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Reliability of PC Flash SSDs?
An anonymous reader writes "SATA and IDE flash solid-state disks are all the rage these days — faster and, allegedly, more reliable than traditional spinning-rust disks. My organization dipped its toe in the flash-disk waters, buying a handful for some PC and Linux boxes. Out of 8 drives from various manufacturers, 3 have failed in the space of four months! Some are reporting bad blocks, others just crapped out and stopped responding entirely. (And no, this isn't a wear-leveling issue, nor were these machines in particularly harsh environmental conditions, nor were all failed drives from the same manufacturer.) So I ask you, the readers of Slashdot: what has your experience been like with basic, consumer-grade SATA or IDE flash drives? Are they failing for you too, or are we just unlucky? It's starting to remind me of the claims about long-lifetime compact fluorescent light bulbs that, in reality, have turned out to be BS!"
I have avoided investing any money into those types of drives for that very reason. As a small business owner I see customer units come in that make use of those types of devices and I see a lot of failure. I'm still being patient.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Can you at least tell us which 3 of your 8 drives failed ? Perhaps there is some similarity in controller or Flash memory used?
FWIW, I have 2 of the Intel Drives and 1 OCZ drive and I haven't seen any problems.
Hi, I was the guy that posted the original question. Thanks for your response. I didn't give details simply due to space constraints. The drives were:
1. FHM16GF25H = Super Talent MasterDrive 16GB under linux
2. Transcend TS32GSSD25-M under Windows/XP
3. Patriot Warp v2 32GB under Ubuntu 8.04 with ext3
The machines were not super heavily loaded (i.e., no compiles 24/7), and we did the "obvious" things like turning off atime updates to the filesystems, etc.
http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-i-got-one-of-new-intel-ssds.html
He sorta knows what he's talking about more often than a random average slashdotter.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
defrag benefits hdd due to their long latency to retrieve widely separated block of info. ssds have essentially no latency therefore don't benefit by such reorganization. gb
I have 7 Transcend SATA SSD's, 3 32GB and 4 192GB, one of the 192GB drives is flakey, random bad blocks and file curruption issues of files that had been fine but gone bad and have not been written to since their creation some months ago. I've reloaded it several times but eventually had to remove it from service because of its poor reliability.
Lots and lots of extra reads and writes, which are unnecessary as SSDs do not benefit from defragmentation.
Bad troll. I read the fine article linked in this claim. The claims are not BS... there have just been problems with the supply-chain doing cost-cutting, and with people using cheap CFLs inappropriately. It's important to note that the Energy Star ratings board has been retesting CFLs and revoking use of the label for CFLs that fail to meet the standard.
It's not BS... it just needs some refining. Don't use CFLs on a dimmer switch. Don't use them in poorly ventilated enclosures. Don't use CFLs in fixtures you turn off and on a lot.
A little bit of consumer education goes a long way... but unfortunately so does FUD like the submitter's.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'd be more looking at the fact that all of those are JMicron based controller drives and are shitty examples of SSD's in the first place.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=17
LED bulbs are going to render CFL bulbs a flash in the pan
no toxic mercury, no 30 second wait to dim up completely after turn on, not nearly as fragile, lasts much longer, nicer white glow, similar very low energy usage...
but currently, they are a little pricey and their lighting wattage is low
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/coming-soon-a-40-watt-led-light-bulb/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Thank you. The brands/models were the critical piece of information.
You're probably aware that SSD's have been in the server space, at a very different price point, for a few years now, without any extraordinary reliability debacles. To some extent, this is a case of getting what you pay for. I did a moderate amount of research on SSD drives, relying especially on the independent review sites, and quickly eliminated all of the brands you described.
As is frequent in fairly new markets, there are a few smaller and less well-run companies trying to dive in, and their first customers get to beta test their v0.* and v1.* offerings.
The prevailing wisdom seemed to me (and to people like i.e. Torvalds) that Intel was far and away the top of the heap in terms of performance and reliability, and some drives based on a newer Samsung controller (i.e. OCZ Summit) were a perhaps credible alternative. Other brands were clearly struggling to even be in the game, with frequent firmware updates and outright debacles (i.e. Indilinux, Micron) and we're in the process of shaking out who will make it and who will not.
I have only fielded a few consumer-grade SSDs over about the same amount of time as you, but going with Intel's G1 and G2 MLC products has so far yielded zero failures.
If you are already in the market for an SSD, and you are ready to spend premium money for premium performance, you should go the whole distance and go with Intel, the current market leader. See also the latest news on these models.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
A moot point maybe since everyone agrees already..
But I noticed that Windows 7 detects SSD (even in a RAID config with the on-board ICH controller) and automatically turns off defrag on them.
Nice !
What if one of them reported bad blocks and then "crapped out" afterwards? Wouldn't that mean two of them reported two bad blocks, and then two crapped out entirely, resulting in a total of three? Set theory. Think about it.
[dr]ecent. Fixed that regex for you.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Nah, he's right.
"Think about it." *is* condescending, and completely unnecessary to make your point. Think about it.