Solid-State Drive (SSD) Reliability Problems?
Over the last month or two I’ve heard from a number of people who have had Solid-State Drives (SSD) fail. The first couple of times I heard this I thought it was odd. After the fifth time (all from different people) I began to worry about a potential trend. All of these were in computer systems, being used as primary storage (what most of us use hard drives for).
What I don’t know is who made all of these drives. It’s entirely possible (although seems unlikely) that they were all made by the same vendor, who is having some serious problems.
This is completely unscientific, but I’ve heard this enough times to make note of it.
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SSD memory has a limit of 100,000 write cycles, so the story is that they should last for a LONG time. Unfortunately, flash drives haven’t been real-world tested as thoroughly as normal hard drives.
Of course, if you drop your SSD drive laptop from a height of five feet WHILE it’s processing, you’re much more likely to retrieve your data than a normal hard drive.
So, if you are a power user, choose a hard drive. If you’re clumsy, then go with SSD.
These stories I’m hearing are for systems that are well under a year old, which was another factor that amazed me. I really want SSDs to be a real world option, anything to make laptops generate less heat.
Turn off system restore and page filing and the drives will last a lot longer. If you have a good amount of RAM page filing can be turned off. There is no need to defragment an SSD. Doing so will wear it down. SLC type SSDs will last about ten times longer than MLC. I am currently using an MLC 64gb g.skill SSD. There isn’t a huge difference in speed but applications and files are more responsive. This is because the seek time is less than a millisecond according to HD Tune. Read speed is in the hundreds of megabytes. An SSD will save you time. The drive I am using will last about 5 years according to g.skill with normal use. My HHD lasted less that 6 months. I will find out how long this SSD will last. It has a 2 year warranty. But above all, speed and responsiveness matter most to me that is why I chose to buy an SSD for my laptop. This SSD has been working for 3 days so far.
Most of the systems that I heard about failing weren’t Windows systems. For mass storage devices I don’t think most people would consider speed and responsiveness as their top priority. Those are important, but being generally reliable for storing data is probably the single most important aspect.
Yeah, if data is important to you then you should consider getting a reliable HHD. If you have money then get the SLC version of the solid state drives. But then again, SSDs haven’t been used for very long with operating systems. This is somewhat new technology in terms of the market but it has been out since about 2000. Its just beginning to heat up. I would wait about a year or two to see if people are experiencing any major problems. I know that these drives are not good for servers but for simple use they are not bad. I know that people come in from search engines to this article to research SSD reliability. Because of that, I will let you and your viewers know when my SSD MLC fails. I started using it on Feb 3, 2009.
Interesting discussion so far. However, I am still nowhere in my decision to go or no go with SSD.
Considering a Dell Latitude XT2, and need the drive to last at least 3 years (typical time before I change the laptop).
I wish there were more comments in this article which could help me out :)
Thanks for posting this
I just had a Crucial 256GB SSD (CT256M225) just die after 15 days of use. For $600 you’d think you’d see more reliability. My Windows XP system as frozen, powered my laptop down, when it booted backup up the drive as not recognized.
I put the SSD into the 2.5″ USB 2.0 enclosure and I could not see my data and could not reformat it via Disk Management. This is my first hard drive crash ever in over 14 years as a laptop user.
Thankful for Mozy.com online backup and a clone of my original drive.
I had 2 250GB solid state drive’s in a row fail. The first time before I could even complete logging in the first time. The second drive lasted around an hour and the died. I’m rather surprised that the quality control / is so bad that they would be failing that frequently. The specific drives were OCZ SATA II 2.5″ solid state drive.
I have a Corsair X256 and I paid dearly for it. I died in less than 24Hrs. I upgraded from a 120GB HDD (so I made a drive copy of the whole 120GB). After a few hours of usage it just died. First it froze in Windows Vista, then when I restarted my Lenovo T60p gave me a 2100 Error: Initialization failure. The SSD didn’t even work externally. Now I requested a RMA from Corsair and waiting for an answer. I use the laptop for development, if this is the case with SSD’s I lost faith in them.
Sorry, “I” didn’t die, “IT” died. (eventhough it almost cause my heart to stop)
I am looking at 2 dead 128gb ssd’s this morning. Both are under 2 months old.
Let me tell you, this is not a pleasant experience .
It is data suicide to rely on any SSDs other than Intel’s.
I think that like early hard drives, over time their general reliability will improve.
That’s what I’m hoping for at least :-)