3 as the main drive for two separate computers and not once had an issue.

There's always the other side of the coin, and I think the problems with the OCZ drives are the exception not the rule. People who have had problems tend to be more vocal about the drives than people who haven't.
Click to expand...

That's true of any online reviews, but that doesn't explain why Intel, Samsung and Marvell have for the most part been void of those types of reviews. The easiest explanation, and the correct one, would be that they're far more reliable.

I know the drives work as I've installed them on PCs myself, but I'm also aware of the 5-6 month failure rate from their first and 2nd iteration as well as the reliability and compatibility issues (Marvell doesn't play well with them). Obviously this isn't just OCZ and applies to every SSD maker with SandForce controllers. If I were to go SandForce, I'd go OCZ because they have a sweetheart deal with SF and release better firmware and usually before anyone else along with a better price. But if I had the choice of going SandForce or Marvell/Samsung/Intel I'd pay more for the Samsung or Marvell drives. Intel has priced itself out completely with their Sata III drives and their 310's are good but are Sata II and the reasonably priced models are often an OEM brown box or require a hefty MIR to be worth it.

Not all bad, though. They do have some interesting drives that would definitely be worth checking out : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227755

64GB cache drive that isn't cheaper than other 64GB drives, but you can also keep all your data stored on your platter discs and not have to worry about the SSD crashing along with your OS partition and critical data. Really good idea, IMO. You get the speed without the worry of BSODs. Slightly slower in some tests and more expensive but it is dynamic and doesn't require you to do anything extra :)
 
Last edited:
I have one OCZ SSD, an original Agility 60GB, that runs like a champ in my laptop and has been for almost 3 years...

I decided to gamble on the vertex plus 120GB when they were a good deal earlier this year... RMA'd because it would corrupt over and over and then eventually they just gave me a refund on it.

Then I bought a sandisk 120GB and a Corsair Force GT 120GB.. both work perfectly, and I also have an intel 160GB 320 series in my wife's computer and it is great.

The point is, if there are bad reviews consistently, expect it to either take more work for it to function correctly, or that it might require an RMA....

The reviews are respectable enough on this drive that I would try it out if I had a need for another SSD and the spare cash....
 
doz said:
If you are keeping things on a SSD that you MUST backup weekly, you are either not very smart or too rich for most of us if you can afford SSDs for storage.

Ive had SSDs of all makes and models. Bad things happen. Im sure youve had Mobo, VC's, and other things go bad as we all have. These drives are NOT as bad as people make them out to be. I wonder if theres failure rate numbers that are real on these.
Click to expand...
My OS drive is indeed important, having to move your C: back > 1 week with any work you've done since then that is on this drive immediately gone and unrecoverable, yeah that's worthy of running an incremental backup every now and again :). HDD(s) were cheap and it's all too easy to keep an array of backups ready to go if something happens to your OS drive. A copy of acronis ($35) and a 2TB hdd ($80 before the recent price surge) is not really something only open to the rich.

Nexus6 said:
That's all well and good, but I've had an agility 2 and agility 3 as the main drive for two separate computers and not once had an issue.

There's always the other side of the coin, and I think the problems with the OCZ drives are the exception not the rule. People who have had problems tend to be more vocal about the drives than people who haven't.
Click to expand...
Of course, and I'm not naive enough to say my experience is the same as everyone else's. I'm just saying, look at the comments on some of the OCZ drives and they are downright scary and now I know why. It would be naive to say that all SSDs fail at the same rates and that the manufacturer and how they do their business with their software development, where they source their parts, etc has no effect on those failure rates either. It would also be stupid of me to not take my past experience in to account of future purchases and make the same mistake twice.

When I was shopping for an SSD for my work laptop which I need everyday to take with me, you can be sure I was looking for as few 1-2 star reviews on products as possible with bitter people losing all of their contents on their drives and the intel took the cake at the time I bought it. Reliability to me at least on most of my drives is far more important than a few dollars or extra speed. That's all I'm saying, take it in to account when you make your purchase.
 
It's so exciting when things get blown out of proportion like this. I have been needing a 240GB SSD for my laptop. I didn't want to gamble on a new unproven controller like the Samsung. I decided to go with something I know I am not going to have any problems with. The SF controller in this Agility 3 drive. This will be my 5th SSD with this controller.

It's kind of the perfect storm. The fastest of this generation controllers has a compatibility issue with certain hardware. The internet explodes with exciting bad press. They find the problem and fix it. That's not very exciting news to spread around. Thousands of people who never even owned a drive with the problem, let alone experienced it, are quick to talk all about it at any opportunity. A bad reputation is born.

This really works out well for me. Instead of everybody buying the fastest controller on the market they shy away from it out of ignorance. This causes a lot of stock to be on hand which in turn causes prices to drop. Instead of paying above retail just to get my hands on one I can buy it dirt cheap. I wish every top of the line product would come out with some minor flaw that is easily fixed so the rumor mill can pound the products reputation down to bargain prices.

I have received two Vetrex 3 drives with old firmware. The first was two weeks after the product launched. My hardware was completely compatible so I never had a problem. As a matter of fact it is still running the original firmware. If it ain't broke don't flash it. That's my motto. The second Vertex 3 I bought with old firmware caused me problems. I put it in an older X58 system. As soon as I realized what the problem was I went to OCZ's web site and downloaded a bootable ISO. Flashing the firmware was very easy. Since then I have not had a single problem with it. My other more recent SF-2281 drives came with the latest firmware already installed. That leads me to believe all the old firmware drives are probably out of the system now. Unless you buy it on ebay or something. This will be my first SF-2281 with asynchronous NAND. I expect it to run a little slower than my other drives but hopefully I won't notice a difference.

In all honesty I have nothing against the Samsung, Crucial or Intel controllers. For $1/GB in a 240GB or 256GB capacity I would have jumped on it. I tried to get the Samsung price error at Microcenter last week but there were none in stock at my local store. I would have actually preferred the Samsung or Crucial because they use synchronous NAND and would be slightly faster than the Agility 3 in real world applications. But for $100 less money this was too good a deal to pass up.
 
To be fair, it did take months (plural) for SF to track down the BSOD issues... So those that were affected do have a reason to perpetuate their beef against SF drives. I do agree it's getting blown out of proportion by now tho, had this deal been around when I got my 120GB drive I would've been tempted.
 
Mine came in last night, it had the 2.15 fw on it, i used the ocz util to do auto update anyway, did fresh install of W7 enterprise, i installed it of a usb 3.0 32G memory stick (plugged into usb 2.0 port as i did not want to deal with getting usb 3.0 working, and slipstreeming stuff onto my install stick), it was amazingly fast, the whole thing took probably 7 or so minutes including restarts. Full slew of windows updates took no time either. No issues with the drive, and this is going from 4x 320g Seagate 7200 drives short-stroked in raid 0. The seek times, and iops is what makes the ssd FLY. I'm happy with it so far, i'll keep a backup of my os drive incase this thing decides to take a dump tho.
 
I had one of the 120g models and win7 would load in like 4 seconds.. the logo wouldn't even get 1/4 of the way through drawing before I got the password prompt. it was silly fast for sure. but the earlier fw issues with sf-2281 drives created bsod's for me so I returned it.. I guess that's sorted out now..
 
tazeat said:
Those who are calling people pussies for being wary of drives haven't had an SSD just randomly not boot, cause a random blue screen, work fine for 6 months, then do the same shit over again.... Weekly backups or more often are a life saver :|

I will never buy another OCZ drive out of annoyance, I own a OCZ Vertex and an OCZ Agility drive (both 1st gen obviously) and have not had the best luck with them. More than once especially on the Agility drive have I had to put it in debug mode (jumper) and run the firmware utility to reset the drive to revive it. (No longer shows up in windows, makes computer move at a snails pace before failing if you try and boot from it). I do sincerely hope the newer drives are getting better.

I'd rather buy an intel that I know has been tested and has a quality name to stand behind it. My intel 120gb has been perfect in my work laptop since the day I bought it without a hiccup.
Click to expand...

I have bought all my SSDs from OCZ and had a few issues with my first Vertex Turbo, wasn't able to update the firmware so their SSD engineer asked me to send it to him at his expense. I sent it to him, he patched the firmware, tested it, sent it back and not only have I had no further problems with it at all, it runs faster than spec now.

I also have an Agility 3, as well as 6 of my friends, and we have had aboslutely no issues whatsoever with it, yet, even running with the Vertex Turbo as a data drive I have had no data issues. I was planning on running those in RAID, but I may just get another Agility 3 and run the 2 Agility's in RAID.

I also just won a Vertex 2 60GB as a raffle prize and plan to use it for my laptop.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top