Intel M4 or Agility 3?

geon106

geon106

geon106

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D-Day for my new build is fast approaching and whilst on these forums I keep hearing about the Intel(EDIT: Crucial) M4 SSD.

On my build I am looking at getting the Agility 3 64GB SataIII for £90 as it seems to have a high read and write speed compared to many of the others, plus SataIII should mean no bottleneck, i'm guessing anyway

But with so much talk and recommendation about the M4 i'm wondering if it is better to purchase that one instead?
 
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There isn't an Intel M4. You mean Crucial M4 :)

They're both fantastic drives... either one will do you nicely, it's just down to what you pick out of the reviews, personally I'd go with the Agility 3 for the better timings.
 
Not got one myself but I've been looking into these drives recently and I have to say I've read quite a few comments about problems with the OCZ drives and that the Crucial M4 drives are a lot more reliable! (something to do with the Sandforce controller not being spot on I think!)

Not personal experience, just what I've read!
 
Tomcat825 said:
There isn't an Intel M4. You mean Crucial M4 :)

They're both fantastic drives... either one will do you nicely, it's just down to what you pick out of the reviews, personally I'd go with the Agility 3 for the better timings.
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Thank you, and thanks for the correction :)

I think ill stick to the Agility 3 then :) I'm no expert at SSD, but it seems a good spec plus i'd like to take advantage of sataIII speeds

EDIT:

@StevieP, yeah i've heard quite a few people recommending the M4 for that reason, may risk the OCZ though, i mean it will only have my OS so if it goes wrong i dont mind taking it back to OCuK for an exchange/refund
 
The reason the M4 is currently recommended is because OCZ have been having some problems with their firmware for the sandforce controller. They have been getting drives which randomly disappear from the BIOS, just die or corrupt data.
Since then they have released a new version of the firmware (June), and we have been hearing less people complain. But that might be because they have bought the M4 instead.

Reason why most people don't mind the small performance drop is because you very rarely write to your SSD. most of them are used as boot drives, so only the read speed matters.

Personally until we hear of a proper fix I'd go with the M4.
 
I have an intel 510 and an m4
both are excellent drives with superb support.

a quick scan over this section of the forums should give you an understanding as to why someone would opt for intel and crucial.
 
I would personally be typing 'SSD failure rates' into google to assist you in making your decision.

I personally don't care if someone's drive is a few mb/s faster than mine.
because mine will be a lot faster than theirs if their drive is in for RMA. :o
 
rjkoneill said:
I would personally be typing 'SSD failure rates' into google to assist you in making your decision.

I personally don't care if someone's drive is a few mb/s faster than mine.
because mine will be a lot faster than theirs if their drive is in for RMA. :o
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haha your are so right mister, thing is, if those faster drives do not fail, u will be teased a lot by their boot up speed :D
 
I'm really in 2 minds about what to do lol.

Option 1:

Get the Agility 3 and risk it failing within the first few months but it seems to be a good performance drive

Option 2:

Go for a Crucial M4, cheaper, slightly slower drive but proven reliability

Option 3:

Spend a bit more for a Corsair Force 3, even better performance, high cost at £119 but don't think it has any bad rep for issues
 
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Just get the Crucial. You won't notice the bigger performance unless you move large files a lot. And even then it'll depend on the source you're getting it from so if you're moving files from a old HDD to your SSD then it'll only go as fast as the old HDD can read. And same thing goes if you're moving large files from your SSD to a old HDD it all depends how fast the HDD writes. Seek time is where you see the speed when loading programs etc and they load that quick I doubt you'd see a difference. So no point taking the risk in my eyes.
 
Vegeta said:
Just get the Crucial. You won't notice the bigger performance unless you move large files a lot. And even then it'll depend on the source you're getting it from so if you're moving files from a old HDD to your SSD then it'll only go as fast as the old HDD can read. And same thing goes if you're moving large files from your SSD to a old HDD it all depends how fast the HDD writes. Seek time is where you see the speed when loading programs etc and they load that quick I doubt you'd see a difference. So no point taking the risk in my eyes.
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This is a very good point my friend. I may then look at a cheaper drive with slower write but as fast read as i can find that isn't an OCZ drive.
 
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