Are the OCZ Vertex 2's failure prone?

[Adam8281]

My 2-week old Vertex 2 Sandforce drive is not having sleep issues in my desktop - I manually put the computer to sleep at night and it wakes up just fine in the morning.

 

[F1shF4t]

You're not interpreting what he's saying...

Emulex wants perfection from his SSDs which he feels Intel has. Fortunately I understand what he's on about and it's not a %100 perfect drives, it's that there are far too many bugs floating around in SF based SSDs. I don't recall any *bugs* in Intel's, think there was one issue that got patched but I don't remember what it was and Intel addressed it.

Of the SF based drives Emulex feels the Adata S599 is the cream of the crop, but it still has it's flaws.

The G1s had an issue where the drives couldn't recover their perfomance after being trashed with random writes a lot. Final firmware fixed the issue.

I think G2s had an issue with drive password and some firmware flashing bricking the drives. As far as use goes they've been rock solid.

 

[VerteVache]

Just my 5 cents of info : I just stumbled upon on this forum after googling for "Vertex 2 failure rate". My Vertex 2 SSD 200 GB just went completely dead for the third time in 9 months... The two first time I got a replacement unit withing 3 weeks, I guess it will be the same this time, but I'm so fed up with those sudden complete failures that I directly ordered an Intel SSD and will be using the replacement Vertex if I ever have to compensate for a table with a leg too short, or something... Never ever will I trust this piece of crap to store my date. (and BTW the failures happened in two different computers)
I'm happy for those who get a great experience from those, I guess there were some bad units made at some time, since the Internet is rife with problem stories about those Vertex 2...

 

[Voo]

I don't recall any *bugs* in Intel's, think there was one issue that got patched but I don't remember what it was and Intel addressed it.

Ah well, the first three from the top of my head:
- bootloader for new fw that bricked drives
- unrecoverable performance losses for G1 drives under certain circumstances
- data corruption issues
- lockout when using bios passwords

So it's not as if Intel didn't have their fair share of problems, although from a compatibility point of view the Intel drives certainly are ahead of the rest (and an extremely low RMA rate according to the data of some large french reseller).

Not sure though if that good track record will apply to their new drives as well - after all they just buy the firmware.

 

[ronbo613]

I'm sure the majority of OCZ SSDs work fine, but as the owner of a dead 120G Vertex 2(lasted three weeks) that was RMA'd for another Vertex 2 that was supposed to be a 120G but turned out to be a 115G, but it didn't matter because that one died in a couple weeks. My system is totally stable and works fine with an Intel X-25 SSD, Seagate Barracuda and WD Caviar hard drives.
All I can say is that I've never had to jump through so many hoops just to get a computer to boot up and run correctly than with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. The worst part about it is the dishonesty of OCZ every step of the way and the piss poor customer service.
I wouldn't buy another OCZ product if they were half the price of the competition, but like I said, I'm sure most people are satisfied.

 

[Elixer]

I expected the drive to fail but not only a month and a half after i got it, not without ANY warning signs and with absolutely no safeguards.
.

Newsflash, all drives, be it solid state or not can fail without ANY signs. Heck, even RAM, and CPUs can do that as well.

If you are thinking that it should throw SMART warnings/ errors, well, I agree, but the vast majority of thet time, you get 0 warnings or errors, it just goes belly up.
They just don't make these things like they should, since it would drive up the cost over 4-5x the current price, if not more.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Have a Vertex 2 120gb and an Agility 2 60gb (both pre-2011 25nm) and I have been 100% satisfied with them so far. Both sleep and come out of sleep no issues (and I never turn off my computers, I only put them to sleep) no failures, no funnyness no nothing.

I admit I would feel burned if I was subject to OCZ's 25nm dickishness, and their response to the whole thing was almost as bad as their bait and switch was in the first place, but I cannot fault their pre-screw-up drives.

 

[groberts101]

Most Sandforce "reliability issues" are firmware related and very rarely do the drives flat out die from hardware failures. Some dummy just decided to code the firmware to "panic lock" them instead which for most still appears to be a dead drive. Dead... locked.. either way the problem is across the board with all mfgrs. The one's who sell more obviously show greater percentages of issues which often skewes the perspective to make people think one brand is better or worse. I often see some who purchase other mfgrs Sandforce models after having locked drives and end up with the very same issue.

I've got 6 without issue in this machine(most with over 5 TB's written) and 2 other family members have them as well. As a seasoned Sandforce veteren.. I never recommend sleeping them though and would probably not put one in a newer laptop either.

 

[alaricljs]

My 60GB Vertex 2 is much happier in my new e6410 than my old D820 (both dells.) It's never disappeared in the e6410, the D820 however would often fail to see the drive on a cold start. I sleep the laptop every day, sometimes multiple times a day. No issues. Firmware 1.25

 

[lmccrary]

My Vertex 2 is almost a year old and is still kicking ass!. I'll be in the market for a Vertex 3 soon.

 

[allthatisman]

Well I have an almost 3 week old Vertex 2 90gb and it has been fast an reliable up to this point. I still have my 128gb Western Digital SSD that I use as a game drive, which was also rock solid, but that was proven over a much longer time span. The WD SSD was not super well reviewed, but one of the things that WD stated in the press releases and the reviews was that they engineered the controller more for reliability, rather than pure speed. What I find funny is that in the end, the biggest gripe anyone has about a given product is the failure rate... so it's puzzling to see every SSD manufactururer (including Intel) moving to the fastest controllers, rather than average bench numbers with rock solid controllers.

 

[iwbwiwb]

Are all Sandforce SSDs failure prone or is it just OCZ?

Maybe this explains why if it's just OCZ:

http://blog.macsales.com/9438-not-a..._source=diglloyd-mpg/?utm_source=diglloyd-mpg

 

[frostedflakes]

Already had a thread about that, turns out OWC doesn't have a clue what they're talking about and the flash used in those drives is not low quality/out of spec.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2151748

Anand elaborated about flash quality a bit in the recent Vertex 3 review as well, a good read (his SSD articles generally are) if you have the time.

 

[iwbwiwb]

Okay thanks. Now I have one SSD less to consider. It would suck to have to RMA overseas, so no way I would buy an OWC if they are as failure prone as all other Sandforce SSDs.

 

[frostedflakes]

Well who knows, OCZ may have some QC issues or something and actually do have a higher failure rate. That whole out of spec flash thing was pure FUD, though, it's like OWC didn't do a bit of research before jumping to conclusions and posting that. If you want a solid, reliable SSD your best bet is probably Intel. Not that they can't fail either, but they do seem to be more reliable than most other brands. Another member mentioned this earlier in the thread I think, an interesting read. Has return rate (which isn't necessarily the same as failure rate, keep in mind) for SSDs by brand. Most seem to be clumped together at between 2-3%, Intel's much lower at about 0.5%. From this info I don't think you could claim with a high degree of certainty that Crucial, for example, is more reliable than OCZ. However I'd feel pretty confident in saying that Intel is more reliable than all the other brands listed because the difference in return rate is so huge. Glancing over NewEgg reviews you can see a similar trend, Intel seems to make some very good SSDs.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/810-6/taux-pannes-composants.html

 

[GundamF91]

I sure hope OCZ recovers from this, or maybe this is a problem across all SandForce based drives.

I think reliability is the one major thing that's been overlooked by everyone looking to SSD saturating the I/O performance. I mean how often do you hear about HDD failing after 1 or 3 months? It definitely does happen, but not by the failure rates we're seeing on SSD.

There was a time everyone was scared to death about drive failures and data loss. But now with cheap HDD, it seems everything can back upped, so a drive failure isn't the end of the world. Nonetheless, it's still a major hassle. Maybe we are more willing to bear the risk and push the envelope since we have more knowledge, but I am not sure I'd trust the SSD to power my parent's computer. Hopefully, as SSD becomes more mainstream, the manufacturers would pay attention to their products to make them more reliable at the expense of not always pushing bleeding edge I/O performance. Stability may be boring, but it is what we should expect in a consumer item, and not have to wonder if the drive would wake up from sleep.

 

[iwbwiwb]

SSD Reliability

 

[blueweimer]

Have had this about 6 months, it died this past weekend. After reading this thread, I wish I could just get my money back. Have a huge oral board exam in a month (the culmination of 13 years of education) and lost all my notes (last backed up a month ago).

 

[Melor]

Have had this about 6 months, it died this past weekend. After reading this thread, I wish I could just get my money back. Have a huge oral board exam in a month (the culmination of 13 years of education) and lost all my notes (last backed up a month ago).

Very very sorry for you. Not that it will help now, but given the importance of data, you should have been backing your critical data up. One low cost solution for the future is one of the cloud solutions. IF not for your entire drive, at least important data. One you should consider is dropbox.

I have had luck with my drive ( so far ) but anticipate failure at some point. As happy as I have been, I will replace my drive with another SSD, model and size to be determined by the date of failure of my current drive.

Good luck with your orals.

Paul

 

[alaricljs]

Important data gets backed up nightly... Data as important as you're talking about goes on RAID 1 and gets backed up nightly. It's a terrible way to learn the lesson, but nothing saves your ass light backups.

 

[bulanula]

I'm sure the majority of OCZ SSDs work fine, but as the owner of a dead 120G Vertex 2(lasted three weeks) that was RMA'd for another Vertex 2 that was supposed to be a 120G but turned out to be a 115G, but it didn't matter because that one died in a couple weeks. My system is totally stable and works fine with an Intel X-25 SSD, Seagate Barracuda and WD Caviar hard drives.
All I can say is that I've never had to jump through so many hoops just to get a computer to boot up and run correctly than with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. The worst part about it is the dishonesty of OCZ every step of the way and the piss poor customer service.
I wouldn't buy another OCZ product if they were half the price of the competition, but like I said, I'm sure most people are satisfied.

Hey look at the bright side of this because its not all doom and gloom : it helped you learn to voodoo dance praying around your PC while it is booting LOL !

 

[oyiptong]

TLDR: 2 drives from OCZ hosed. No faith in the brand anymore.

I wish I read more forums before buying my OCZ Vertex 2 SSD.

I bought an OCZ Vertex 2 180GB to replace an intel X-25M 80GB in February. The SSD lasted 2 weeks until it showed major corruption. The kind so widespread that it silently screwed my automated backup without my knowing. Eventually, the OS got hosed, the filesystem got corrupted.

A reformat did not solve the problems, so it was a problem with the SSD.

RMA'd, got another drive. Fast forward a couple of weeks, I start to see signs of minor corruption. One file keeps getting corrupted, but others are fine. Funny thing is, at times, the file is fine, at others this particular file is corrupted (i check the MD5 checksum).

Yesterday, 10 mins before a presentation, the SSD just fails completely.

In retrospect, the flakiness and the failure is probably due to the controller. I've lost all faith in OCZ to store my data.

Now, should I send my drive back in? I've got all my data still living on the drive, its probably the controller that gave out. There's lots of important stuff on my computer!

 

[oyiptong]

now that i think about it, vertex 2's are self-encrypting. hopefully that feature is enabled.

 

[Voo]

I'm aware of any silent data corruption issues with the Vertex 2 drives - especially the part about the same file sometimes being fine and other times getting corrupted indicates a different problem.

Into the blue.. is your CPU overclocked? If yes that's a quite probable problem. Also check your SATA cables, etc. - the usual stuff

 

[grahamj1978]

I'm aware of any silent data corruption issues with the Vertex 2 drives - especially the part about the same file sometimes being fine and other times getting corrupted indicates a different problem.

Into the blue.. is your CPU overclocked? If yes that's a quite probable problem. Also check your SATA cables, etc. - the usual stuff

Frankly, I'd like to know if anyone has had issue with OWC SSD drives. They also use SandForce Controllers, but don't use modified or "special sauce" firmware like OCZ does. And from what I've read tend to have better customer service than OCZ.