Manufacture Page: OCZ Agility EX Series SATA II 2.5" SSD
Part Number: 60GB - OCZSSD2-1AGTEX60G
TechWiki Info: OCZ Agility EX 60GB SSD - TechWiki
Warranty: 3 years



Over the past year we have looked at numerous SSDs and while some were merely OK, others really stood head and shoulders above the competition. Believe it or not, many of the first SSDs released onto the market still look quite good due to their use of high performance Single Layer Cells (SLC) but were hobbled by their use of less than optimal controllers. Unfortunately, price and an insatiable appetite for more capacity is what keeps less efficient Multi Layer Cell (MLC) units going strong. As such, SLC-based SSDs have traditionally been much more expensive than their lower-performing brethren…until today.

Today we are going to look at one of OCZ’s latest offerings: the Agility EX 60GB SSD. This little drive seems to have everything we would want in an SSD: a high-end Indilinx controller and SLC NAND. While it is new, finding it at retailers and e-tailers is a bit difficult but as we have said in the past: since it is an OCZ drive, we expect availability to be widespread shortly. If you can find it, it goes for about $400 which is about what you can get the MLC-based 120GB Vertex for. This may not sound like such a hot deal considering the $199 the standard Agility goes for but before making any assumptions, we suggest reading through the rest of this review.

We really can’t wait to see what this drive can do and we are very curious about how it is going to perform. After all, the Agility line holds OCZ’s traditionally mid-tier products and is supposed to focus on bang for buck performance. This to us poses the question: is the so called “decreased” power version of SLC NAND going to kick some major butt when compared the top of the line MLC based SSDs? If so, is the increase cost per GB (an area where SSDs don’t exactly shine) going to be worth it? To put it bluntly we can see ourselves “giving up” half the size of a drive only if it blows the doors off its MLC brethren.