OCZ Agility 2

Introduction:

Screaming every obsenity in the world wont bring your data back if your hard drive dies. Good news! if your data is stored on a SSD your chances of data loss decrease exponentially. OCZ is a serious contender in the memory market, it comes as no surprise they have a full line of SSD drives as well.

Meet the OCZ Agility 2

“Based on a cutting-edge new architecture, Agility 2 Solid State Drives deliver unprecedented performance while maintaining an affordable storage solution for early adopters looking to update their systems with the latest technology.”

Solid state drives not only offer an enormous reliability advantage over traditional hard disk drives, they offer great performance increases as well. Most people operate under the assumption it takes great money to get great performance. The Agility 2 claims to be the exception. Let’s see if the Agility 2 has the moves to keep up with its boasts.

Packaging:

OCZ definately crammed everything in this package quite efficiently looking at the size of the box I was surprised to see anything other than the SSD, they also included the screws and a 3.5″ mounting bracket. these may seem like trivial features but keep in mind this is a “budget friendly” SSD, usually included accessories are the first place a company might try to decrease cost.

Specifications:

Available in 40GB to 480GB capacities

Native TRIM support

Seek Time: .1ms

Slim 2.5″ Design

99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm

Lightweight: 77g

Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C

Storage Temp: -45°C ~ +85°C

Low Power Consumption: 2W in operation,

.5W in standby

Shock Resistant up to 1500G

RAID Support

Included 3.5″ Desktop adapter bracket

Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, Mac OS X and Linux

MTBF: 2 million hours

3-Year Warranty

40GB Max Performance

Max Read: up to 280 MB/s

Max Write: up to 270 MB/s

Sustained Write: up to 200 MB/s

Random Write 4k (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS

50-240GB Max Performance

Max Read: up to 285MB/s

Max Write: up to 275MB/s

Sustained Write: up to 250MB/s

Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS

400-480GB Max Performance

Max Read: up to 250MB/s

Max Write: up to 240MB/s

Sustained Write: up to 200MB/s

Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS

Available in 40GB to 480GB capacities
Native TRIM support
Seek Time: .1ms
Slim 2.5″ Design
99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm
Lightweight: 77g
Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C
Storage Temp: -45°C ~ +85°C
Low Power Consumption: 2W in operation,
.5W in standby
Shock Resistant up to 1500G
RAID Support
Included 3.5″ Desktop adapter bracket
Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, Mac OS X and Linux
MTBF: 2 million hours
3-Year Warranty

40GB Max Performance
Max Read: up to 280 MB/s
Max Write: up to 270 MB/s
Sustained Write: up to 200 MB/s
Random Write 4k (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS
50-240GB Max Performance
Max Read: up to 285MB/s
Max Write: up to 275MB/s
Sustained Write: up to 250MB/s
Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS
400-480GB Max Performance
Max Read: up to 250MB/s
Max Write: up to 240MB/s
Sustained Write: up to 200MB/s
Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 10,000 IOPS

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Testing:

Test Rig:

Operating System	Windows 7 64-bit
Motherboard	Jetway HI06
Processor	Intel Core i5-750
Ram	Patriot Viper II Sector 5 2400 Mhz 4gb Kit
Cooler	Thermaltake Frio
Primary HDD	Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm 250gb
Power Supply	OCZ MODxSTREAM Pro 700 watt
Video Card	Nvidia 9800gtx+

Si Soft Sandra:

SI Sandra Detailed

The Agility 2 clearly stomped the HDD market, but this comes as no surprise. The lack of moving parts, that grants these devices their reliability also grants them great speed as there is no “spin up” time. The drive is also significantly faster than OCZ’s older modeled drives, and competes nicely with Intel’s expensive mobile line.

SI Sandra IOPs

IOPs are input output operations, basically it is the raw performance capabilities of a data storage device. As you can see from the colorful graph above, the capabilities of the Agility 2 significantly outperform that of its competitors. The sustained IOPs are less impressive, however this is a cost efficient model.

In the detailed view you can see the progression of the drive’s performance as the files get larger.

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HDTune:

HD Tune is another utility used to measure the hard drives performance. The graph represents the read speed over time.

Crystal Disk Mark:

Crystal Disk Mark is a simple utility that tests the read and write speeds using four methods. These numbers are impressive for a budget drive.

3D Mark:

3D Mark is a comprehensive diagnostic suite. It gives output for real world activities. You can compare these results with that of the Seagate Drive below.

This is a big performance increase over a traditional HDD.

Other Tests:

Here are some other tests I ran just for general knowledge.

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Summary and Conclusion:

While some may argue that the availability of very inexpensive storage in the form of traditional hard drives may be a deterrent from the meager amount of storage that an SSD provides for the cost. That space comes at the great sacrifice of reliability. Because solid state drives have no moving parts the chances of failure are negligible. I feel the increased relief provided by the protection of my data as well as the substantial performance increase I have gained well outweighs the meager cost.Overall this drive definitely met the mark. OCZ set out to make a drive that gave substantial performance increase for a reasonable budget. The new Agility 2 controller supremely passed the performance of it’s predecessors, and gave a substantial performance increase to my system as a replacement for my HDD. Some light research proves that this drive is competitively priced for other drives at this size. I was unable to attain the Read/Write speeds boasted on the box, however the speeds are still quite impressive such a moderately priced drive.