setup of the month SSD prices.

[chaud]

I'm still confused as to why the Extreme4 gets no mention in the setup of the month builds, it is quite easily the best price : performance : reliability motherboard currently on the market.

If they are still making okay hardware and make some improvements in a gen or two, I'll start using them on the list.

why are the SSDs of the narwhal build more expensive than the unicorn one? are they better? if so why are the worse ones recomended for unicorn? if the unicorn ones are better why are the more expensive ones recomended for narwhal when there exist cheaper ones that are better?

Mostly because the others were more expensive at some point and I never got around to moving them back. Same reason my name is still in the title even though I do most of the news posting now, I haven't bothered to change it.

Quite honestly the plextor SSD's seem to be getting some serious play as of late and seemingly pretty solid, along w/ the kingston hyperX.

Yup, but their prices are too high to use in the list.

[kondura]

I've had 0 issues with my Vertex 3, bought it in November of last year.

I've bought 3 - one for a RAID 0 config in my gaming PC. One for my accounting PC. No issues with reliability. Also sold several for performance business PC's where more than 60gb of HDD space wasn't needed, so the 120gb OCZ was ideal. No issues. No problems.

[BicycleMafioso]

Don't buy OCZ, no matter the price.

To elaborate (I was PvPing, sorry), they lack quality control and always have issues. Their RAM and PSUs (early) especially. Their SSDs highlighted many problems with their custom supports, RMA services and public relations.

[Evildeffy]

Don't buy OCZ, no matter the price.

I do believe we have brand bashing here!

Without raking up the whole discussion again, why is it you hate OCZ so much you refuse to even consider the possibility?

[Cyanotical]

Don't buy OCZ, no matter the price.

^

the problem with OCZ is not the quality of the product, they have pretty much the same failure rate as every other sandforce SSD, it's their beyond terrible customer service

oh your brand new vertex4 died? that sucks, no we wont RMA it, and if you try and claim your warranty we will void it by saying it was your fault it died

[Evildeffy]

^

the problem with OCZ is not the quality of the product, they have pretty much the same failure rate as every other sandforce SSD, it's their beyond terrible customer service

oh your brand new vertex4 died? that sucks, no we wont RMA it, and if you try and claim your warranty we will void it by saying it was your fault it died

That's pretty drastic an example... their forums are generally extremely helpfull and the CMs there give out RMAs even for drives that went wrong on the flashing on user's part of mistakes.

[Deleted]

Isn't the Vertex4 using an Indilinx controller?

Marvell based controller.

Without raking up the whole discussion again, why is it you hate OCZ so much you refuse to even consider the possibility?

You already know the answer to this.

[chaud]

^

the problem with OCZ is not the quality of the product, they have pretty much the same failure rate as every other sandforce SSD, it's their beyond terrible customer service

oh your brand new vertex4 died? that sucks, no we wont RMA it, and if you try and claim your warranty we will void it by saying it was your fault it died

They replaced my drive and paid shipping both ways after they tried that flash size switcheroo. They replaced my old PSU when it finally died with one with a higher wattage and newer model, overnighted it when it was taking too long. No problems with their customer service.

[Cyanotical]

That's pretty drastic an example... their forums are generally extremely helpfull and the CMs there give out RMAs even for drives that went wrong on the flashing on user's part of mistakes.

their forums are probably their best side, but compared to other companies it is still terrible, and from an enterprise standpoint it is even worse, which is the one place a company NEVER wants to screw up, we have a nice talos paperweight because they said it arrived DOA due to poor shipping from newegg, even though everything else we ordered, including mechanical drives, worked fine

---------- Post added 2012-08-06 at 11:58 AM ----------

They replaced my drive and paid shipping both ways after they tried that flash size switcheroo. They replaced my old PSU when it finally died with one with a higher wattage and newer model, overnighted it when it was taking too long. No problems with their customer service.

i've never had problems with their PSUs, just their SSDs and their customer service

[Evildeffy]

their forums are probably their best side, but compared to other companies it is still terrible, and from an enterprise standpoint it is even worse, which is the one place a company NEVER wants to screw up, we have a nice talos paperweight because they said it arrived DOA due to poor shipping from newegg, even though everything else we ordered, including mechanical drives, worked fine

i've never had problems with their PSUs, just their SSDs and their customer service

Well if you want to go there, the OCZ products i've had to return for customers so far was 2 sets of OCZ Gold DDR3 1333MHz, 1 Vertex 2 120GB and 1 OCZ Rally2 32GB USB stick.

They accepted an RMA and within 3 days of receiving it i had a new one in house without question.

If you look at my Corsair issues though, i've had issues with an entire batch of XMS3 1333MHz memory with mobos that had them on their certification list, of which Corsair didn't believe me and sent over a rep to check if it were real or not (when i worked in a consumer computer store, switched to company now), took 3 weeks...
This was a batch of about 20+ kits, at that point i stopped buying them and went to Kingston ValueRAM.

I've had to return also 1 Force 3 (not the GT) for the SSD simply being frozen and the BIOS not able to detect it in about 5 different test rigs, they gave me issues on that too believe it or not, claimed i had incorrectly hooked up the power to the drive and on their tests when they hooked it up it worked fine, yet the instant the SSD was back it did the exact same thing.
Had the same rep come over a week later with a new SSD and told them they could test it if they like at our shop with w/e configuration they wanted, but they would have to pay for previous shipping and time wasted... believe it or not they actually did.

I've yet to see a Corsair or OCZ PSU fail though

[Snorkle]

I find the lack of mentions to sandisk extreme... disturbing...

Time and time again, this SSD is showing to be neck-and-neck with the best, and it gets no publicity... >_< I don't get it...

[Deleted]

I find the lack of mentions to sandisk extreme... disturbing...

Time and time again, this SSD is showing to be neck-and-neck with the best, and it gets no publicity... >_< I don't get it...

The short answer is it's a Sandforce based controller which has proved not to be as reliable as the Marvell based drives. For the average user there isn't enough of a performance difference to matter, it's really only useful in benchmarks and very specific use.

[Tanthalus]

For those who have short memories - the entire `issue` regarding OCZ and the SF-2281 controller came about , because of 1) - high BSOD rates and 2) - OCZ failing to acknowledge a problem , until review sites starting questioning them. This time last year the forums all over the internet were busrting with ` vertex 3 bsod` and ` vertex 3 not recognised` , and frequent silence from ocz about it.

and thats also why samsung and crucial have a far better rep now - when the M4 had firmware issues , they didnt ignore it - they publically recognised it and fixed it. oh and the latest firmware and mac problem? ios broke something with mountain lion fixed - work that out!

edit:

and as said above the indilinix everset 2 controller on teh vertex 4 is a rebranded marvell 88SS9187 controller , which is newer (and thus so far faster) than the Marvell 88SS9174 as used by crucial on the M4 range (the Crucial V4 range uses the phision controller and is sata 2)

[cmdrcod]

I hear the Crucial M4 has issues also.
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtop...f=11&t=1178315

[Tanthalus]

I hear the Crucial M4 has issues also.
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtop...f=11&t=1178315

`i havent updated my firmware and now the drive is acting funny` , similar to updating dvd drives for supporting enw media all those years ago....

[Snorkle]

The short answer is it's a Sandforce based controller which has proved not to be as reliable as the Marvell based drives. For the average user there isn't enough of a performance difference to matter, it's really only useful in benchmarks and very specific use.

Just for the record here, define "reliability"

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Just for the record here, define "reliability"

The SSD failing after a few thousand hours due to a faulty controller firmware design for example

[Deleted]

Just for the record here, define "reliability"

Reliability and what Butler said!

[Snorkle]

The SSD failing after a few thousand hours due to a faulty controller firmware design for example

That's funny, because crucial M4's synchronous NANDs have a lower lifetime than sandisk's toggle NANDs.

Also, there have been no reported cases of any issues regarding sandisk having the infamous sandforce problems, which is another proof towards it being a firmware issue and not a controller issue.

I'll be more than happy to wait 1 year and revisit this, but guess what? Every single time someone asked me what SSD they asked me they got the same answer: crucial M4. That is up until the sandisk extreme was released.

I don't get this from crappy benchmarks (even though yes, those are in favor of sandisk over crucial). I draw my opinion from the fact that the NANDs are better, sandisk is famous for having great firmware, great support AND they are basically the inventors of the NANDs used in the last 3 generations of SSDs. No, they are not the largest manufacturer, that title goes to samsung, but this company managed to release a great product that is suffering from nothing but the failure of other competing companies. And it gets bad rep because of it, when again, there's no reports of similar fails.

Do you remember crucial's 5200 hour issue? It was fixed. Should I compare it to sandisk's NULL list of issues? It is simply unfair treatment to what might just be the best value/cost ratio in the market.

Fails (current): almost none
Day-to-day performance: almost equal
Quality of hardware: advantage sandisk
Stress tests: equal

Sandisk extreme hasn't been around for a long time, but in these months, do you think that no issues would arise? Go check the brand's support forums. They are nearly devoid of fails.

Do yourselves a favor and don't judge sandisk's SSD based on the issues of other brands and of perceived reliability. Judge it by reality.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Sandisk extreme hasn't been around for a long time, but in these months, do you think that no issues would arise? Go check the brand's support forums. They are nearly devoid of fails.

Do yourselves a favor and don't judge sandisk's SSD based on the issues of other brands and of perceived reliability. Judge it by reality.

How many is "a few months"?

Crucial's 5200 hour bug would take around 7 months to manifest itself (that being how long 5200 hours is).

I think the problem with Sandforce controllers is the fact that OCZ were very publically not doing anything while thousands upon thousands of customers were phoning up, complaining on forums etc. The fact that OCZ went as far as buying Indilinx to use their controller on the Vertex4 instead of continuing to use Sandforce speaks volumes as to the amount of bad PR that the SF 2281 controller got, and it will take more than a few months for people to start to trust anything with a SF controller in it (and, of course, any SSD with OCZ's name on it).