Had enough of OCZ

[Fx1]

2 years ago i bought a 240GB Vertex 2 and 2x 120GB Vertex 2 drives on the recommendation and reviews of Anand.

I generally keep up to date in reviews and industry on this site since the info is generally good.

A month or so ago my 240GB drive in my macbook died and i lost everything that wasnt backed up. And as it normally goes i wasnt backed up as much as i thought!

Anyway a week later i turn on my PC and find i have a raid error and serious failings in my array caused by 1 drive. Luckily i had a full backup of this raid on a 1TB drive and after 6 hours managed to fix it and the drive is behaving ok for now.

So i start googling and i see 46/102 1 star reviews on this drive... bad press all over the internet about sandforce 2000.

I am very disappointed in OCZ since this is a long line of crappy reliability from RAM to PSU's and now SSD's.

But i am also disappointed in Anandtech also and their lack of reporting of the issues. I bought these drives on recommendations from this site and i always read the little caveat about "unknown long term reliability and validation" But there has been little to no serious reporting of any of the poor reliability.

i keep up to date on tech on this site and until my problems i had no need to root around google to see the evidence of mass failures of these drives.

Anand maybe you shouldnt get so cozy with the OCZ CEO or who ever you keep mentioning in your articles and start reporting on the serious failings of Sandforce 2000 and OCZ especially. Because up till now all the references to poor reliability have been too subtle and woolly at best. Given the terrible reliability of SSD's made by OCZ and Sandforce you should categorically refuse to endorse any purchase from these 2 companies.

So far SSD's have been a complete bust for me. My old HDD are still out living all my SSD's by a factor of at least 4!

Feel free to correct me if i missed any articles that let OCZ or Anand off the hook on this one.

 

[n0x1ous]

Anand mentions Sandforce reliability issues in pretty much every article about SSD's. Read the intel 520 cherryville review where the whole interest in the drive was based around the fact that we would finally get the great performance that sandforce brings and the reliability from intel's extensive validation.

When a new product is reviewed all that can be reported is the performance, not long term results.

If you are on these forums much, you will find plenty of people (myself included) that will never buy an OCZ SSD as they have the worst reputation in the industry.

Samsung 830, Crucial M4, newer Plextors, and Intel 520/330 are the only worthwhile choices in my opinion.

I run 830's in the rigs i need maximum uptime and I run an intel 520 in my main gaming rig. Haven't had a single issue with any of them.

 

[Fx1]

Anand mentions Sandforce reliability issues in pretty much every article about SSD's. Read the intel 520 cherryville review where the whole interest in the drive was based around the fact that we would finally get the great performance that sandforce brings and the reliability from intel's extensive validation.

When a new product is reviewed all that can be reported is the performance, not long term results.

If you are on these forums much, you will find plenty of people (myself included) that will never buy an OCZ SSD as they have the worst reputation in the industry.

Samsung 830, Crucial M4, newer Plextors, and Intel 520/330 are the only worthwhile choices in my opinion.

I run 830's in the rigs i need maximum uptime and I run an intel 520 in my main gaming rig. Haven't had a single issue with any of them.

Anand should have came out about Sandforce 1200 when it was a problem. Not when intel launched the 520 on a new controller and the 2000 was old news.

With a failure rate as bad as these drives have it really should have warranted its own feature. At least i would have expected these problems and prepared for the worst.

OCZ have offered me an Agility 3 as a replacement which im not exactly sure is really and upgrade at all. They refused me a vertex 3 or 4.

Looks like im going intel 520 OEM 5 yr warrenty Raid 0 for my next PC in September time

 

[n0x1ous]

Anand should have came out about Sandforce 2000 when it was a problem. Not when intel launched the 520 on a new controller and the 2000 was old news.

With a failure rate as bad as these drives have it really should have warranted its own feature. At least i would have expected these problems and prepared for the worst.

520 isnt a new controller. its the same sandforce 22xx in everyone elses SSD's. the firmware is the difference.

 

[ShintaiDK]

M4 or Samsung 830 is the way to roll.

 

[Rvenger]

Anand does admit that he can't long term test the drives for reliability. His recommendations are based off what he sees on the test bench.

 

[Fx1]

520 isnt a new controller. its the same sandforce 22xx in everyone elses SSD's. the firmware is the difference.

its new to me since 520 has the new controller 2200 series and not the 1200 series.

 

[Hellhammer]

Anand should have came out about Sandforce 2000 when it was a problem. Not when intel launched the 520 on a new controller and the 2000 was old news.

With a failure rate as bad as these drives have it really should have warranted its own feature. At least i would have expected these problems and prepared for the worst.

The SF-2281 issues were covered long before the Intel 520 review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4712/the-crucial-m4-ssd-update-faster-with-fw0009
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/...sair-patriot-ocz-owc-memoright-ssds-compared/

The problem in reporting issues is that unless we have been able to replicate it on our own, we would be relying on someone else's word. While NewEgg reviews can give a good idea of the quality of the product, they are not scientific proofs. We can't say that a product is bad based on someone else's word because what happens if the word is not reliable? Especially when it comes to user experiences, there are lots of cases where the actual problem is elsewhere.

 

[Railgun]

So...two years ago you bought something and were happy with it until you read other's weren't, so now you hopped on the bandwagon and are no longer happy?

You generally keep up to date...these issues have been prevalent for some time...only five and a half hours ago you pop here to post what you've discovered?



And this is someone else's (read: AT's) issue how exactly?

 

[Fx1]

So...two years ago you bought something and were happy with it until you read other's weren't, so now you hopped on the bandwagon and are no longer happy?

You generally keep up to date...these issues have been prevalent for some time...only five and a half hours ago you pop here to post what you've discovered?



And this is someone else's (read: AT's) issue how exactly?

i had 2/3 drives fail within a week of each other. I didnt need to read others were not happy also to decide that i was unhappy 2/3 drives failed.

Please read the OP correctly before making such remarks.

And there cetainly isnt enough coverage about the unreliability of SSD's on AT but a heck a lot of coverage on "New Products"

If i remember correctly it was AT who claimed SSD are inherently more reliable than HDD due to no moving parts.

Its also one thing to talk about BSOD due to firmware issues and another about completely dead drives.

 

[Fx1]

The SF-2281 issues were covered long before the Intel 520 review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4712/the-crucial-m4-ssd-update-faster-with-fw0009
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/...sair-patriot-ocz-owc-memoright-ssds-compared/

The problem in reporting issues is that unless we have been able to replicate it on our own, we would be relying on someone else's word. While NewEgg reviews can give a good idea of the quality of the product, they are not scientific proofs. We can't say that a product is bad based on someone else's word because what happens if the word is not reliable? Especially when it comes to user experiences, there are lots of cases where the actual problem is elsewhere.

i understand where you are coming from on this but you know as well as i do that AT was one of the biggest promoters of SSD tech back when these were 4x the price they are today. Back then we would get some hard hitting reviews and criticism of badly performing drives.

Fast forward a year or so and all we seem to see are promotional stories about new products and reviews and the slight mention of firmware validation quality in Sandforce drives.

Heck during the Vertex 3 and 4 reviews you had a clear opportunity to go back and look at the state of OCZ's track record or maybe invite feedback from the community on these drives.

30 seconds of Googling shows up serious doubts about the quality of the Sandforce drives from all manufacturers using the 1200 controller.

Whilst not scientific the reports over the internet about drives failing and then the replacement dies 2 months later is seriously worrying. They arent isolated incidents either. 50% of 600+ reviews are bad or below good.

To be honest id rather read a 10 page feature on whos doing a good and bad job in the SSD arena with regards to reliability and firmware improvement than see a review showing me which drives offer 2% +/- performance over the last drive you reviewed.

It seems to me that most of the readers wont even buy OCZ from the posts above... AT should really be looking into WHY!?

Im not saying this is AT's fault at all with what happened to my drive its OCZ's and Sandforces. But many of your readers buy into products that you review and when the charts all point to the fastest drive then thats what they will buy. In the case of the Vertex 2 it turned out to be a dog!

I noticed the comments on the 2200 series drives but the 1200 is the real dog of the bunch. It might seem like a long time ago when reviewers were using 1200 series sandforce but for users they are still in our systems or worse like mine in RMA

 

[RampantAndroid]

M4 or Samsung 830 is the way to roll.

Yeah, the M4 so far is treating me well as a second drive. I don't regret my 510 since it has Intel's backing, but I plan to always avoid sandforce and want Intel back in the controller competition. But I've known for well over a year that the Vertex 2 series may have had serious issues reliability wise. I steer friends away from OCZ to Crucial, and in past, Intel.

 

[Fx1]

Yeah, the M4 so far is treating me well as a second drive. I don't regret my 510 since it has Intel's backing, but I plan to always avoid sandforce and want Intel back in the controller competition. But I've known for well over a year that the Vertex 2 series may have had serious issues reliability wise. I steer friends away from OCZ to Crucial, and in past, Intel.

You know what its like though when you drop a drive in and then forget about it. you keep an eye on the market for new drives and read the features and unless something bad comes up then you dont think twice.

i was living under a false sense of security when it came to the SSD's claim of reliability due to no moving parts. Turns out its more like a F1 car with no brakes. Fast and dangerous to own.

 

[tweakboy]

M4 or Samsung 830 is the way to roll.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

I went M4 512GB since it was 300 dollars cheaper then the 830 512GB

Also Im on SATA 2.0 and get 260mbps lol its still fast very fast even on a 512k cluster size.

Bootup 20 seconds
Photoshop CS5 2 seconds.

When I get a new comp that will go to 480mbps and a clean install not a image install. Cuz my score is 7.3 WEI , What should M4 be ?

 

[RampantAndroid]

You know what its like though when you drop a drive in and then forget about it. you keep an eye on the market for new drives and read the features and unless something bad comes up then you dont think twice.

i was living under a false sense of security when it came to the SSD's claim of reliability due to no moving parts. Turns out its more like a F1 car with no brakes. Fast and dangerous to own.

Sure, and I understand the frustration, but I am saying same as everyone else here: OCZ has a bad record. They had the whole 22nm debacle with the Vertex 2s, and the Sandforce controllers have been of questionable quality for a while - well over a year I think. It's the reason I bought a slower Intel 510 instead of a faster Vertex 3.

 

[el-Capitan]

I'm sorry, but if you would be as up-to-date as you claim, you should have been well aware that Vertex 2 drives have issues and NOT recommended if you look for reliability. This is all over the internet.

Coming here and - indirectly - blaming Anand for this, saying it is his responsibility to alert you, is simply ridiculous!

Sorry for your loss of data and frustration, but you only have yourself to blame.

 

[bryanW1995]

I've read every single ssd article since Anand's original x25-m launch article 4 years ago, and I haven't seen a bias from him in favor of OCZ at all. It's obvious that Ryan Peterson has TRIED to make Anand biased, but it's equally obvious that he's failed. A couple of the older ssd writeups were pretty favorable towards OCZ, but for the past few years (since they started have serious, consistent issues and releasing drives with beta firmware) they haven't gotten a lot of good press from Anand or anybody else. Additionally, if you were buying $500+ worth of ssd's, it seems likely that you would have done at least a modicrum of research on the manufacturer. If you had done that, even doing something as simple as going to the OCZ forums or taking 10 seconds for a google search, then you could have at least entered into your purchase with your eyes open about the potential problems. Heck, you could have done a search in the AT forums for "OCZ" and found any number of complaints. It is disingenuous to blame OCZ's failings and your own on Anandtech.

 

[Fx1]

I've read every single ssd article since Anand's original x25-m launch article 4 years ago, and I haven't seen a bias from him in favor of OCZ at all. It's obvious that Ryan Peterson has TRIED to make Anand biased, but it's obvious to me that he's failed. A couple of the older ssd writeups were pretty favorable towards OCZ, but for the past few years they haven't gotten a lot of good press from Anand or anybody else. Additionally, if you were buying $500+ worth of ssd's, it seems likely that you would have done at least a modicrum of research on the manufacturer. If you had done that, even doing something as simple as going to the OCZ forums or taking 10 seconds for a google search, then you could have at least entered into your purchase with your eyes open about the potential problems. Heck, you could have done a search in the AT forums for "OCZ" and found any number of complaints. It is disingenuous to blame OCZ's failings and your own on Anandtech.

Im not an idiot.

I never said there was any bias i just said there wasnt enough negative press about reliability in general when it seems its pretty common knowledge now.

Also please realize that back then these were new on the market SSD's were pretty rare at 500GBP for a 240gb drive.

Hind sight is irrelevant.

 

[Fx1]

I'm sorry, but if you would be as up-to-date as you claim, you should have been well aware that Vertex 2 drives have issues and NOT recommended if you look for reliability. This is all over the internet.

Coming here and - indirectly - blaming Anand for this, saying it is his responsibility to alert you, is simply ridiculous!

Sorry for your loss of data and frustration, but you only have yourself to blame.

IT IS NOW! it wasnt back then and has taken time to built this reputation in the community.

 

[Maximilian]

You get free tech advice and you come to moan about it? lol...

 

[bryanW1995]

Im not an idiot.

I never said there was any bias i just said there wasnt enough negative press about reliability in general when it seems its pretty common knowledge now.

Also please realize that back then these were new on the market SSD's were pretty rare at 500GBP for a 240gb drive.

Hind sight is irrelevant.

IT IS NOW! it wasnt back then and has taken time to built this reputation in the community.

I wasn't trying to call you an idiot, I simply mentioned that Anand's recommendations on the speed of the drive should never have prevented you from at least doing a bit of research on OCZ as a company. Many people (myself included) have been burned by OCZ over the years, there's nothing wrong with that, I just didn't blame Anand for getting me to buy something from OCZ when I was the one who made the ill-advised decision to purchase from them in the first place. If we had spent a few minutes researching the company, I suspect that neither of us would have ever purchased from them.

 

[Fx1]

I wasn't trying to call you an idiot, I simply mentioned that Anand's recommendations on the speed of the drive should never have prevented you from at least doing a bit of research on OCZ as a company. Many people (myself included) have been burned by OCZ over the years, there's nothing wrong with that, I just didn't blame Anand for getting me to buy something from OCZ when I was the one who made the ill-advised decision to purchase from them in the first place. If we had spent a few minutes researching the company, I suspect that neither of us would have ever purchased from them.

i had OCZ products at the time and they were fine. The SSD's i had never had experience with. At the time it wasnt an issue & AT wasnt any the wiser of these terrible SSD's but in the last 2 years alot has happened. Sandforce 1200 has pretty much been dragged through the mud by user reviews of failed drives. Some website have mentioned product recalls and all sorts of negative comments around these drives.

Some far more direct and damning than others. There needs to be more said by the tech websites on this subject because these drives are still for sale today and really there should be a warning attached to the box they are so bad.

 

[Zap]

i was living under a false sense of security when it came to the SSD's claim of reliability due to no moving parts.

That's like saying a car's claim to safety with a bazillion airbags gives people a false sense of security because you lost a family member when their car burned to the ground.

Airbags protect from impacts, not fire.

No moving parts protect from shock (which can be a factor with notebooks), not beta firmware.

Understand what is being claimed and don't let your mind fill in the blanks, and you will have better understanding.

FWIW HDDs are not immune to failure and data loss either, nor are they immune to firmware issues. Just ask anyone who had a Seagate 7200.11 drive brick itself a few years back. Yup, mechanically sound, but faulty firmware. Also, check HDD end user reviews and you'll see numerous 1/5 ratings. This Seagate drive has 50% 1/5 ratings. This Hitachi drive has 38% 1/5 ratings. This WD drive has 33% 1/5 ratings. Just go read some of those end user reviews and you'll hear about DOAs, drives that died within minutes, drives that didn't last a month, several in a row that died, etc.

Speaking of data loss, it could happen regardless of which brand drive you have, or even if you have a HDD instead of an SSD.

Anand does admit that he can't long term test the drives for reliability. His recommendations are based off what he sees on the test bench.

That is all he can base it off. If he were to test for reliability, he would need to have a big batch of them deployed in a number of systems for a long duration.

For instance car magazines often have long term tests where they would keep a car for a whole year, and document monthly how it was doing for reliability, maintenance, cost of ownership and any user notes (comfort, quirks, etc.). It makes sense for a car because you might have your eye on one to buy used down the road.

For a computer part where the whole industry is constantly sprinting forward in releasing new and faster products, long term testing is a horrible idea because then you would see a new article posted about the Intel G2 or Crucial RealSSD/C300, when you can no longer buy one new at most retailers.

So, Anand does what he can do to hammer the drive (and he explains all that he puts it through) to see if he can produce bad behavior from it, without taking months/years to accomplish.

OCZ have offered me an Agility 3 as a replacement which im not exactly sure is really and upgrade at all. They refused me a vertex 3 or 4.

Why would you expect an "upgrade" as a replacement? That's like expecting Ford to give you a Fusion to replace your Focus that was a lemon.

You purchased a product. If it fails under warranty, you have the expectation that whoever provides the warranty will "make good" on the product. That means, they will either fix it, or replace it with an otherwise identical product. If an otherwise identical product is not available, then they may opt to give you a BETTER product.

Are you saying that an Agility 3 is not a better product than a Vertex 2? It is a newer generation in both product and the Sandforce controller. It has a faster interface. It benchmarks faster. It is, in all measurements that matter, an actual upgrade over your Vertex 2. So what is your problem with it?

 

[Aikouka]

I'm pretty certain that I recall numerous Anandtech articles on the Sandforce firmware issues that plagued OCZ drives. Note that I also own an OCZ Vertex 2 and an OCZ Agility, and I've had no problems. Just like with HDDs, some people have no issues!

 

[TemjinGold]

OP: You said so yourself: It is common knowledge that OCZ has a bad rep. You honestly can't expect Anand to just dedicate an article specifically to attack OCZ. Have you heard of lawsuits, man?

And sorry, I don't buy the "I'm up-to-date" one bit. You had to have been living under a rock these past couple of years to not have heard without Anand publishing a rant for you.