OCZ Technology Group this week released two new families of solid-state drives with Serial ATA-600 interface and relatively low price. The new Agility 3 and Solid 3 drives feature SandForce SF-2200-series controller and provide maximum read speed of around 500MB/s, which is tremendous speed for mainstream solid-state drives.

Both OCZ Agility 3 and OCZ Solid 3 are based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory made using 20nm-class process technology, are powered by SandForce SF-2281 controller, support TRIM technology, use Serial ATA-600 interface. The drives have similar 2.5" form-factors, weights, operating temperatures, power consumption, shock resistance and so on. Both drives feature ECC capability with up to 55 bits correctable per 512-byte sector. The main difference between the two drives is much higher IOPS [input/output operations per second] performance of Agility 3 compared to Solid 3, which may be conditioned by firmware.

“With increased availability of SATA III platforms, the demand for the latest generation SSDs has grown rapidly. We are addressing this demand with new products that offer both the best performance and value for consumers. The new Agility 3 and Solid 3 SSDs make it easier than ever for consumers take advantage of the new SATA III interface. When coupled with the speed and reliability benefits that our SSDs offer over traditional hard drives, it makes the two new series the ideal choices for mobile and desktop applications," said Ryan Petersen, chief executive officer of OCZ technology Group.

OCZ Agility 3 solid-state drives are available in 60GB, 120GB and 240GB capacities. The drives offer up to 525MB/s read speed and up to 500MB/s write speed as well as up to 50 000 IOPS.

¹ _{Maximum Sequential Speeds are determined using ATTO}
² _{Small file I/O performance is measured using Iometer2008, Queue Depth 32, 4KB Aligned}
³ _{Incompressible data performance is measured using AS-SSD; 64 thread for 4K specs}

OCZ's Solid 3-series is less expensive, but also less speedy.

OCZ Solid 3 family of SSDs is available in 60GB and 120GB capacities. The solid-state drives offer up to 500MB/s write speed and 450MB/s read speed along with up to 20 000 IOPS.

¹ _{Maximum Sequential Speeds are determined using ATTO}
² _{Small file I/O performance is measured using Iometer2008, Queue Depth 32, 4KB Aligned}
³ _{Incompressible data performance is measured using AS-SSD; 64 thread for 4K specs}

Both drives have 2 million hours meantime between failures (MTBF) and are backed by three years-limited warranties.

Tags: OCZ, Agility, Solid, SSD, Flash