OCZ Vertex 4 vs Agility 4

When looking for solid-state drives to get for your computer, one brand name will almost always show up. OCZ is a very trusted brand with solid-state drives and when looking at their drives the big questions that pops up almost all the time, should you get the Vertex or Agility series of drives. As a general overview before we get into this article, OCZ has two different models Vertex and Agility that they sell as consumer drives. Each one has their own advantages and usually follows the line of Vertex being the preformance drive and Agility is the middle of the road drive. Each one has their own abilities and today we’re going to look at the two most popular drives from OCZ, Vertex and Agility.

If you remember a little while back I reviewed the Vertex 4 while doing my gaming PC build. When I reviewed this drive i pointed out that it was for the maximum preformance and constant use, typically for computers on 24/7 or intense read and write abilities needed. The Vertex is generally for those who need the maximum amount of power from their drive. For example, if you do a lot of video editing, gaming, or high process activities the Vertex is the right drive for you and features the fastet read and write speeds out there.

The Agility series on the other hand, which I just reviewed, is more the middle of the road, typical consumer drive. It doesn’t focus on getting every last drop of speed out of the drive like the Vertex series, but it’s fast enough to out preform spinning media drives and give your computer a generous speed boost if your hard drive is failing. The Agility 4 is great for day-to-day use of browsing the web, some lite gaming, and generall all around computer processing that may not nessessarly require or benifit from the preformance increases that the Vertex series has to offer. Throgh our testing the Agility 4 preformed very well and had close comparable speeds to the Vertex series of drives.

Both drives feature the Indilinx controller that was brought in over the Sanforce controller in previous versions of the Vertex and even Agility series. This was due to the increasing problems with Sanforce controllers that were breaking the solid-state drives and rendering them useless. To combat this problem they switched to the Indilinx controller that provides faster read and write speeds and lowers the chance of drie failure. Both drives also feature SATA III connections, providing up to 6GB/s of speed from the drives, the fastest SATA protocall today. These drives have the 2.5″ form factor that makes it good for putting into laptops and with a bracket can be easily mounted into a desktop 3.5″ drive.

No matter which drive you pick, you’ll be getting a big preformance boost over spinning media drives and see a general imprvement overall. If you need the fastest speed and preformance go with the Vertex 4 while if you just need something for everyday use, go for the Agility 4.