OCZ Agility EX 60GB SSD Review

Interior Impressions

As expected, the PCB itself and its layout are classic Indilinx. All in all you get: 16 flash chips (8 per side), one RAM chip and one Indilinx Barefoot controller chip….just like all the other Indilinx units we have looked at in the past. However, this drive did have an interesting surprise waiting for us. Let’s look at the controller chip and its ram first and then get to this intriguing twist on the typical Indilinx drive.


The I/O controller chip is of course none other than the Indilinx “Barefoot” IDX110 controller. Also as expected, this modern SSD comes with the Indilinx IDX110M00-LC version which is the latest and greatest of this mighty powerhouse. As noted in previous reviews, the Indilinx IDX110 is an ARM based, 4 channel controller with native SATA 3.0Gb/s, and supports capacities of up to 512GB.


The RAM which graces this board is made by Elpida and this was completely expected as every Indilinx SSD we have looked at uses Elpida modules. To be specific this single 64MB SDRAM chip is listed as S51321CBH-6DTT-F, though the actual Elpida part number is the EDS51321CBH-6DTT-M-F. This 1.8v ram chip runs at 166MHZ at CL3 and is rated for an operating temperature range of -20°C to 85°C.


Now we get to the interesting twist. Unlike every other Indilinx based SSD we have looked at, this drive does not use Samsung NAND chips. To be precise the Agility EX 60GB uses Intel 29F32G08FANC1 Single Layer Cell NAND chips. While Intel is not exactly as free with their specifications as Samsung is, what we do know is these chips are 50NM 32gigaBIT (4GB) chips. We also know that OCZ uses mixed batches in the same drive as ours had 090415 for the back 8 chips and 090815 for the front eight chips. This is not the first time OCZ has used Intel NAND chips as their MLC Agility model is also purported to use Intel but it is interesting that OCZ felt the need to outsource to Intel considering their supposedly strong relationship with Samsung.

These SLC chips are the secret sauce that sets this model apart from the regular Agility line. You have to remember that OCZ’s Agility Line is their mid grade line, yet we believe that this middle of the road SLC-based unit is going to eat the high end MLC Vertex for lunch. We feel comfortable making this prediction as Single layer NAND have only two states: on and off. Multi Layer NAND has 4 states: on, quarter on, half on & off. While MLC is cheaper and denser than SLC, SLC can perform writes MUCH faster as each bit (1 or 0) gets its own cell. This alleviates the need to erase a cell, put in the other bit of data which was stored their previously and then (and only then) write the new one. This should give this SLC drive one heck of an advantage. When it comes to reads we expect things to be a bit more even but as we all know it’s the write speed that separate a great Solid State Drive apart from a merely good one.