OCZ Z-Drive

[Bolas]

How does the OCZ Z-Drive compare to an OCZ Agility SSD for use as a boot drive in a gaming system?

[HDCHOPPER]

?? Thay are both bootable .....

[BeepBeep2]

Umm, the Z-Drive is just a whole bunch of SSD's in a PCIE 8X controller. it would be comparable to at least 4 Vertex drives?

[Bolas]

Yes they are both bootable, but the question is which setup performs better at typical system functions -- random writes and reads and so on. Which one boots the fastest? Which one loads programs the fastest? Which one doesn't stutter during operation?

[Spoiler]

Yes they are both bootable, but the question is which setup performs better at typical system functions -- random writes and reads and so on.

Most benchmarks will show the Z-Drive as performing better.

Which one boots the fastest?
Agility by a long shot, since the other runs a raid controller.


Which one loads programs the fastest?
Depends on which program, but games will probably be really close for both.


Which one doesn't stutter during operation?
None of them should.

Please keep in mind these two products are targeted for different people for the most part. If you are just looking for a nice quick system for gaming - a large capactiy Agility (120GB or greater) will be great.

[HDCHOPPER]

[Bolas]

Yes they are both bootable, but the question is which setup performs better at typical system functions -- random writes and reads and so on.

Most benchmarks will show the Z-Drive as performing better.

Which one boots the fastest?
Agility by a long shot, since the other runs a raid controller.


Which one loads programs the fastest?
Depends on which program, but games will probably be really close for both.


Which one doesn't stutter during operation?
None of them should.

Please keep in mind these two products are targeted for different people for the most part. If you are just looking for a nice quick system for gaming - a large capactiy Agility (120GB or greater) will be great.

Thanks for the reply, I thought the raid controller on the z-drive might affect the boot time.

If I run a pair of Agility in RAID-0 using the built-in RAID controller on a high end x58 motherboard, I would assume it would boot faster than a single Agility but would lose the benefit of TRIM. Would that be correct?

Over time, would a pair of Agility in RAID-0 using a mobo's built in RAID controller always be faster than a single Agility, or would the effect of lack of TRIM cause it to perform worse than a lone drive over time? Is there some kind of "garbage collection" feature that would make it so that the RAID system always performed faster?

I guess what I"m wondering is if it is initializing the raid controller on the pcie card that is causing the delay or if that delay applies to any raid setup? I haven't used raid before (sorry, rich noob here) so I want to make sure that I'm planning things correctly before I buy.

[HDCHOPPER]

If I run a pair of Agility in RAID-0 using the built-in RAID controller on a high end x58 motherboard, I would assume it would boot faster than a single Agility but would lose the benefit of TRIM. Would that be correct?.....No , raid booting still would take longer than a single drive ...


Over time, would a pair of Agility in RAID-0 using a mobo's built in RAID controller always be faster than a single Agility, or would the effect of lack of TRIM cause it to perform worse than a lone drive over time? Is there some kind of "garbage collection" feature that would make it so that the RAID system always performed faster? ....Yes thay would be faster over time , goto OCZ forum and check around you will see newer FW for Vertex & Agility used in Raid config's which has Garbage Colliction built into them and a seperate GC tool to be downoladed ....

I guess what I"m wondering is if it is initializing the raid controller on the pcie card that is causing the delay or if that delay applies to any raid setup? I haven't used raid before (sorry, rich noob here) so I want to make sure that I'm planning things correctly before I buy. ....Understandable , Yes all raid setup take longer to boot than a single drive be it hardware or onboard raid ,,, BTW the ICH10R chipset is as good as Many high dollar Hardware raid solutions ...