OCZ Agility 3 60 GB $49 Shipped. Good deal?

[Pharmer John]

I'm looking to use an SSD in my current build to install Windows and other applications with an HDD for storage. Newegg has the OCZ Agility 3 for $74.99 with a 15% off promo code, free shipping, and $15 mail-in rebate. It works out to $48.75 shipped. This seems like a really good price for a 60gb SSD. Any issues with this particular drive I should be aware of before I pull the trigger?

 

[buzznut]

I'm looking to use an SSD in my current build to install Windows and other applications with an HDD for storage. Newegg has the OCZ Agility 3 for $74.99 with a 15% off promo code, free shipping, and $15 mail-in rebate. It works out to $48.75 shipped. This seems like a really good price for a 60gb SSD. Any issues with this particular drive I should be aware of before I pull the trigger?

Not really, the firmware issues with the controller were worked out about 6 months ago.
Number one issue I see on Tom's is people forget to set AHCI mode in the BIOS prior to windows installation. So make sure you're in AHCI mode, do a quick format, never a complete format, install windows and don't defrag the OS drive.
And yeah, I think that's a fine deal.

 

[mesab66]

Sounds like a great deal - it's £60.72 (uk) without shipping over at scan.co.uk for example.

It's usually recommend to go for 120GB minimum - 60GB will do, of course (and you'll see a huge benifit if this is your 1st SSD) but, your OS + some applications + future expansion will start to hit the smaller limit fairly soon.

 

[Pharmer John]

Sounds like a great deal - it's £60.72 (uk) without shipping over at scan.co.uk for example.

It's usually recommend to go for 120GB minimum - 60GB will do, of course (and you'll see a huge benifit if this is your 1st SSD) but, your OS + some applications + future expansion will start to hit the smaller limit fairly soon.

I'm trying to stick to a budget which is why I'm going for the 60 GB drive. Honestly I wasn't even considering an SSD due to the cost, but I had some extra money in my budget an this seemed like too good of a deal to pass up.

 

[mesab66]

They've definitely come down in price - and about time too (I only got my SSD last year).
Do go for the 60GB deal. You'll easily get windows + office + some apps and easily have enough for a few games (simply uninstall, if needed, each game when finished to install more). The move to an SSD for your OS (apps and games) is easily going to give you an eye-opening improvement Have fun.

 

[osamabinrobot]

i got this model a few months ago for ~80 on amazon, love it!

 

[RetiredChief]

@ that price, it is worth it.

.. As stated most problems were firmware which have been pretty much put to bed with ver 2.13 (currenly upto 2.15)
Just to be aware of.
1) Your usable space will only be around 50 Gigs. Manuf use base 10 to show larger size. Computers use Base 2 - so lose about 4 gigs. Must leave 10 % MIN unused for trim and CG. Must watch space used closely.
2) The Agillity III is a Sata III drive, But Does NOT perform any better on SAT III than it does on SATA II. This was published in a review, and I VERIFIED using my Agility III. That said, its performance is still much better than a HDD.

Installation:
.. Bios set to AHCI
.. Disconnect ALL other HDD
after win 7 installation do the following:
.. Disable Hibernation - saves about 6 Gigs and don't need anyway with SSD
.. Manage your page file (virtual memory). Set NIN and Max both to 1024 mb - saves about 4 to 5 Gigs. If really pushed can move to HDD with only a very small performance hit.
.. Disable restore, or at least limit the size. This can not be moved to the HDD and can grow to a large size over time.
.. Move My Documents to HDD.
.. Move internet temp files to HDD and direct ALL downloads to the HDD.

PS I have 2 120 Gig Agility III and unless an extremely great Buy, I do NOT recommend the drives. They are normally cheaper than many other SATA III SSD - Must be a reason and there is.

2nd PS - It will tide you over untill you get a bigger and better SSD and in that case it will make a good "storage/working" drive, which is what I use my 2 Aggility III drives as.