OCZ Solid 3 Series 120GB Review

Hello everyone, here is my review of the OCZ Solid 3 Series 120GB Solid State Drive (SSD).

Review Outline
- Introduction
- About the OCZ Solid 3 120GB
- Why the OCZ Solid 3 120GB?
- Review
- Pictures
- Installation
- Benchmarks
- Real world results
- Final Thoughts

Introduction
We'll start off with a quick background for those who aren't up to date on SSDs. SSDs are unlike your typical hard drive in that they don't contain platters which hold data, instead they rely on flash memory. This gives them the benefits of quicker access and no moving parts leading to increased shock resistance and lower temperatures. The downside is that the maturity of SSDs is nowhere near that of HDDs, leading to higher prices and lower capacities.

About the OCZ Solid 3 120GB
OCZ has been involved in SSDs from the beginning making them one of the industry leaders. OCZ's third generation SSD lineup consists of the Vertex 3, Agility 3 and Solid 3, dropping in both price and performance as you move down.

Looking at specifications for the Solid 3 120GB we have (taken from the OCZ website):
- Available in 60GB and 120GB Capacities
- Interface: SATA 6Gbps / Backwards Compatible 3Gbps
- Native TRIM support
- Seek Time: .1ms
- Slim 2.5" Design
- 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm
- Lightweight: 77g
- Operating Temp: 0°C ~ 70°C
- Ambient Temp: 0°C ~ 55°C
- Storage Temp: -45°C ~ 85°C
- Low Power Consumption: 2.7W Active, 1.5W Idle
- Shock Resistant up to 1500G
- RAID Support
- Compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP 32-bit/64-bit, Mac OSX, Linux
- MTBF: 2 million hours
- 3-Year Warranty
- Max Performance*
- Max Read: up to 500MB/s
- Max Write: up to 450MB/s
- Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 20,000 IOPS

Why the OCZ Solid 3 120GB?
The short story is that I had been looking at solid state drives for well over a year already but never found one that could compare to the Intel G2 drives for small reads and writes, but wasn't limited at sequential performance and at the price point I wanted. Now, just last week I saw NCIX had a number of SSDs on sale and with the Solid 3 being roughly $190 Canadian (before tax and before a $30 MIR). At this price point (~$1.50/GB) I could not resist my temptations to turn to the dark side and embrace my inner geek.

Review
Starting with the drive itself, OCZ packaged it in a no-frills manner inside a plain box with a sticker slapped on the front and back. Now, I don't mean to slam OCZ, but the box looks cheap. I have no problem with it since it helps them save 3¢, but since the box is what consumers see, it makes sense to me to spend a little bit more to jazz things up.
Pictures



Inside the box OCZ has packaged the drive in stiff foam for protection and included an installation guide and a horribly cheezy sticker that I immediately threw away (sorry OCZ, should have saved another 3¢ by not including it).





Installation
When installing this in my G73JH notebook, I had a few small issues. First was that the drive is ever so slightly wider (~0.5mm) than a standard drive forcing me to bend the drive caddy in order to fit it in (it was very snug and I wouldn't have needed screws other than putting them in to avoid losing them). Second is that the drive is slightly taller than others (~0.5mm) which meant that I also had to bend two of the drive guide pegs slightly so they would not bump into the guides in the notebook. It may or may not be visible in this next image, but the peg on the right and the one on the opposite side are the ones I bent slightly.


Benchmarks
First I must apologize since I was only able to test this in an E-350 APU system I built (since my G73 only supports SATA II) meaning some of the benchmarks may not be at their best. And now without further adieu, the results.








Overall, very quick and for a comparison here are the results for the original 500GB 7200 RPM drive that was in my notebook.






Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Real world results
Just a couple of points to show where the SSD has made a big improvement in a couple of situations I've already noticed.
- First is the initial Windows installation which only took 15 minutes compared to roughly 45 minutes on my HDD.
- Second is start up time, <15 seconds to login screen compared to 45 seconds with the HDD.
- Lastly is the AMD Catalyst driver install which only took 10 seconds compared to 60+ with my HDD.

Final Thoughts
Overall, this has been an awesome drive and I have no real complaints other than buyer's remorse (because I know there's something faster , but at least I can take solace in knowing I won't be able to tell the difference because this drive performs so well).

 

How long did you use the Solid 3 for before writing the review?

Also, you won't like hearing this, but NCIX was selling the Vertex 3 120 GB for $199 last week. If it weren't for the BSOD issues, I'd have picked it up in a heartbeat.

 

I truly believe all the problems must have affected their sales so as production catches up and surpasses demand they will get cheaper.

 

It's been roughly a week I've been using it now. And yes, I saw the new deal, a few days after I bought and unpackaged the solid 3. Oh well, I still like it over the hard drive I had.

 

To a certain extent, yes, but as long as the crooked hardware review sites (I'm looking at you, AnandTech and StorageReview) continue to praise OCZ/SF without reservation, the Vertex 3 will remain a top seller. The only major site I know of that has mentioned the issues everyone talks about is [H]ardOCP (who amusingly also mentioned the fact that everyone else in the review community has been silent) but they only just started reviewing SSDs, so let's hope they remain honest in the future.

If you look at the Vertex 3 on a regular day, it's still no cheaper than an Intel 510, and if you're willing to watch 5-10 different etailers like a hawk for the online equivalent of door crashers, then you can get any SSD for cheap.

Seems like you're one of the lucky ones who have no compatibility issues. Let's hope it stays that way

 

I believe writing a review and sharing first experience with it are totally two
different things.

Sorry if I offend any but this is what I believe.

I can share my experience with an F1 car but writing a review??
Anyway again sorry couldn't put any other way.

There even a guy used to write here, he now own a SSD review site.
And lecturing people on how SSDs operate what he really didn't understand at all.
Anyway world is funny as it is.

 

It's ok to disagree, but I believe the two are not entirely unrelated. If the drive performs well benchmark-wise (i.e. good review), it will influence your experience (in a good way) while if it doesn't, it's not going to get a good review and this will affect your impression of the drive. See, it's not so clear cut.

 

To extend the F1 analogy, sure it performs well on the track but when I use it on the road, I have to find a stop pit every 100km or so which would negate all the gain if I want to travel from point A to point B of 600km.

Thus in the case of SF, you enjoy the speed for one full day(super fast and beat the lowly x25m) and the next day it dies and you need to SE it and restore from backup while I am using my lowly x25m during the time you are doing the SE etc.

 

When benching something you should have some other data to compare with provided the same working conditions. By itself won't mean anything to anyone. Further you need to understand what those numbers mean and how they affect the overall performance. And a review involves bit more than just benching (reliability, price to benefit ratios, price per Gb, and etc).

I am sorry if I spoiled your thread or if I offended you.
That was not my intention at all.

 

Now, let's be fair. Believe it or not, the majority of people are satisfied with their Sandforce SSD. Even the most pessimistic of estimates (Newegg reviews) shows that the Vertex 3 has a 4 star average.

Yes, a significant minority of owners (20-30% maybe?) have problems, and I do wish the professional review sites would disclose this fact, but to imply that everyone will have to secure erase every day is just plain FUD.

 

Mention the problems with SF drives in your reviews and say bye bye to ever reviewing one again. Atleast for the skanky crooks from OCZ. Hurray

 

seems that you don't understand what I meant, it was an analogy and any number used is just there to illustrate the point.

@cloudfire
you mean freebies from OCZ I assume. IMO, no reviewer should take freebies from vendors.

 

Yes, I think it is pathetic. Shows how they want to sweep their problems under the carpet instead of dealing with it. But then again, they probably have a reason for it.

Mentioning the problems will probably interfer with the beta testing they let their customers do heh

 

I understood your point perfectly. What I'm trying to say is that the majority of SF-2xxx SSD owners have never had any problems with their drive, and the number of times they've had to secure erase is 0. Is it really that hard to believe?

 

Good(that you get the point). You should not take the number I used literately because they are random number picked to make the point. IOW, ignore the numbers other than knowing that SF has an noticeable higher compability problem in the power control department(that is kind of repeatable).

 

Looking at the reviews I'd say half the people experience problems.

Newegg.com - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233181

Vertex 3 120GB looks a bit better but still lots of 3, 2, and 1 star review with serious issues.

 

From a statistics point of view, the fact that you've based your entire estimate on known outliers makes me somewhat suspicious.

Besides, I bet more Vertex 3 120 GB drives alone have been sold than all Agility 3 and Force 3 drives combined. When you factor in all SF-2xxx drives from all vendors, the Agility 3 and Force 3 are little more than a drop in the bucket.

Therefore, I stand by my previous statement that the majority of SF-2xxx SSD owners have never had any problem with their drive.

 

Personally I don't see any valid reason to exclude the Agility 3 or Force 3 from the counting. SF-2200 is SF-2200 to me.

By the way I also looked at Vertex 3, Maxiops, Force 3 240GB which are all considered 'normal'.

I haven't counted this time. Maybe it's only 40% that experienced problems. Could be true, I don't know.

Anyway, it's still too early to talk about the reliability of SF2200 drives because they've only been selling a couple of months.

The first signs don't look particurly good to me. Neither does the fact that OCZ released it's fifth SF2200 firmware upgrade already.

 

You gotta be kidding me? First of all there are atleast 2x reporting problems with their SF drives than the competition (Marvel, Toshiba etc) on Newegg. Second of all there are two big resellers in this forum who don`t sell Vertex 3 anymore due to major pain in the butt, both for failures and problems, and RMA`ing the drives is difficult because OCZ always say there is another firmware coming out (that fix nothing).
Third, many forums are overflowing with people reporting problems with SF drives. Check overclocking forum for example. I see one thing repeating itself, and that is people telling others to stay away from SSDs with sandforce controllers and buy Intel or Crucial instead.

All of this should be a clear indication that SF drives STILL are plagued with problems.

HDD/SDD problems/failures is one of the worst thing that can happen imo

 

51% is still majority, 99.9 is very different from 99.99 and 99.999 for those who care and SF drive can't even reach double 9(more likely to be slightly above single 9).

 

Can you tell more about this? Which resellers?

 

XoticPC and Powernotebooks only offer it on certain models rather than across their entire product lines. Mythlogic and Malibal do not appear to carry it at all. Whether or not they ever offered them is anyone's guess, but I have to believe they're aware of the reliability issues. As far as I can tell, both companies don't appear to carry any Sandforce-based drives. Myth has Marvell and Intel drives; Malibal appears to be sticking with Intel. I can't say I blame them.

 

Pman from Kobalt computers wrote:

I asked him

He responded:

And

Plus Mythlogic, MALIBU, Fortnaxnotebooks and lpc-digital which all don`t have any SF-drives. There is one reseller that also had a story to tell about the SF SSDs but I forgot where I have read it. It was somewhere in this forum too.

 

I think I'm going to give up on playing the devil's advocate. It's clear that people have very strong emotions when it comes to Sandforce and nothing's going to change that.

I will say one final thing though: As much as I dislike how some people treat Sandforce drives like gold while ignoring all the problems, I equally dislike how others act like every Sandforce drive is going to fail. Frankly, neither is the truth - countering one form of misinformation with another won't help a potential buyer who's looking for actual facts to base a buying decision on.

We're trying to help people choose the SSD they believe will best serve their needs, with a complete understanding of the pros and cons of their decision, not manipulate them into buying the SSD we like. At least, I hope that's the case.

 

misinformation ? what misinformation ? No one is saying the majority of SF will fail. I have been saying long ago both on here and OCZ's forum(I once owned a SF for 2 days) that they have serious known compability issue with certain machines and adviced people to check before buying to avoid the frustration.

 

Reread your very first post on this thread and tell me it doesn't sound apocalyptic.

At any rate, I'm done here. The others are either picking and choosing points that work to their advantage in order to make their arguments seem stronger or they're not even responding to what I actually said but what they think I said. For instance, you're the only one who fully understood that majority =/= everyone, not even close.

 

I'm all for providing accurate information without emotions.

I think some of the information supplied wasn't accurate though. Saying "the majority of SF-2xxx SSD owners have never had any problems with their drive" is a pretty wild assumption without having done the counting.

Excluding two drives (over 100 reviews) that have way more problems because they are "outlyers" seems a strange practice to me. Now I can somewhat understand the case for Corsair Force 3 because it has been recalled, but I don't understand the case for OCZ Agility 3.

The majority never experienced failure probably. I would agree with that. But "never any problems"? I doubt that is accurate. OCZ firmware went up from 2.01 to 2.09 for a reason.

Now I would love see someone do an accurate counting, but as long as those countings haven't been I suggest we don't make assumptions like that.

 

the majority of people don't die because of HIV. the majority doesn't die because of car accidents. or smoking. or *insert what ever you like*.

so they are all no issues?

the problem is, a big chunk of ocz/sandforce users DO have issues. unlike for other ssds or even hdds. and THAT matters. not those without problems. those with. and there are much more of those with ocz/sandforce.

and the second thing, and this is why it gets personal, is: ocz cheats on their customers in all ways they can. denying replacements, deleting posts in their forii when asking for help, etc. just read up on ocz and anandtech in the elder days. their behaviour is absolutely ridiculous and not the way you can trust on.

if i buy something i want to be able to a) trust the device, and b) trust the manufacturer in case of an issue.

both not really possible in case of ocz/sandforce.

 

It is a analogy. If someone say 'you are a dead man', are you going to call 911 then ask them to charge him attempted murder ?

The majority of Toyota owners drive their car everyday safely and they had the largest recall in history so just saying majority means nothing. If there is a systemic issue, it is going to hit.