How are people getting on with SSD's?

I've used an SSD as my boot drive almost since they came out.

They are brilliant in terms of performance but my 5th one died yesterday.

I've always had OCZ ones, from one of the first ones at 32GB that I had a couple in raid0, then a 120GB one and onto the latest one at 240GB.

2 years is the most I've had out of them and all have failed completely without warning.

The latest one the OCZ util software said it was 99% healthy then one day the pc freezes reboots and hangs at the windows logo if it detects the drive and at bios if the drive isn't detected (about 50/50 chance).

I know 2 years is along time in tech but I've got 32GB HDD that are 20 years old in the loft  that I'm pretty sure would still work if I fired them up.

I would hope to get longer out of an SSD or at least a warning of its impending death.

I'm not sure if I'll both replacing it with another SSD and I probably wont go OCZ if I do.

Is it just me? am I doing something wrong? how are you all getting on with them?

What manufacturers are people using and has anyone used a hybrid HDD like the Seagate Firecuda? Best of both worlds or worst of both?

any chance they're getting hot?


I had one at work fail on me after about 18months, but have others that have been running for years no problem

In case temps are usually mid 20's and they have plenty of space around them.

The pc is on 24/7 so that might be an issue, I've just gone through my order history and the one that has just failed is 3 years and 3 months old, so maybe not that bad tbf, not great either, but not bad. 3 months out of warranty, surprise surprise

What drives are you using?

all mine are on 24/7 too

the one that failed was a sandisk

the others are whatever looked good at the time, there's a samsung and a crucial... not sure what the others are

I'd say you've just been unlucky... but to have 5 fail is a lot :-o

I switch my rig off when I go away from it, tend to use Crucial MX300 ones. The one that I had problems with is back up and running fine.

I have 6, 3 as boot drives, 1 as a scratch disk for photoshop/gaming etc, 1 in my PSpro and 1 attached to my OneX.

Zero failures, oldest is a 32GB jobbie

I've had 6 over the last few years, mixture of Samsung, Sandisk, Adata. None have failed on me or the people I sold a couple to.

I think you've been unlucky.

I've only ever used brands/models I know to have reliable controller tech, I think pretty much only Crucial and Intel. None have ever given me any issues.

What's a good free tool to check the health of SSDs (I know the software is different to normal drives, as you can't defrag em!)

I've been running an M.2 drive in my laptop for probably 2.5 years now without any issue. If anything I think the screen is going to die before the drive.

Really SSD health is a tricky one, you obviously have the write limits (which you will probably never reach) but there's no way to diagnose controller health and that's where any problems are going to stem from if one suddenly fails for no apparent reason.

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on April 15, 2018, 17:10:09 PM
I've only ever used brands/models I know to have reliable controller tech, I think pretty much only Crucial and Intel. None have ever given me any issues.

You don't rate the Samsung controllers?

I've had a few samsung with no problems - mostly because they were the fastest around each time I was buying

Quote from: Walrusbonzo on April 16, 2018, 16:10:22 PM

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on April 15, 2018, 17:10:09 PM
I've only ever used brands/models I know to have reliable controller tech, I think pretty much only Crucial and Intel. None have ever given me any issues.

You don't rate the Samsung controllers?

I worded that badly, I meant pretty much Crucial and Intel are the only ones I've used. I think I may have put a Samsung SSD in my old laptop that I've since sold, so couldn't comment other than they are supposed to be reliable too.

I must have just been unlucky, either way I've replaced it with a 1TB seagate hybrid HDD, with 8GB solid state memory, its noticeably slower but I don't use my PC for much that needs performance these days.

What may be more likely is something like a dodgy SATA cable or dodgy power supply, given the issues you are seeing. I know for a fact one of my SATA cables is dodgy as no drive will work when plugged in using it but works fine with any other cable. For the sake of your drive and your mental health maybe spend a few quid on a new cable?