Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

Well that certainly didn't disappoint now did it ? Let me get the tough bit right out of the way first, you still won't like the price of the EX as this 60 GB SSD needs to be purchased for give or take 335 EUR, but you know what -- for an SLC based SSD that's not even expensive. In fact it's roughly a third to fifty percent cheaper than SLC drives that the competition offers (!)

But yeah --  you probably would have liked a 120GB version at that price. This is the harsh reality of SLC NAND it's very expensive Flash memory to produce. Thanks to the OCZ Agility EX You pay roughly 5.23 EUR per GB.

If you compare that to Intel X25-E 64GB which costs roughly 625 EUR = 9.77 EUR per GB then you start to understand what OCZ is trying to achieve here. You need to place everything in perspective. And look on the bright side of the scope, its priced similar to a 64GB MLC SSD three years ago.

We do need higher volume in both SSD capacity but also SLC SSD sales in order to drive prices further down in the consumer side of things -- 335 EUR is a lot of money, but it's not something that is completely out of reach.

If 100% reliability is your thing then this is the cheapest SLC based SSD with an Indilinx controller that you can think of.  I would not be afraid to pop in four of these puppies in one of our servers and put them in RAID 10. I'd know for sure that in return I'd get the utmost reliability and performance back. Talking about performance, bloody hell ... this drive is blazingly fast.

Anyway -- nuff said. I really applaud what OCZ is accomplishing here. The OCZ Agility EX offers top notch performance and reliability, we honestly believe in the theory that the SSD could probably outlive you. We do hope to see some more competition out there as that in the end will drive prices down a little more -- which is needed for SLC SSDs to reach mainstream.

The Agility EX is the first SLC NAND flash based SSD targeted at a more mainstream consumer market. The latest firmware's offer TRIM (usable in Windows 7) and what I like very much, Garbage Collection -- keeping your SSD in top notch condition with it's performance levels very constant and as advertised.

The bottom line: Yes we know it's still a lot of money. But none the less we would really like to recommend this drive if you want both speed and extreme reliability. This is the SSD type/model Guru3D has been longing and evangelizing about for years now. Technology like this will bring your HDD to an absolute shame and we beyond doubt love it.

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