14 DAY TRIAL // Having already chosen to use SandForce controllers in the Vertex 3 line of solid-state drives, OCZ decided on a different company's chips when it created the Agility 4.
The Agility 4 SSD line is aimed at both desktop and laptop owners and, though its members do not match the theoretical maximum speeds of SandForce drives, they do more than well in reading and writing data.
There is also the small fact that real life SandForce SSD transfer rates don't often reach that theoretical upper limit, so big numbers don't translate into high real world advantages.
Anyway, OCZ equipped the Agility 4 drives with Indilinx Everest 2 chips and the SATA III interface (SATA 6.0 Gbps). This allows them to operate at up to 400 MB/s.
“As mobile users and applications continue to grow, adding to the deluge of data being generated on a daily basis, our Agility 4 SSD series provide great IOPS performance at a reasonable price enabling the user experience to be heightened especially for video streaming, music, photos, gaming, and online transaction processing (OLTP).”
By great IOPS performance, OCZ means 85,000 random write Input Output Operations per Second.
There are other perks to this storage unit line made of asynchronous MLC NAND too (multi-level cell), like error correction code (ECC), dynamic wear-leveling, auto encryption and the Indilinx Ndurance 2.0 technology.
Long story short, Ndurance 2.0 extends battery life beyond the manufacturer's rated erase cycle and program specifications.
“For mainstream storage applications, there is no product better suited in the industry than our Agility 4 SSDs, providing the ultimate in access speed, application performance, endurance and reliability, at price points that most cost-conscious users will find appealing,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology.
OCZ's Agility 4 SSDs have capacities of 64 GB to 512 GB and 3-year warranties. The announcement didn't specify prices, unfortunately.