Review SSD OCZ Agility 3 120GB: SandForce 2 on a Budget

Yes, we’ve reviewed OCZ’s Agility 3 some time ago and it was indeed a solid performer that could hold its own against its cousin, the Vertex 3. This time though, we received a smaller version (in terms of storage capacity) of the Agility 3 with 120 GB of space or half the amount of the original drive that we tested back then. 120 GB is still plentiful enough for the average user and, more importantly, smaller capacity means lower price!

Just like its 240 GB sibling, our sample of the 120GB Agility 3 utillizes the ONFi 1.0 standard with a transfer rate of 50 MB/s per channel, which is rather restricting for the NAND memory in use. This standard is also known as the “asynchronous”, due to the fact that it is unaffected by host clock. Then why does OCZ promise a maximum transfer rate of 500 MB/s. Well, Agility 3 uses the SandForce 2281, a controller chip so fast in doing its job (real-time compression, read and write operations, etc), which makes it possible to reach 500 MB/s, despite the ONFi 1.0 standard limitation. There’s a catch though: that maximum transfer rate applies only to compressible files, and not the uncompressible (zip, 7zip, rar, jpg, mp4, etc.) ones.

So, is there any performance difference between these two versions of the Agility 3 (120 GB vs. 240 GB)? We’ll find that out soon enough, but first, here’s a complete list of the hardware used as our testbed platform:

Test Platform

• Motherboard: Intel H67 LGA 1155
• Processor: Intel Core i3 2100 3,1 GHz
• RAM: Kingston DDR3 8 GB
• Storage: Kingston SSD V+100 64 GB
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 5550
• Power Supply: CoolerMaster GX 550 Watt
• Input Device: Genius Keyboard and Mouse
• Monitor: 18,5 inch LCD
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 64 bit

Sales Package and Contents

The Agility 3 comes inside OCZ’s standard cardboard package. Here’s how it looks like:

Aside from the SSD unit itself, you will also find these items inside the box: