I would advise an AGM, maybe as the starting battery and for emergencies, simply in case of a knockdown or other rare event.
My background with AGMs is from the computer industry were the are used in Uninterruptible Power Supplies ( UPS ). Overall I was not and still am not impressed. The high quality units are about $80 for a 12V 18 - 20 AH battery. Even in the situations were they are in a "perfect" temperature controlled and vibration free environment, tended by an exotic and expensive charger they typically only last 5 years and 2 - 3 full uses. The UPS will do a run down test, which can be automated monthly, and a battery test weekly. So only once a week the UPS will kick in and run from battery for a couple of minutes, and once a month it will partially discharge ( configurable 30 - 70% ) the battery and measure the actual AH available. A golden life for a battery I would think, and as a guess about 50% of the UPSes get the battery pack changed around 3 years. Some are still working, but from the monthly run down test have lost too much capacity. Sometimes even with identical batteries bought at the same time and run exactly the same one battery will die. So I end up replacing all of them. I had hoped that with the research and work being done on the larger NiCD packs in hybrid cars that marine NiCD wet cells would become more common. Michael Brown Windburn C&C 30-1
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