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OWC v OCZ SSD?

L

lloyd709

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 10, 2008
312
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I read a review of the OCZ drives somewhere (can't find it now) saying how good they were. I'm based in the UK and easily purchase these drives but everyone on this site talks about the OWC drives which can only be purchased by importing and they work out more expensive (after import tax etc).

Does anyone know how they compare.
 
They both use the SandForce controller (assuming you're talking about Vertex 2) so the only difference is the firmware. Just buy the OCZ Vertex 2, there is nothing special about the OWC drives
 
Hellhammer said:
They both use the SandForce controller (assuming you're talking about Vertex 2) so the only difference is the firmware. Just buy the OCZ Vertex 2, there is nothing special about the OWC drives
Click to expand...

IIRC the OCZ even was a little faster than the OWC and also cheaper.
You once had a nice comparison chart on anandtech, would be great if you can post the link again.

And there was anything about the firmware of the OCZ drives, which is identifiable by the drives size, some drives are a little quicker than others.
 
I strongly recommend OWC over OCZ based on my recent experience. I purchased the 120 GB OCZ Agility 2 (Sandforce-based, slightly cheaper than Vertex 2) for my Mac Pro 2008. The drive failed to format (POSIX error in disk utility). I then formatted the drive in my Macbook and moved it back to the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro crashed on boot. I was going to RMA the drive but it works great in my MacBook, which suggests there might be an incompatibility with the OCZ firmware.

I have since purchased the OCZ 120 GB Mercury drive which is flawless in my Mac Pro 2008.
 
nyskifan said:
I strongly recommend OWC over OCZ based on my recent experience. I purchased the 120 GB OCZ Agility 2 (Sandforce-based, slightly cheaper than Vertex 2) for my Mac Pro 2008. The drive failed to format (POSIX error in disk utility). I then formatted the drive in my Macbook and moved it back to the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro crashed on boot. I was going to RMA the drive but it works great in my MacBook, which suggests there might be an incompatibility with the OCZ firmware.

I have since purchased the OCZ 120 GB Mercury drive which is flawless in my Mac Pro 2008.
Click to expand...

What's you experience like with the OWC?
 
lloyd709 said:
Consensus seems to be that there isn't much difference but I've just come across this comparison by Barefeats:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard130.html

Seems to indicate that the OWC drive is about 25 percent faster than the OCZ.

Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

It appears that Barefeats used Vertex 1, not Vertex 2. Vertex 2 offers 36% faster read and 267% faster write performance so it's not a surprise that Vertex 1 was so slow in that test.
 
nyskifan said:
I strongly recommend OWC over OCZ based on my recent experience. I purchased the 120 GB OCZ Agility 2 (Sandforce-based, slightly cheaper than Vertex 2) for my Mac Pro 2008. The drive failed to format (POSIX error in disk utility).
Click to expand...

I have had an 240GB Agility 2 in my 2008 Mac Pro as the boot disk for about three weeks now with zero problems. Here are my Xbench results:

Code: 
Results	363.25	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.6.4 (10F569)
		Physical RAM		14336 MB
		Model		MacPro3,1
		Drive Type		OCZ-AGILITY2
	Disk Test	363.25	
		Sequential	222.24	
			Uncached Write	292.97	179.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	291.75	165.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	113.83	33.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	421.54	211.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	993.77	
			Uncached Write	1179.62	124.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	533.91	170.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	2403.02	17.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1125.86	208.91 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
gelid said:
I have had an 240GB Agility 2 in my 2008 Mac Pro as the boot disk for about three weeks now with zero problems. Here are my Xbench results:

Code: 
Results	363.25	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.6.4 (10F569)
		Physical RAM		14336 MB
		Model		MacPro3,1
		Drive Type		OCZ-AGILITY2
	Disk Test	363.25	
		Sequential	222.24	
			Uncached Write	292.97	179.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	291.75	165.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	113.83	33.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	421.54	211.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	993.77	
			Uncached Write	1179.62	124.88 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	533.91	170.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	2403.02	17.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1125.86	208.91 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Click to expand...

Thanks

Anyone got any similar stats for the OWC drive??
 
I just bought this OWC drive to replace an Intel G2
So far the drive is faster
 

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porthosmac said:
I just bought this OWC drive to replace an Intel G2
So far the drive is faster
Click to expand...

I have the OWC drive and though I found disktester giving it higher sustained throughput than the Intel x25m & x25e, I found when using it in real life that the OWC drive was not as good as either.
OWC hasn't published any claims for random write IOPS for the mercury extreme ssd's. Intel ssd's are still the leader in real world applications that require mostly random writes.
 
I use OWC's and beg to differ with anyone who has not used one in real life here or abroad.

My tests are similar to above. Test are tests. In the real world on my little 2009 mini from inception of gear wheel to dock is 5 seconds. I regularly use & keep open 6-8 windows all day long and other than large "numbers" files in the blink of an eye everything is open. Keep in mind I use a 40GB boot drive in a 2.53 mini with 8GB RAM. No fancy CPU here.:D:D
 
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