Crucial M4 128GB ($200) vs. Agility 3 120GB ($120)

Hi Folks,

I'm pretty torn between these two. I plan on putting this in my Acer 4820TG with an Intel HM55 chipset and SATA II.

If I look at the past year the M4 looks like a much better choice given all the BSOD issues everyone has had with the Agility 3. But:

• 
  More recently there is the 2.15 firmware for the Agility 3 which seems to have fixed BSOD issues for a lot of people

• 
  The Agility 3 is almost half the price on Newegg with MIR

• 
  The Agility 3 seems to be faster on larger block sizes and for both reads and writes.

• 
  The SandForce controller seems like it is better for a longer life due to less writing and more "actual" blocks free. (I'll admit this doesn't matter if I'm BSODing all the time though!)

It seems like most people are inclined to say M4 all the way, but I feel like a lot of the issues have 'maybe' been fixed with the recent 2.15 update. I have no issue with "having to mess around" with the drive a little bit to get it to work, but I do want it to work reliably eventually!

I'm wondering if anyone could help me make this decision? Any owners of one or both of the drives?

Thanks for the help!

John

 

The key word about the issues is "maybe". Some users are still reporting BSODs, the issue is less present, but the risk of getting it is still there. I'd say the M4, but i may be a little biased as i'm currently using M4s in both my G73 and desktop . I have to say, they have been working flawlessly. also, when conparing drives, be sure to compare the M4 with firmware 0009 to the others, it gave a nice performance boost.

 

Thanks for the response! I think they ship like that now with 009. It looks like the Agility 3's are shipping with the 'fixed' firmware as well.

Anyone else got any insight on it maybe with a Agility 3?

 

Yep its a great deal for $120... but stability was really important to me so I went for an M4 which overall has a really good reputation. Do you trust that Sandforce issues have been fixed? I wouldn't trust the people who released such a clearly flawed product to the market. Or... you could get a really good deal. Its a roll of the dice.

 

Yeah good point there. Maybe they didn't know (they just only tested it in one system!)... Hmmm.. anyone have a good experience with an OCZ Agility 3?

 

I have 2x Agility3 60GB in RAID0. Initially I wanted to try RAID then split them, one for laptop one for desktop but after reading all the bad stories I've decided to leave them running as RAID0 in the desktop. They have been running since August although I did spend a month or so away I haven't yet had one problem with them even when using the older firmware, YMMV.

Some things to note, you'll usually see benchmarks run with either incompressible or highly compressible data. IMO it's hard to get a true idea of performance with Sandforce based drives from these as for the most part one shows it much better than would be in real life and the other worse. Real life performance is likely to be somewhere in between.

If you are going to deal with mostly compressed data then perhaps the Agility is not for you. Fragmentation across the media can also result in substantial performance loss too. They are cheap, the 2 60GB drives cost USD50 less than the M4 when I bought them and for me they give good performance vs cost so far, again YMMV.

You might want to look at the Samsung 830 too, maybe a bit better in performance than the M4, although IMHO performance is very subjective to the environment it's run in. It doesn't seem to suffer the M4 firmware 009 issues either, not that they are likely to affect you anyway.

Your performance is probably going to be affected to some degree by your SATAII speeds.

I think the Plextor PX-M3S with 5 year warranty might be around the same price as M4/830 but there doesn't seem to be much info on it.

The M4/830 should give you some peace of mind over Sandforce.

 

If you're a heavy user the Crucial M4 128GB is significantly faster than Agility 3 120GB.

Keep in mind though that OCZ has been saying for the last 4 years that the new and improved firmware has fixed most issues.

 

IMO you pay for what you get...

 

Currently there is a deal on Intel 320 160GB for $144.5, it's a good deal.

 

Yes, I'd grab the Intel (120gb for $120 on Amazon after rebate), same price as the OCZ without the Sandforce issues.

 

It's really up to you, some SSD's have issues and some don't if they do just RMA them back and most likely the company will send you out a new product.

 

They'll send you a new one, sure, but the possibility of data loss is something I'd like to avoid.

 

And if it's dead your data will be on it when your RMA it.

 

Yeah true, that's why on a SSD you only put your programs and games no private information put that on a Hard Drive

 

I do a lot of photo editing, have multiple laptops, and have had a Corsair Nova, Intel X-25, Intel 510 and Intel 310 ssd. Use all of them a lot. Never had any fail. None use SF controller. I need reliability, speed and functionability. All my ssds give me that. Granted, there may be issues with any individual drive, be it a HDD or SSD. But I know that I am very happy with all my ssds, and not one has any issues with life... 3 of the 4 have TB's written and still have 100% life as per the Intel toolbox (not counting the Corsair... which doesn't have the tool box, but is running like a champ.

I have had more issues with the desktop drives at work (which I don't buy, instead the chucklehead in IT buys) and we have had to replace several of them in the year we have had them. SSDs have shown to me they are no less (and in my opinion, much more) reliable than HHDs.

PS: I buy my own drives for my laptops, since I can't afford to lose data at work. But my work does reimburse me. Out of 9 desktops we bought for our offices in the last year, 7 had HDD failures. Out of the 4 SSDs I bought and put in my laptops, none has failed since early 2010. Small sample, but certainly shows me the durability of a good SSD.

PSS: Except for the Sata3 drive, I don't see any real difference between the 3 other drives.