Component return rates (storage)

[BFG10K]

Taken from: http://www.behardware.com/articles/862-6/components-returns-rates-6.html

HDD
=============
Samsung 1.23% 
Western 1.63% 
Seagate 1.89% 
Hitachi 3.95% 
 
SSD
=============
Crucial 0.82% 
Intel   1.73% 
Corsair 2.93% 
OCZ     7.03%

It looks the return rates for SSDs are actually higher than for HDDs on average, even if we compare the best three only. Also Samsung and WD have lower return rates than Intel.

I maintain that there’s no significant difference between SSDs and HDDs for reliability, and these figures seem to back this.

Also, here are all the SSDs with returns over 5%. See if you can spot a pattern:

15.58% OCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 240 GB
13.28% OCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 160 GB
11.76% OCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 80 GB
9.52% OCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 120 GB
8.57% OCZ Vertex 3 Series 120 GB
7.49% OCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 60 GB
6.61% OCZ Vertex 2 Series 3.5" SSD 120 GB
6.37% OCZ Vertex 3 Series 240 GB
6.37% OCZ Agility 3 60 GB
5.89% OCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 100 GB

 

[KompuKare]

Just read the full article yesterday. Although not 100% accurate (well nothing is but the manufacturers figures would be nice but even if everyone used the same methodology I can't see for instance OCZ being that keen to publish), it is very useful. Also, in the article behardware lists last year's figures too which is nice too.

 

[Blain]

"The first question is of course where the stats come from. They’re taken from a large French etailer, whose database we have had direct access to.

...Among the returns that aren’t tested, some of the components announced as having an issue by customers probably aren't actually defective, in spite of the precautions taken by the technician."

With such limited information, I wish they could have supplied us with manufacturer market share (from this French etailer), for each product category.

 

[KingFatty]

What does the percentage rating mean?

Does it mean the percentage of that particular item sold? Like you sell 10 of Brand X and 5 Brand X are returned, that's 50% return rate for Brand X?

Or does it mean the percentage out of all total items sold? Like you sell 100 total of Brands A-Z (including 10 Brand X sold), and 5 of Brand X are returned, that's 5% return rate?

 

[Zap]

Great find!

Also, here are all the SSDs with returns over 5%. See if you can spot a pattern:

Yup! All using Sandforce controllers and infamous for early releases by OCZ with lousy firmware.

 

[jwilliams4200]

I maintain that there’s no significant difference between SSDs and HDDs for reliability, and these figures seem to back this.

I disagree that the figures "back" your opinion that SSDs and HDDs have similar reliability.

These data are for return rate, for "products sold between April 1st and October 1st 2011 for returns made before April 2012, namely after between 6 months and a year of use."

It is possible, even likely, that the returns are dominated by DOA, infant mortality, and compatibility issues. While these are definitely important concerns (I tend to think of it as the likelihood of "trouble" for a purchaser), it is not directly measuring reliability.

Reliability is usually measured in terms of annual failure rate (or mean time to failure), and for products such as SSDs or HDDs, which may be in service for 3 to 5 years (or more), you need 3 to 5 years of data to get a good idea of the reliability. But this survey only looks at one year of data, and does not separate out DOA and compatibility issues, which I do not think should be counted for reliability. I think reliability should only start counting once the device is successfully installed, functional, and compatible with the test system (or at least passes some sort of acceptance test).

But if you were to say that purchasers of HDDs and SSDs have about the same likelihood of having trouble with their purchase within 1 year of purchase, then I think you would have a good point that is backed up by this data.

 

[jwilliams4200]

What does the percentage rating mean?

It is the percentage sold by the etailer that is returned for reasons that are presumed to be problems with the product.

If they sold 1000 units, and 10 were returned (and either tested bad or judged by the technician from the purchasers description to be problematic), then the return rate is 1.0%

 

[KingFatty]

If they sold 1000 units, and 10 were returned (and either tested bad or judged by the technician from the purchasers description to be problematic), then the return rate is 1.0%

What do you mean? 1000 total SSDs sold counting all brands, and 10 of a particular brand of the SSDs? Or do you mean 1000 of a particular brand, and 10 of that particular brand?

 

[ronbo613]

HDD ============= Samsung 1.23% Western 1.63% Seagate 1.89% Hitachi 3.95% SSD ============= Crucial 0.82% Intel 1.73% Corsair 2.93% OCZ 7.03%

With video production and digital photography, I use a lot of hard drives. Used to like Seagate Barracudas, quality went down so I went with Samsung 2TB HD204UI, WD Caviar Blacks and RE4 enterprise drives. Looks like those HD stats back up what a lot of people already know. Wish I would have bought more of the 204UI drives before Seagate took over.
As a previous Vertex 2 owner, no surprise with the SSD stats either. The drive was a POS and begging for "support" on the OCZ forum was a real bonus. 15% return rate? How do they stay in business? I will never buy another OCZ product of any kind.

 

[jwilliams4200]

What do you mean? 1000 total SSDs sold counting all brands, and 10 of a particular brand of the SSDs? Or do you mean 1000 of a particular brand, and 10 of that particular brand?

What do you think? Assume that the people doing the study are not idiots.

 

[Coup27]

Or does it mean the percentage out of all total items sold? Like you sell 100 total of Brands A-Z (including 10 Brand X sold), and 5 of Brand X are returned, that's 5% return rate?

I have no idea how you have arrived at this as there are individual values next to each manufacturer.

It's a shame Samsung's SSD return figure is missing.

 

[frostedflakes]

Wow, Intel's return rate shot up. That's probably an outlier, because normally it's closer to Crucial's. Samsung SSDs are supposed to be similar to Intel/Crucial in reliability as well.

And to be fair, you might compare SSD return rate to that of 10k or 15k RPM drives, for example. Or compare SSD failure rate to failure rate of a 4 disk RAID 0 array. For the performance they offer, SSD reliability is pretty impressive, especially for brands like Intel/Crucial/Samsung that tend to be more reliable than single HDDs and much much more reliable than RAID arrays with multiple disks that still can't keep up with the IOPS SSD is capable of. I mean it's like saying 7200RPM disks are crap because they're less reliable than 5400RPM ones. Higher speed usually equals lower reliability. But in the case of quality SSDs you can have both, you don't have to make that tradeoff.

 

[jwilliams4200]

Wow, Intel's return rate shot up. That's probably an outlier, because normally it's closer to Crucial's.

As the article said, it is likely due to the 8MB bug.

 

[bononos]

As the article said, it is likely due to the 8MB bug.

Is the Intel 8mb bug only confined to the sandforce models?

 

[jwilliams4200]

Is the Intel 8mb bug only confined to the sandforce models?

The Intel / Sandforce SSDs are not included in this data.

The 8MB bug (actually, multiple issues that all result in the 8MB panic) existed, although rare in the X25-M G2 models, but it really exploded in the 320 models, which this survey was the first to include.

 

[bryanW1995]

You guys need to quit using these so-called facts to drag OCZ's name through the mud. They are below 8% failure rate, what more do you want??

Nice to see that I jumped from the reliability king of a couple years ago (x25m g2) to the reliability king now...

 

[ShintaiDK]

OCZ and SandForce sure gives SSDs a bad rep reliability wise.

Its not looking good for the future either for OCZ:
13.46% OCZ Petrol Series 128 GB

 

[Zap]

Yup! All using Sandforce controllers and infamous for early releases by OCZ with lousy firmware.

Here we go... from the linked article

"Note that over the coming period, the Vertex 3s are doing much better thanks to developments in the firmware, with a rate of just 1.01% for the Vertex 3 120 GB as things stand."

That's the magic of more mature firmware, and also why people consider Intel 520/330 to be "better."

Its not looking good for the future either for OCZ:
13.46% OCZ Petrol Series 128 GB

Yeah, again OCZ pushes out product with immature firmware. D:

 

[beginner99]

I disagree that the figures "back" your opinion that SSDs and HDDs have similar reliability.

exactly and if you take out all Sandforce drives which any regular anandtech reader would never buy, the picture would also change dramatically. (Corsair = mainly Sandforce).
Then Samsung is missing in the ssd space. I bet the are similar to Crucial.

 

[KingFatty]

I have no idea how you have arrived at this as there are individual values next to each manufacturer.

I guess my issue is you have to assume that the numbers are not a percentage of total sold.

I'd be interested in also seeing that information, or perhaps at least something that gives you an idea what percentage of the overall market a particular brand/model contributed.

for example, their percentage shows Hitachi 3.95%. But we don't know how many sales went into generating that number. what if hitachi sold very few overall, so the percentage maybe is not as meaningful compared to another vendor who perhaps sold 100X as many overall, where the percentage would then be more meaningful?

I guess this can be inferred by totaling all the individual percentages and seeing that they don't add to exactly 100%. But then we need to assume that also there is no "other" category that could make up the difference. It would be clear if the totals ever added to more than 100%, but I didn't see that. I also didn't see anywhere that explained the math or what the percentages actually meant, and I'm always leery about things that aren't transparent/clear and rely on the readers assumptions to fill in the gaps. Why not make it apparent on its face, it would be a simple thing to include it or drop a little footnote.

 

[ronbo613]

You guys need to quit using these so-called facts to drag OCZ's name through the mud. They are below 8% failure rate, what more do you want??

How would you like to buy a ticket on an airline where 8% of their planes crash? What more do you want?

 

[MisterMac]

Makes me a happy camper, i went with a Samsung's 830.

I hope the price premium affects reliability once the SSD figures from them feature in other studies.

 

[YBS1]

Also, one thing to consider and it's probably far more likely than you'd think initially. The average customer is more likely to return a defective ~$200-500 SSD than they would the typical ~$79-120 HDD. I'm not so much speaking of DOA cases, virtually everyone would return that, but early lifetime failures. If my $69 1tb HDD fails after a month I might feel it's more of a hassle than it's worth (time, aggravation, possible shipment cost, etc) and just buy a new one. Probably am going to return that $250 SSD though.

This isn't to say I think HDD's are less reliable though. I've not had a HDD failure since the IBM Deathstar days, I've had one SSD failure.

 

[Cookie Monster]

How would you like to buy a ticket on an airline where 8% of their planes crash? What more do you want?

Perfectly put.

 

[Eug]

Also, one thing to consider and it's probably far more likely than you'd think initially. The average customer is more likely to return a defective ~$200-500 SSD than they would the typical ~$79-120 HDD. I'm not so much speaking of DOA cases, virtually everyone would return that, but early lifetime failures. If my $69 1tb HDD fails after a month I might feel it's more of a hassle than it's worth (time, aggravation, possible shipment cost, etc) and just buy a new one. Probably am going to return that $250 SSD though.

Perhaps, but it should be noted that OCZ SSDs are the cheapest too, yet they have a MUCH higher return rate.

I wonder what OCZ Indilinx will bring, but I'm not optimistic considering that they're overclocking the controllers and using customized firmwares.