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OCZ pushes Agility 2 and Vertex 2 SSD families to 480GB, us further from HDDs
It's one thing to have to choose between an ultra-capacious, relatively sluggish hard drive and a cramped, relatively speedy solid state drive, but it's another thing entirely to get the best of both worlds. OCZ Technology is finally pushing laptop SSDs to the 400GB+ range, giving road warriors a fair chance at swapping out their existing HDD without taking a hit in the capacity department. Both the 2.5-inch Agility 2 and Vertex 2 lines are seeing 400GB and 480GB models added, with 250MB/sec read and 240MB/sec write rates promised. The new spinners are slated to hit shelves any moment now, and frankly, we're terrified to even look for pricing.
OCZ's Agility 2 SSD reviewed: despite limits, SandForce SF-1200 drive performs well
Contrary to popular belief, one solid state drive isn't the same as another solid state drive necessarily. OCZ's new Agility 2 is proof of that, boasting the final (v3.0.5) version of SandForce's SF-1200 firmware. The issue here is that Corsair's recently released Force series of SSDs are shipping (and continue to ship) with v3.0.1 installed, which -- according to SandForce -- will never be viewed as the final version ready for mass consumption. As the story goes, v3.0.1 may experience a reliability issue with a power management state, but v3.0.5 caps small file random write performance as to better separate the SF-1200 drives from the pricier SF-1500 drives. Our compadres over at AnandTech were able to put the (factory limited) Agility 2 SSD through its paces, and for the most part, it came out looking pretty decent. Critics found 5- to 10-percent performance gains when compared to Intel / Indilinx offerings, but unless you have to have the absolute best, paying extra for that bump may not be the most intelligent move. The other point here is that while the Agility 2 may be capped with the v3.0.5 firmware, at least its upgrade path is a lot clearer than the aforementioned Force; if you ever take v3.0.1 away from that unit, you can kiss that extra performance goodbye. Hit the source link for the full, drama-filled look.
OCZ bids for solid state throne with new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs
For the past nine months, Intel's X25-M G2 has been the solid state drive to beat, and manufacture as it might, rival OCZ hasn't been able to mass produce a SSD capable of matching its fantastic all-around performance. The original Vertex 2 Pro might have done the trick, but the company scrapped it after the speedy SandForce SF-1500 controller was found wanting, and only 5,000 of the 270MB / sec, 15,000 IOPS drives were ever produced. But now, OCZ's back with SandForce's cheaper SF-1200 chip, and surprise of surprises, the drives it power are even faster -- at least on paper -- than before. The new Vertex 2 and Agility 2 SSDs boast maximum sequential read speeds of 285MB / sec and 275MB / sec writes, and can perform those all-important 4K random writes at up to 50,000 IOPS on a Vertex, or a very respectable 10,000 IOPS for the budget Agility line. The company expects both drives to ship in the next few weeks in usable capacities of 50GB, 100GB and 200GB (provisioning an extra 14GB of overhead for each 50GB of storage) with 400GB SSDs planned further down the road. Now then, OCZ, how about that price tag? Update: Though we believe Intel's X25-M G2 is still considered the front-runner in the consumer space, it is worth noting that OCZ's new SSDs still have catching up to do in order to match the superb numbers generated by the more expensive enthusiast drive, the Crucial RealSSD C300. We'll have to see which incumbent OCZ is actually competing with (if not both) when it announces price points. [Thanks, SSD!]
