Plextor SSDs are used?

[tdg84]

So I was reading about the Plextor SSD drives and came across the following:

"Plextor strives to exceed industry standards with rigorous benchmark testing; before leaving the factory, each Plextor SSD is put through a 20-hour high temperature burn-in test and an intense simulation of real world environments. As a result, Plextor SSDs have a 0.59% average annual failure rate, which is one of the lowest in the industry"

So is that saying the drive has been powered on and used for 20-hours before I would even open it? Has anyone bought a Plextor SSD and checked the SMART data and it already had 20 hours powered on? Is the drive being tested like that a good thing or a bad thing?

Also I could not find an annual failure rate for other SSD makers, does anyone know those numbers for other SSD drives?

 

[Elixer]

You would never know who else does this, but I bet it is common for the more well known brands.

They wipe the SMART data out after they test the drive. They do this for HDs as well.

 

[Hellhammer]

It being extensively tested ensures that there are less defective units out in the wild, so it's a good thing for us. Usually all higher quality electronics go through testing before being shipped to retailers, it's basic quality control.

 

[Coup27]

I fail to see how this can be viewed as a bad thing.

 

[corkyg]

Its a very good thing. What it does is weed out what is called "infant mortality" in the electronics industry. The government requires a much more extensive burn in done under a variety of atmosphereic conditions - the result is mil spec or standard. When a company does a 100% burnin, that is excellent. Many just use a lot sample - and that lets more possible dead infants through the door.

Such testing is expensive, so the less of it done, the better the profit margin, but the higher the rma rate will be. A 20 hour burn-in is a very good thing for consumers.

 

[KingFatty]

Sounds like they are just bragging about it, but perhaps they can justify their bragging rights by backing up their claim with a great warranty better than other SSD vendors.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think it's great. I wish USB flash drive makers would do that for their flash drives.

I had issues with a SanDisk 32GB Cruiser flash drive. I bought it, opened it, and tried to install Linux onto it. It hung, several times.

So I whipped out vconsole.com 's USB flash drive tester, ran the full test on it, and when I put it back in and formatted back to FAT32 in Windows 7, it was missing a whole bunch of sectors compared to previously. So the controller mapped out the bad sectors during the USB flash drive test, which was good.

But because there is no (public, standard) secure-erase command for USB flash drives, the drive was then in a "used" state, with poorer performance than if it were still in "new" state.

Unfortunately, this is not unusual, to have a USB flash drive out of the box with errors. So now I run every single "big" flash drive through the vconsole.com tester, to weed out (and return) flash drives with errors.

So I just have to live with slightly reduced performance for my flash drives.

 

[MontyAC]

In the not so old days, new PC's were bought after a 24 hour burn in. The Plextor being burnt in assures a working product.

 

[tdg84]

Ok, thanks everyone for your replies. Now it makes sense to me as to why they would do that.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Plextor means quality; Still have fond memories of their excellent cd burners.

 

[Emulex]

Not used, as Apple folks call it PRE-TESTED!

To make sure it's compatible with your Mac we've pre-tested the drive, up to 4000 hours worth! w00t!

 

[Lore]

Plextor means quality; Still have fond memories of their excellent cd burners.

Haha, same here. Compared to other burners, those things were built like tanks.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I couldn't afford a Plextor (PlexWriter) CD burner back in the day, so I had a Yamaha SCSI 6x CD-R/RW, that I bought refurb from a computer show. Still pretty darn expensive though, but it lasted a good long time.

 

[KentState]

The Plextor 256GB M3 that I have is the more worry free part of my computer. If I'm not mistaken, it has a 5 year warranty which is pretty insane.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The Plextor 256GB M3 that I have is the more worry free part of my computer. If I'm not mistaken, it has a 5 year warranty which is pretty insane.

I think, from a reliability point of view, Plextor can challenge Intel. Although, I haven't got them both here to compare.

Off-Topic:

Even though, Plextor no longer designs their CD/DVD burners, their firmware expertise/support has been excellent. I have bought several in the last 3 years. Their drives are still quieter than those reference models they are built upon. Performance-wise, they are no longer the "kings", though. A cheap ASUS branded drive, can be nearly as good

 

[Old Hippie]

Even though, Plextor no longer designs their CD/DVD burners, their firmware expertise/support has been excellent. I have bought several in the last 3 years. Their drives are still quieter than those reference models they are built upon. Performance-wise, they are no longer the "kings", though. A cheap ASUS branded drive, can be nearly as good

Plextor hasn't made a drive for at least 10yrs.

AFAIK they're all rebranded units.

Is there somewhere to confirm/deny this?

 

[Magic Carpet]

Plextor hasn't made a drive for at least 10yrs.

AFAIK they're all rebranded units.

Is there somewhere to confirm/deny this?

That is exactly, what I meant. The last, "true" Plextor drive was, actually, in fact PX-760(S)A. Still values high on eBay, by the way. Which, according to this press release, was launched on the 12th of May, 2006.

But anyway, I've had no issues with later "re-branded" models. Although, the price premium isn't really justified unless you need PlexTools (which I do).

On-topic:

In October 2011, Plextor announced the limited edition M2P Series which boast significant increase in speed performance from its M2 Series. Notably, Plextor introduced "ironclad" 5-year warranty for its SSD, making them one of the few manufacturers to do so. In addition to the 5-year warranty, Plextor also introduced it's exclusive TrueSpeed Technology with the M2P series. True Speed Technology is designed to maintain a high speed rate in the real-world computing environment. It consistently works to maintain original performance levels in the long term and without the severe write speed degradation that can occur with other SSDs.
In December 2011 and January 2012, Plextor released the M3 and M3 Pro Series in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. Similar to its predecessor, the M3 is a SATA 6Gbit/s interface with a Marvell chip set. New, is the 24 nm Toggle NAND Flash (instead of 32 nm Toggle NAND Flash used for the M1, M2, and M2P). Sequential read/write speed of the M3 Series max at 540/450 MB/s while the random read/write speed max out at 75,000/69,000.

 

[bradley]

The Plextor SSDs are consumer versions of Lite-On OEM drives. The Plextor name itself is actually owned in a joint venture by Philips and Lite-On.

 

[MontyAC]

The Plextor SSDs are consumer versions of Lite-On OEM drives. The Plextor name itself is actually owned in a joint venture by Philips and Lite-On.

Don't think so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plextor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinano_Kenshi

 

[bradley]

I probably should have said licensed. I'm talking about US distributors, where this server is located. These Plextors are rebranded PLDS drives.

 

[KingFatty]

I probably should have said licensed. I'm talking about US distributors, where this server is located. These Plextors are rebranded PLDS drives.

Do you have any citation for your claims? I've never heard of this, are you sure you aren't confusing Plextor with some other vendor? My understanding is Plextor does their own firmware, and it's well known they use Marvell controllers, so it's their drive? What do you mean about licensed?

 

[KentState]

I probably should have said licensed. I'm talking about US distributors, where this server is located. These Plextors are rebranded PLDS drives.

This has not come up in any of the reviews and Plextor directly supports them.

 

[Old Hippie]

That is exactly, what I meant. The last, "true" Plextor drive was, actually, in fact PX-760(S)A. Still values high on eBay, by the way. Which, according to this press release, was launched on the 12th of May, 2006.

Thanks!

 

[thujone]

The Plextor 256GB M3 that I have is the more worry free part of my computer. If I'm not mistaken, it has a 5 year warranty which is pretty insane.

yeah i got one of the 256gb m3's when they were on sale a while back... 5 year warranty. it's definitely what sold me on it specifically over the samsung.

 

[bryanW1995]

Plextor is pretty good, but even with a better warranty for them I would probably have chosen Samsung, instead.