OCZ Agility EX 60GB SSD Review

A Closer Look at the OCZ Agility EX 60GB

If there is one thing that makes all OCZ’s Solid State Drives stand out, it is their iconic two tone colour scheme. This Agility EX may have improved internals but the outside is purely old-school OCZ. The “bottom” of the drive is done in a nude metal / silver colour and the rest of the drive is finished in pure black.

As with all SSDs we have reviewed in the past, you can mount this lightweight kit with either the more typical side screws or the alternate bottom screws. While these drives are designed to be hidden away, one thing is for certain: this one is down right handsome and it is a crying shame that you probably wont be able to show it off when it is installed.


The label which, as usual, resides on the top of the drive is very colourful. It seems the "racing stripe" green on the exterior packaging was only a taste of what was to come. Besides adding a splash of colour to this already beautiful drive, the label clearly states who manufactured the Agility EX along with its model and size.


Flipping the drive over we come to the other label, the label which is actually more important and useful than the colorful top one. This is where you will find the serial number of your Agility EX, the various standards it meets and most importantly: the maximum power draw of the unit. This unit is rated to draw 0.35A off the 5v line. This translates to a miserly 1.75 watts.

To put this in perspective a typical 2.5” high performance 7200rpm drive uses about 3 watts of power (about 0.6A on the 5v line) and the more “typical” 5400rpm uses about 2.4 watts (about .48A on the 5v line). One and a quarter watt does not sound like much, but if you are looking for the most energy efficient product, every bit counts. This goes double for laptop users, as this should translate into a slight or maybe even moderate improvement in battery life.


Moving on to the end of this drive we come to no surprises as this is a properly designed Indilinx unit and as such has two small jumper pins on the end for firmware updates. The importance of these pins is becoming less and less important for OCZ and other tier 1 Indilinx Solid State Drive manufacturers, as the last couple of firmware updates have been jumper-less ones. To us this small feat does not undermine the importance of these pins but it does show that OCZ takes the time (unlike some other companies) to get even the "little things" right. It really is better to have them and not need them…then to not have them and need them.