OCZ Agility EX SSD 60GB review - Introduction

When it comes to testing SSD drives we certainly have done our share of reviews. After Samsung and Indilinx controller based SSD drives hit the market, that very same market started to stabilize. Much of the early child-deceases with SSD technology where completely obliterated thanks to nice phat data-caches.

OCZ has been a Indilinx aficionado -- they where one of the first vendors out there to make that bold move towards a controller based on an Indilinx ASIC, they slap nice cache memory on there and then segmented and saturated their market with a selection of SSD drives that differ in both price and performance.

Lately OCZ again has been on a winning streak showing leadership in SSD land. Their new Firmware's include options for TRIM and now even Garbage Collection, keeping your SSD drive clean, fresh and at top performance as fragmentation is no longer and issue either. With the latest firmware's the Indilinx based products all kick major ass and with a market so saturated ... it only makes sense for OCZ to take the next big step in SSD land. The move from cheaper MLC based memory towards more expensive SLC NAND Flash memory.

See here's the thing, an MLC Flash memory cell can be written roughly 10.000 times before it will render itself useless, it basically becomes a bad block. Now don't get scared, with new technology and drive wearing an MLC based SSD can last for many many years under normal conditions. Still .. at one point the SSD will die, you purchase it on borrowed time.

SLC memory however allows to be written at the very least 100.000 towards even 500.000 times ... so by using SLC memory you instantly increase the life-span of your SSD with factor ten. If figuratively spoken your MLC SSD drive would last (fictive) 5 years, then yes .. the SLC version might last 50 maybe even 100 or 250 years.

This is why here at Guru3D.com we always evangelized very much for the industry to move towards SLC based memory. Once that type of NAND flash memory hits good volume, prices will come down and hopefully will become more affordable.

OCZ obviously is making the first ever consumer targeted SLC SSD move here .. they introduce the Agility EX SSD ... with SLC NAND Flash memory. Rack it up start it up and head on over to the next page where we'll take this little gem for a nice test drive on the Guru3D tracks.