The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ/Toshiba, Kingston, or Crucial drives, read the OP

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ/Toshiba, Kingston, or Crucial drives, read the OP

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Raere posted:

I have an OCZ Agility 3 that regularly BSOD'd weekly at random times, the drive would just disappear completely, even from the BIOS. It wouldn't reappear until I shut off power to the computer completely and then turned it back on. OCZ kept saying that 'only a small percentage of users are reporting this issue but it's fixed in this firmware release!' As of their 2.15 release, I haven't had any more issues. If you see a good deal on the Agility or Vertex 3 and were holding off due to firmware issues, I think they're pretty much resolved now. The 2.15 firmware has been the latest release for like 2 months now.

This is bad advice. The firmware issues with the Sandforce controller were indeed fixed, but OCZ still has a reputation of awful Q/A, so you shouldn't give them your business.

My Vertex2 (purchased lightly-used at a large discount) is still rolling along comfortably, but it still could be a ticking time bomb given OCZ's track record.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2011 18:36

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:02

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Dogen posted:

They just do lovely basic electronics work is I think a big part of the problem. Just looking at their power supplies (I haven't seen a teardown of any SSDs) you see lovely design, lovely wiring, and you have to assume their QA is also lovely or they would stop the worst units getting through.

Keep in mind that they also basically got laughed out of the DRAM market. They claim they pulled out to focus on SSD's, but their 2.2V DDR2 modules basically all exploded so it was probably more to get out of honoring warranties and returns.

It's a shame that they bought out PC Power and Cooling. The pre-OCZ Silencer in my fileserver works great, but I wouldn't consider buying one now. Hopefully their purchase of Indilinx pays off, but given their track record I kinda doubt it.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Dec 31, 2011

# ¿ Dec 31, 2011 00:33

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Factory Factory posted:

We call him Travis. But I've been a store Travis now and then, as well. I always feel a little bad letting people know about Newegg and taking money out of Best Buy's pocket, because that on a large scale tends to make Best Buy squeeze the rest of the folks even harder for "bargain" $25 HDMI cables, janky TVs with overdriven crappy panels costing the same as the nice IPS on the bottom shelf, and a teensy collection of overpriced computer parts.

Oh well, gently caress 'em. They wouldn't hire me as a high schooler because I wanted $0.50 an hour over minimum wage.

At the TD stores here, whenever an older customer comes in looking for a semi-obscure part or if they happen to pick up an ECS or PC Chips motherboard, the customer service people will tell them to go home and order from Newegg. I think they get paid commission, so I'm surprised they do it, but it makes me feel better about buying parts from them. They're usually competitive with Newegg as well (minus shipping), so it's a nice arrangement.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2012 21:31

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

spasticColon posted:

Well I got another hardlock yesterday and now I got a bluescreen just a few minutes ago. Is it RMA time or is there something else I can try? My Motherboard (MSI P67A-G45 B3) has the newest bios (1.D or 1.13) and my Corsair Force GT has the newest firmware and I have the newest Intel RST driver installed as well. And if I have to do an RMA, do I send it back to newegg or back to Corsair? Replacement or Refund?

Between your board and the SSD, I think you're cursed.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2012 19:28

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

redeyes posted:

Assuming you mean upgrading to a SSD. Use Acronis trial. Clone your drive.

I used Disk Director when I cloned my OS install to the SSD. Worked perfectly, although I did move the other partition off the HDD first to get it under the SSD's available space.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2012 18:31

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

I'm considering preemptively replacing my 120GB Vertex 2. Got it (barely) used for a massive discount and it's been fine for the past ~6+ months, but it feels alot like sitting on a ticking time-bomb. Considering replacing it with a larger drive, but even another (reliable) model of the same size seems like a good plan. The best I can do at the moment though is just keep regular backup clones.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2012 05:01

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Bob Morales posted:

Did they write that slow when they came out? That's like Intel-slow on the writes.

If it's one of the 25nm models it's possible. Could a mis-aligned partition cause low write performance?

# ¿ Apr 20, 2012 00:59

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

OK Thermalright coolers look great, we can agree on that. Their fans leave a bit to be desired in the aesthetics department though - Not that looks are important in this case. :v:

On-topic, I just bought a Samsung 830 to replace my Vertex2. It's been reliable (knock on wood) so far, but the write speeds are low enough to be aggravating*. Trying to decide whether I should gift it to my brother (he's running an old 750gb 7200.10 HDD as his OS/applications drive so he could use the SSD speed) or just re-sell it.. Probably end up going with the latter.

*e: This would be better than his old Seagate, but the right column is just shameful:

future ghost fucked around with this message at 06:16 on May 18, 2012

# ¿ May 18, 2012 05:51

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

DrDork posted:

I would sell that bitch in an instant. You can apparently still get close to $100 for them on eBay, which is stupid, but good for you.

Yeah that's what I've been seeing too. It's in perfect condition (well, as perfect as an OCZ SSD can be) so selling it seems to be the way to go.

# ¿ May 18, 2012 08:49

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

pigdog posted:

That doesn't look right. Are you sure the TRIM is enabled, partition is aligned, etc?

It's one of the 25nm drives, so unfortunately it's accurate.

# ¿ May 18, 2012 15:42

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Speaking of OCZ, my brother decided that he wanted my old Vertex2 after all. I've got it setup to do regular backups to the fileserver at least.

The new Samsung 830 I picked up benchmarks extremely fast in comparison, though the only difference I've really noticed so far is the sequential write speeds being holy-balls-faster.
The only thing that worries me is that the 4K reads/writes are slightly inconsistent in testing, although I'll check it again in a few days to let garbage collection run a bit.

e:

future ghost fucked around with this message at 05:11 on May 25, 2012

# ¿ May 25, 2012 01:49

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

ToG posted:

Is there a benefit to the 256GB over the 128GB in terms of speed or is all just capacity? and the difference between is Samsung D830 and Crucial M4 is so slight it seems that price would decide that battle, Right?

If it'll be running at SATA2 speeds there's probably not going to be a difference in speeds big enough to be concerned with really. Just keep an eye on the price differences. Unfortunately you missed the Newegg sale price on the 830's, but there might be another sale or something around the 4th.

# ¿ May 27, 2012 05:03

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

ToG posted:

I'm in the UK so newegg is useless to me.

My Sata port on this laptop is SATA3.
The mSATA slot is SATA2.

Nevermind on Newegg then. At SATA3 speeds, it'll be fast enough regardless of the drive you pick that you'd be unlikely to notice any difference between the M4 or the 830, so it's probably best to just purchase based on relative pricing for the size drive you want.

# ¿ May 27, 2012 05:13

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

jaeger posted:

TRIM is working fine as far as I can tell and performance is not degraded. My issue is that the software is throwing errors. I just want to know why it's doing so, really.

Is the problem PC by chance booting via UEFI/GPT? That is another thing my laptop and desktop have in common but I didn't think of it when posting the issue originally.

I sucked it up and tried a fresh install of Windows 7 this morning, the issue persists.

I'm not sure why it's such a big deal honestly. I looked into the SSD Magician software briefly, but it doesn't really do anything that isn't automatically handled by Windows as-is, and some of the "optimizations" it wants to do are useless at best (Superfetch disabling/etc). Better just to ignore it, and install firmware updates outside of windows if it's necessary at some point.

What firmware version does your drive have? The latest release for the 830's was supposed to increase stability with their SSD Magician software per the release notes.

# ¿ May 30, 2012 18:33

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Verviticus posted:

Is there any recommended tool to use to test to see whether or not an SSD is failing or will fail soon? I got a bluescreen after ages of it never happening and I guess I'd like to check if its this lovely OCZ drive, something else or just an unlucky onetime thing.

Check the event log and see what comes up. It could be the OCZ SSD, but it could also be another error like failing RAM or whatnot. Also check your temperatures and voltages via HWiNFO's sensors viewer.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2012 02:46

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Monopthalmus posted:

I just bought that SSD for $40 more ($219) from Newegg yesterday! I emailed them to see if they would refund me the price difference. If not, I guess I'll have to RMA it, eat the fee, and then buy it again.

Talk to them on the support chat. I did that when the 830 price dropped $20 over Memorial Day weekend and they gave me an immediate refund for the difference.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2012 00:10

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

open container posted:

Will installing Windows on an SSD affect anything other than boot times? I'm getting a smallish ssd soon and I'm trying to decide if it's worth the space.

Anything running on the SSD will feel faster, so office applications, photoshop, the web browser, etc, will all open quickly. It won't really change performance all that much, but things like unzipping a large archive while copying something to the SSD won't drag the system down.

e: I forgot about system updates and virus scans. Sometimes I click to update windows and it's ready to go in seconds. That's pretty cool.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jun 13, 2012

# ¿ Jun 13, 2012 05:10

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

tijag posted:

I'm having a weird issue with my computer.

i5-3570k, asus p77 pro-V, 8 gigs of ram, 256GB Samsung 830 SSD is the boot drive.

I've attached a Crystal Mark Benchmark of my drive. I think it looks fine.

My problem is that it takes about 40 seconds from power on to hit the 'windows loading' screen. At which point it feels very quick again.

I assume it must be a setting in my bios that's causing it to take a long time in post. The computer sits waiting on a blinking white cursor for 40 seconds, and then it finishes booting quickly.

Anyone know what's going on?

Your board is probably waiting on checking for devices connected to an additional SATA controller. You could disable any extra device controllers you don't need (don't have drives connected to), and it should resolve itself. Probably a better idea to disable quickboot and it should give you some more diagnostics about what's going on though.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2012 21:43

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Bob Morales posted:

They still sell those?

The SATAII versions are EOL'd, however here's one of the SATAIII's. At least the highlighted reviews sum the drive up well.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Dec 12, 2012

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 20:35

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Martytoof posted:

I hate to be general when asking, but is there a trend as to what symptoms SSDs exhibit when they go bad? Is it more of a "wham, it was there and now it's not", or more of a slow burn like magnetic disks?

I realize that's a trick question because spinning disks can cease to function completely as well, but for the most part my experience has been that they develop bad sectors until they're unusable. I guess I'd like to know what your experiences are regarding SSD failure. Did the computer just not boot one day, or was it a steady stream of errors until you realized the disk was going bad?

I think I articulated this poorly, so hopefully you guys will know what I'm getting at. I realize not all cases are the same.

Just had a Vertex2 go bad on me (not surprised of course), and I got to watch it die in real-time. I noticed it happening initially when the PC stopped working over wireless. I went to figure out why it couldn't load the wireless drivers, when it dawned on me that the drivers just no longer existed. After a reboot it went into chkdsk automatically and lost a shitload of file fragments. Nothing important was on the drive but it was still booting into Windows 7 last I checked.

OCZ's RMA'ing it, and I intend to sell the replacement as soon as I get it. For the RMA I basically just explained that it was corrupting system files and a secure erase didn't resolve it, and they processed the RMA request in a day or so.

future ghost fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Jan 25, 2013

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 04:09

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Papercut posted:

Just a note: Acronis WD is free if you have a Western Digital drive hooked up to your PC. I think it's the same as the pay program.

Seagate also has a drive tool that works as long as you have one of their HDDs installed. I use Disk Director, but the Seagate/WD tools are fine if you just need to clone without an Acronis license.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2013 06:42

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Sir Unimaginative posted:

If not, take 'em down. Add a shim of some sort between the drive and the removable panel if you're afraid of it shaking loose of the connector, but it's not a mechanical drive and vibration alone shouldn't damage it.

I had a similar gap on a laptop (it was designed for old thick 5400rpm drives and the SSD was too thin for the compartment), and I just stuck some double-sided tape on the door to keep it tight. Works fine.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2013 01:12

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

I just got a few barely-used 840pros for a wicked discount & put my old 128gb 830 in my SATA2 laptop. Despite being limited by the interface it's much quicker and more responsive now. A Samsung EVO of whatever size you want would be a good fit.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2014 02:35

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Found out recently that Magician also won't even recognize OEM versions of Samsung SSDs (assuming this is also the case for enterprise SSDs). Seems to check firmware and the list only includes retail versions, although RST picked them up just fine.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 23:32

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

Bagu posted:

I'm installing my first SSD and I have a couple questions:
1) Do imaging programs let me partially image a drive (I would love to just have my windows and program files copied directly intact)? And is this a bad idea? If it is a bad idea, am I better off installing a clean copy of windows and re-installing all of my programs from scratch?
2) I'm going to be streaming some games online while recording video. Between my mechanical drive and my SSD, how should I split the workload to maximize performance? Should I have every program installed to the ssd and record to it, or should I record to my mechanical drive and maybe run the recording software and/or streaming software from it?

1. Reflect works fine as long as you're not also swapping your motherboard. You can image a single partition - just verify that the bootmgr folder is also being transferred over (you can check it by showing hidden files/folders and showing protected system files in Tools-> Options in an Explorer window). The OS/apps would need to fit on the SSD, and you'll probably want to move over the 100mb partition too if it exists.

2. Balancing between the drives isn't all that necessary but you'll probably want to record to the mechanical for space reasons.

# ¿ May 3, 2014 15:07

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

As long as the partition(s) you're trying to clone from the OS drive will fit on the SSD, use the free version of Macrium Reflect and just clone them over. Delete the old system restore points from the OS drive and then run the System Experience Index once the SSD's installed if you're running Windows 7.

e:fb

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 23:56

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:02

future ghost: Dec 5, 2005; Gun Saliva

echinopsis posted:

Gonna get an 840 EVO 250gb but before I do I want to know if anyone has any good places to get that kind of poo poo internationally?

NZ? You'd probably need to look at AU shops online for that although someone from down there may have a better idea -
I don't know if any of these are any good but they're listed in the OP of the PC Building thread:
http://www.itsdirect.com.au/ (doesn't look like they carry the EVO).
http://www.umart.com.au/ &
http://pccasegear.com/

future ghost fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jun 5, 2014

# ¿ Jun 5, 2014 21:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ/Toshiba, Kingston, or Crucial drives, read the OP