What You've Just Bought!

[C0RR0SIVE]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

I will say this, OCZ does use crap components, the Petrol drives apparently have very high failure rates compared to most other OCZ products, mostly because they use low grade chips that shouldn't be in an SSD. They do nothing but use consumers as test piggies.

What I DO find ironic is the temp probe on the SSD sitting at 30C all the time. Mine gets hot, I took the plate off, you can see 3 marks on it where heat well above 30C has been present.

 

[hikaricloud]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

I've never had a problem with my OCZ Vertex II. Was actually planning on buying a new one once I plan a new machine.

 

[PP Mguire]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

I bought my OCZ drives when they were first released and no one knew how bad the quality actually was, my last three SSD purchases have been two Intels and a Sandisk. As it is my Agility 2 doesn't store any important data, and I make frequent backup images of it so in the event it did die I could image the spare Intel and be up and running again in a matter of minutes. Besides the fact that I have multiple OCZ SSDs should make my argument more credible, I obviously don't hate them if I bought several hundred dollars worth of drives from them.

When it comes to my data I try to buy the most reliable drives I can but that doesn't mean I am not prepared for their failure. I make nightly incremental backups of all my files and insure that any important data is located on a minimum of two different drives. I also have my most critical data synced with dropbox to ensure I have an off site backup as well as to provide convenient mobile access.

The point of SSD's is for performance, not entirely long term reliability though. I keep all my important stuff on a server that doesn't get touched with Seagate drives that have been working for me for years. (Ironically enough, 7200.11s). I do away with all this backup nonsense because nothing really important even touches my main PC. That's why the OCZ is crap argument is pure rubbish. Anybody with a brain wont try to "store" important stuff to or through an SSD no matter how reliable. It wouldn't make a difference to me if my SSD was a Vertex 2, G.Skill Phoenix, Corsair Force 3, or Intel 520. It goes in my main PC for the sake of speed and anything truly important goes straight to my server (or for the less fortunate, backup drive). I'm also still under the impression that over half the SSD failures no matter the brand are from blokes that have no idea what they are doing with an SSD and treat it like a mechanical drive.

With that being said, it is seriously hard for me to pass this up right now.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227807

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

How is it hard to screw up an SSD, when Win7/Win8 basically do everything needed to preserve the SSD for as long as possible? People aren't exactly stupid about alignment issues, since newer hard drives are going to the 4k standard, and soon none will use the 512 standard. Aside from that, I have, to this day, wrote and read over 10TB of data on my SSD.

SSD's are marketed as superior to hard drives in RELIABILITY AND SPEED, not just one or the other.

 

[PP Mguire]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

You would be surprised at how much a non-tech savvy person can do to an SSD. For instance, simply leaving the pagefile on with your SSD as a boot drive can significantly decrease performance AND life. Such a simple little thing like that, which a non-computer person would never think of.
The reliability part is connected to "no moving parts". As in, you can toss it across the room and it will be fine. Not exactly reliable as in, this thing will last till the next y2k or when the US blows up the world.

I think most people around here tend to forget the simple little fact that the SSD as a whole is still in its infancy stage. A mechanical HDD will always be more reliable in terms of how long it can last, as tapes are to HDDs. So for now, it's still a niche thing for enthusiasts to make their PCs fly.

 

[Oreo]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

You would be surprised at how much a non-tech savvy person can do to an SSD. For instance, simply leaving the pagefile on with your SSD as a boot drive can significantly decrease performance AND life. Such a simple little thing like that, which a non-computer person would never think of.
The reliability part is connected to "no moving parts". As in, you can toss it across the room and it will be fine. Not exactly reliable as in, this thing will last till the next y2k or when the US blows up the world.

I think most people around here tend to forget the simple little fact that the SSD as a whole is still in its infancy stage. A mechanical HDD will always be more reliable in terms of how long it can last, as tapes are to HDDs. So for now, it's still a niche thing for enthusiasts to make their PCs fly.

They can't be that unreliable, they are used as the primary operating drives, 1st level redundancy, 2nd level redundancy. Only 3rd level redundancy is hard drives and would you beleive it tape. Thats at Barclays bank.. which holds kinda important info.

 

[PP Mguire]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

They aren't really, but in terms of what people "know" like the Intel to AMD thing, a HDD will always be more reliable than an SSD....if that makes any sense at all.
With that being said, if I could afford 3TB SSD's for my server I would. They would be SLC though, which is known to be reliable but you pay out the ass for them.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

The point of SSD's is for performance, not entirely long term reliability though. I keep all my important stuff on a server that doesn't get touched with Seagate drives that have been working for me for years. (Ironically enough, 7200.11s). I do away with all this backup nonsense because nothing really important even touches my main PC. That's why the OCZ is crap argument is pure rubbish. Anybody with a brain wont try to "store" important stuff to or through an SSD no matter how reliable. It wouldn't make a difference to me if my SSD was a Vertex 2, G.Skill Phoenix, Corsair Force 3, or Intel 520. It goes in my main PC for the sake of speed and anything truly important goes straight to my server (or for the less fortunate, backup drive). I'm also still under the impression that over half the SSD failures no matter the brand are from blokes that have no idea what they are doing with an SSD and treat it like a mechanical drive.

With that being said, it is seriously hard for me to pass this up right now.
Newegg.com - OCZ Agility 4 AGT4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

That's fine if you don't care about preserving your data but many of us do. I have files going back 5 or more years that would be irreplaceable if I lost them due to a bad drive. Plus just leaving them sitting on a server doesn't accomplish anything, I actually use my pc so naturally I will need to have files on it.

Why shouldn't I store important files on a SSD? For me my critical data and the stuff I need to be fast are often one and the same.

You would be surprised at how much a non-tech savvy person can do to an SSD. For instance, simply leaving the pagefile on with your SSD as a boot drive can significantly decrease performance AND life. Such a simple little thing like that, which a non-computer person would never think of.
The reliability part is connected to "no moving parts". As in, you can toss it across the room and it will be fine. Not exactly reliable as in, this thing will last till the next y2k or when the US blows up the world.

I think most people around here tend to forget the simple little fact that the SSD as a whole is still in its infancy stage. A mechanical HDD will always be more reliable in terms of how long it can last, as tapes are to HDDs. So for now, it's still a niche thing for enthusiasts to make their PCs fly.

If you have to take special precautions to keep normal usage from damaging a product that product is garbage. I can throw a Samsung 830 or Crucial M4 in a pc and install Windows 7 on it, make no changes or tweaks at all and it will work perfectly fine. I expect that same behavior from any SSD or HDD.

They aren't really, but in terms of what people "know" like the Intel to AMD thing, a HDD will always be more reliable than an SSD....if that makes any sense at all.
With that being said, if I could afford 3TB SSD's for my server I would. They would be SLC though, which is known to be reliable but you pay out the ass for them.

What proof do you have that good (aka not OCZ/Sandforce) SSDs aren't reliable? Although in an enterprise environment if you expect any storage to be immune to failure you are are asking for trouble. However you should still use the most reliable products you possibly can since failures still cost time and money to fix.

 

[Nitestick]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

...I have files going back 5 or more years that would be irreplaceable if I lost them due to a bad drive. Plus just leaving them sitting on a server doesn't accomplish anything, I actually use my pc so naturally I will need to have files on it.

I keep my important files on a 4x2TB RAID 10 on a home server, it's easy to use for storage so long as you're on the same network, can be accessed remotely and you can always keep local copies on your PC and sync to the server when you're done if you don't have access to it.

 

[PP Mguire]

Re: The What You've just Bought thread!

That's fine if you don't care about preserving your data but many of us do. I have files going back 5 or more years that would be irreplaceable if I lost them due to a bad drive. Plus just leaving them sitting on a server doesn't accomplish anything, I actually use my pc so naturally I will need to have files on it.

Why shouldn't I store important files on a SSD? For me my critical data and the stuff I need to be fast are often one and the same.



If you have to take special precautions to keep normal usage from damaging a product that product is garbage. I can throw a Samsung 830 or Crucial M4 in a pc and install Windows 7 on it, make no changes or tweaks at all and it will work perfectly fine. I expect that same behavior from any SSD or HDD.



What proof do you have that good (aka not OCZ/Sandforce) SSDs aren't reliable? Although in an enterprise environment if you expect any storage to be immune to failure you are are asking for trouble. However you should still use the most reliable products you possibly can since failures still cost time and money to fix.

I'm pretty sure that there is no difference between accessing pictures and music between a drive and an SSD (because they are so small), or rather if you access every single one of them at every single moment of every single day. I store all of my pictures, music, documents, important saves, emulator saves, resume's, band set lists, guides, reviews, review charts, instruction manuals, important PDFs, chat logs, videos, games, applications, downloaded files, and any other possible thing I might not be bothered to backup on my server. Putting my things on my server IS my backup because my drives are completely reliable. I have been saving electronic things that can be stored since the time I got my own computer which was in 1999. Pictures that have been scanned and burned in my parents fire are on my server, video recordings I made digital that have burned in the fire are on my server, memorabilia that has been burned that has anything to do with my dad that absolutely cannot be replaced is on my server. Trust me when I say, I understand the importance of reliability and that I would not trust any one SSD in the market with anything that important to me. The whole point of me having a file server is because I am the only person at any given time that can do any damage, harm, or change to those files. Each drive is fast considering, and I have a gigabit network and can transfer anything from my server generally around 55-75MB/s. That is plenty fast for me, considering I access my server very seldom.
If you cared so much about your "data", then you wouldn't be trusting such an infant technology with things that are so "precious". That is my whole point. The reliability of an SSD goes as far as doing your day to day tasks such as loading an OS, browsing, gaming, and doing whatever reliably for a given amount of time depending on how you treat the drive. The same can be said for a HDD too. If you lash ant ANY SSD with constant writes and reads for long periods of time they will slow and fail. Just like if you had a running laptop and were tossing it around while copying files you are pretty much doing the same thing to both drives. The technology is different so therefor the weaknesses will be different., therefor the analogy is just.

Now to your first paragraph. I answered the server thing already. The files are readily there via mapped network drives. No different than accessing an actual drive in your system. I have files, I use my PC a lot everyday, and I have no problem with knowing my files are safe and sound away from the internet and day to day activities.
Already answered why you shouldn't store important files on an SSD. If you are so worried about quality then you buy an enterprise class SSD which is guaranteed quality for that purpose or simply use a larger HDD. With my method, I don't need to consistently backup my data. When I need to format, I have no worries. On that note, if you were so sure of the quality of your drives then you wouldn't need to backup meaning that you don't even believe the BS you are spewing.

Sure you can throw those SSDs in there and the difference between how long they will last will be huge. My first gen SSD was technically supposed to be dead when I traded it but since I took all the SSD precautions it lasted me almost 4 years straight. IIRC, those were the SSDs that were only supposed to last 2 years with regular usage. Your SSDs could last 5 or 6 years and with the way I do my setup mine can last longer. I see nothing wrong with taking a few more minutes to preserve my money. Considering my reformat speed is faster than most, really see no difference there.

It's been widely known that SSD's will not last as long as mechanical drives since the time the technology came around. There are some of the first HDDs ever created still going after many many years of regular use. I bet you will not be able to say the same of first gen SSDs in 10 years. Not even the one I had.

I love the SSD as much as the next guy, but you are seriously going way in left field with this "quality" and "reliability" argument. You expect more out of the product than what it's meant for. WD and Seagate green drives are meant for long term data storage. Not your average 80 dollar SSD. Those are meant to make your boot drive and games load faster. Maybe even larger programs if you get a bigger one.