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SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:05 am
by Gonzo
...and it's the second one in 2 years that did so. I had an OCZ Vertex 2 120 gig SATA 2, but obviously it has a self- destruct and of course I'm just past warranty, so I would appreciate if you guys could give me some better options. From what I see, prices don't differ too much for 120 gb ssd's, so I'm just looking for something you guys had good experiences with. Any ideas?

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:31 am
by Necromancer
SSDs life expectancy is lower then HDD
The reliability of hard disks is much more consistent than of SSDs. The risk of a sudden, catastrophic data loss is also lower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-stat ... isk_drives

i don't have an SSD yet, so can't recommend one.
bought a 2TB HDD with 5 year warranty instead :wink:

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:38 am
by expandas
The Vertex 2s and 3s are notorious for being unreliable. If I had to buy another SSD today I'd probably look towards Samsung's newer offerings.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 11:15 am
by Sarantini
I'm using a Intel SSD 330 and I'm really happy with it.
Although it is quite scary to see the estimated life remaining on a screen
Image
Luckily after 6 months the bar is still full :P

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:46 pm
by Nix
That sucks. :thumbdown:
SSDs are fast, but if I were you, I would just go back to Hard disks. Slower, but way more reliable.
SSDs have a very short life and basically can only be written to a certain number of times.
Plus they are expensive.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 2:26 pm
by AdmiralGiggles
Sarantini wrote:I'm using a Intel SSD 330 and I'm really happy with it.
Although it is quite scary to see the estimated life remaining on a screen
Image
Luckily after 6 months the bar is still full :P
honestly those kind of estimates are not to be trusted anyway.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 4:50 pm
by Gamma009
Stuff I was reading online said that an SSD will actually typically last longer than your computer, given that you do not write to it too much. If you are doing something like keeping Windows on the SSD or doing something completely pointless like defragging it, then it will wear out much faster than a HDD, as Windows is constantly writing data to its "home" disk. (Stuff like page file swaps, configuration settings, updates, that sorta thing.)

On the otherhand, I don't know about your particular brand of SSD and how many writes it can perform before cells start to go bad. I do know that, as the others have pointed out, Intel makes some of the best consumer SSDs out there, with cells that generally don't go bad until they've had somewhere on the order of about 10,000 writes.

In short, if you want your SSD to last much longer, you should really put your OS on an HDD, and then put generally read-only stuff (like games) on the SSD.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 5:03 pm
by Sarantini
Gamma009 wrote:Stuff I was reading online said that an SSD will actually typically last longer than your computer, given that you do not write to it too much. If you are doing something like keeping Windows on the SSD or doing something completely pointless like defragging it, then it will wear out much faster than a HDD, as Windows is constantly writing data to its "home" disk. (Stuff like page file swaps, configuration settings, updates, that sorta thing.)

On the otherhand, I don't know about your particular brand of SSD and how many writes it can perform before cells start to go bad. I do know that, as the others have pointed out, Intel makes some of the best consumer SSDs out there, with cells that generally don't go bad until they've had somewhere on the order of about 10,000 writes.

In short, if you want your SSD to last much longer, you should really put your OS on an HDD, and then put generally read-only stuff (like games) on the SSD.
i don't know, installing an OS on your SSD is the prime reason to get a SSD in the first place for most people as that will give you the biggest difference. I actually have no idea how much an impact the os has on life expectancy, do you have any source or site?

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 5:30 pm
by mrBLUE9
I followed this guide after installing my SSD and so far so good. I also bought it primarily to put the OS on it.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 6:25 pm
by Gamma009
Sarantini wrote:I actually have no idea how much an impact the os has on life expectancy, do you have any source or site?
Sources:
1. My Operating Systems professor, Dr. David Binkley, Phd in Computer Science
for how memory page swapping works...for reference, you can also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

2. the Page File settings under Control Panel->System->Advanced System Settings->Advanced->Performance->Settings->Advanced->Virtual memory->Change...
for which disk(s) it is swapping physical memory to...most people don't even know this setting is there, and so it is set to automatic, and will use whichever drive has Windows on it

3. http://www.itworld.com/hardware/365561/ ... d-lifespan
Pretty much sums it all up.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 6:40 pm
by AdmiralGiggles
Gamma009 wrote:
Sarantini wrote:I actually have no idea how much an impact the os has on life expectancy, do you have any source or site?
Sources:
1. My Operating Systems professor, Dr. David Binkley, Phd in Computer Science
for how memory page swapping works...for reference, you can also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

2. the Page File settings under Control Panel->System->Advanced System Settings->Advanced->Performance->Settings->Advanced->Virtual memory->Change...
for which disk(s) it is swapping physical memory to...most people don't even know this setting is there, and so it is set to automatic, and will use whichever drive has Windows on it

3. http://www.itworld.com/hardware/365561/ ... d-lifespan
Pretty much sums it all up.
so i apply those tweaks from the post above and switch pagefile to different drive to get longer livespan?

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:13 pm
by RazY70
AdmiralGiggles wrote: so i apply those tweaks from the post above and switch pagefile to different drive to get longer livespan?
No. You want the swap file on the SSD. Having more memory means the swap file wouldn't be accessed as much as with a lower amount.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:23 pm
by Hitman47
RazY70 wrote:
AdmiralGiggles wrote: so i apply those tweaks from the post above and switch pagefile to different drive to get longer livespan?
No. You want the swap file on the SSD. Having more memory means the swap file wouldn't be accessed as much as with a lower amount.
you've lost me.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:51 pm
by RazY70
Hitman47 wrote:
RazY70 wrote:
AdmiralGiggles wrote: so i apply those tweaks from the post above and switch pagefile to different drive to get longer livespan?
No. You want the swap file on the SSD. Having more memory means the swap file wouldn't be accessed as much as with a lower amount.
you've lost me.
Don't look at me. That's what the article said :)

The more memory you have the less of the HDD swap file is used. Hence less I/O operations on your SSD, which in turn prolongs its lifespan.

Re: SSD broke!

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:32 pm
by Gonzo
Ok, so i went and got a Samsung. My local store had a 250 gb for about 40€ less than amazon so i just took it on the spot. It has 3 years warranty and if it breaks I have someone who's head i can throw it at, so i'm just gonna push my luck and put the os back on it, since booting faster is the main reason I got the ssd in the first place.

Thanks for the help, now if i could just manage to put a friggin windows 7 image on this friggin usb stick, I'm set.

Edit: So I ran into a new problem...

I managed to install win 7 but now my hdd, which has ALL my stuff, including a backup of the c-drive, is now gone from the explorer. It's still there in BIOS but gone once windows started.