Corsair Force 3 VS OCZ Agility 3

[lapyiwin]

120GB Corsair Force Series 3 , 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s, SandForce SSD, Read 550MB/s, Write 510MB/s, 85K IOPS
£124.79

or

120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD, 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s, SandForce 2281, Read 525MB/s, Write 500MB/s, 85K IOPS
£125.99

which one to go for. I am worried about this sand force firmware issues. Some people said their drive die in a matter of days.

I am thinking of upgrading my hard drive from my Lenovo W510 with SSD. What would you recommend?

I appreciate any comments.

[Sysadm]

I would get the 120GB Corsair Force Series 3 out of the two. It has a faster read and failure rates are slightly lower than OCZ. Of course OCZ drives may have firmware issues also. Obviously both are based on a sandforce controller which is a bit of a concern!

Having said that, your notebook is probably only sata II so anything up to 300mb is ok.

[lapyiwin]

I would get the 120GB Corsair Force Series 3 out of the two. It has a faster read and failure rates are slightly lower than OCZ. Of course OCZ drives may have firmware issues also. Obviously both are based on a sandforce controller which is a bit of a concern!

Having said that, your notebook is probably only sata II so anything up to 300mb is ok.

Thanks for the advice.. How do i find out what my laptop sata is? ie. SATA II or SATA III?

If it is SATA II, no point getting more than 300 mbps drive?

[Sysadm]

I think your notebook uses the Intel QM57 5 series SATA-II controller - You can check this in device manager. Through-put will be about 300mb and probably peak about 368mb. The IOPS should increase performance though. There isn't much price difference between SATAII and SATAIII so you might as well get the latest. You can always put it in a faster laptop at a later date.

[lapyiwin]

I think your notebook uses the Intel QM57 5 series SATA-II controller - You can check this in device manager. Through-put will be about 300mb and probably peak about 368mb. The IOPS should increase performance though. There isn't much price difference between SATAII and SATAIII so you might as well get the latest. You can always put it in a faster laptop at a later date.

Thanks again. Under which category in Device Manager would it be?

[Sysadm]

Either under IDE ATA/ATPI controllers or under Storage Controllers as an SCSI device. Some people say the crucial M4s are faster on through-put despite being recorded as slower depending on the benchmark which avoids the firmware issue.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get the Crucial M4 128GB for around £135 from Scan:

http://www.storagereview.com/crucial..._firmware_0009

Here is a comparison with the OCZ Vertex 3 which is £170 from Scan:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/sto...ware-face-of/1

The Force 3 and Agility 3 use asynchronous NAND unlike the Force 3 GT and Vertex 3 meaning performance with incompressible data is not that great. The M4 uses synchronous NAND.

The 64GB version of the M4 seems to be very durable:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...e-25nm-Vs-34nm

There is the Plextor M2S 128GB which uses the same controller as the M4 128GB:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=46261

It is around £110 on special offer excluding delivery.

Scan offers free next day postage on orders over £20 excluding VAT for forum members with 20 constructive posts:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...-delivery.html

[Brewster0101]

If you are using this as a primary drive for a laptop then I would consider the Crucial M4. The sandforce controller on the force 3 and Agility 3 shows dramatic performance drops the more full the drive gets. Also they suffer with compressed data.

[Brewster0101]

I would get the Crucial M4 128GB for around £135 from Scan:

http://www.storagereview.com/crucial..._firmware_0009

There is the Plextor M2S 128GB which uses the same controller as the M4 128GB:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=46261

It is around £110 on special offer excluding delivery.

I was about to set up a thread and get your attention Fifth. I wanted your view on the Plextor drive compared to the M4.

I was about to order my motherboard board from Aria as scan are out of stock and noticed this Plextor drive. Its £20 cheaper than the Crucial drive but the same controller and spec. (although with the new firmware from Crucial, this would be faster - but I don't think I would notice)

[lapyiwin]

Either under IDE ATA/ATPI controllers or under Storage Controllers as an SCSI device. Some people say the crucial M4s are faster on through-put despite being recorded as slower depending on the benchmark which avoids the firmware issue.

Oh this is very interesting.. I am novice in this SSD things. I didn't know about Crucial M4 is being faster than the rest despite the advertised speed is slower than OCZ and Corsair

I am thinking of that Aria 128GB Plextor SSD as well. Are they any good?? Would you recommend Plextor over Crucial M4?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I was about to set up a thread and get your attention Fifth. I wanted your view on the Plextor drive compared to the M4.

I was about to order my motherboard board from Aria as scan are out of stock and noticed this Plextor drive. Its £20 cheaper than the Crucial drive but the same controller and spec. (although with the new firmware from Crucial, this would be faster - but I don't think I would notice)

It seems a decent drive especially for £110.

I suspect Crucial support would be better.

[Brewster0101]

It seems a decent drive especially for £110.

I suspect Crucial support would be better.

I checked out the Plextor forums and there seem to be not many issues with this drive, and there does seem to be some support offered in these forums too.

I was hoping to stumble across some talk about Plextor doing a firmware update like Crucial, but no such luck.

[Brewster0101]

It seems a decent drive especially for £110.

No longer on offer.

[Sysadm]

I would have thought that support would be better from Crucial than from Plexor. Plexor are known for backup devices but Crucial are known for memory so it would seem more sense to buy the Crucial device. I think support is very important, especially with some components such as motherboards.

[dean n91]

From my experience Crucial have a great support service.

[CivilDrone]

There is a comparison post on OCUK about crucial m4, force 3, hyperx and ocz, basically force 3 is the worst, no idea why, i got one, and its very good after updated firmware. Crucial is fastest however write speed is a joke, i like to flash my os often so write speed is important to me. 2nd best was hyperx, to be honest id still go with force if had a chance