Question PNY is a term synonymous with vacuum

[tcsenter]

I have four PNY USB Flash and two SSDs. Purchased from legit stocking USA resellers, not an 'iffy' Ebay or Amazon marketplace independent seller. Not recently but between 2016 to 2020. Came in the sealed retail packaging, with proof of purchase, serial #. The drives are all functioning, detected, in Windows.

But still wondered if PNY offers any toolkit/utilities available for the SSD. They do, selected the appropriate SSD utility depending on the first three characters of the part #. It basically doesn't function. It just says SSD in the device list, reports in AHCI mode, SATA interface, capacity and used/free space (not even the PNY model or serial #). When I select it, no options become available or do not function. Check for firmware, newer firmware available! Download and apply new firmware? YES! Error - unable to download firmware. Check S.M.A.R.T. icon or button - goes to a screen with nothing there. It appears that Secure Erase is available but I don't want to burn through writes to see if that even works. OH YEAH, it has disk check that launches....wait for it....Windows check disk! Thanks for that manufacturer-specific feature. CrystalDiskInfo gives more info than PNY's own utility.

I recently experienced data corruption on one of the PNY USB flash drives and wondered if they have any toolkit/utilities available. They do, basically v1, v2, and v3 to add support for newer USB flash drive models. Tried all three. None of them even recognize there is a USB removable flash drive inserted. Not their own, not anyone's. /facepalm

 

[igor_kavinski]

Thanks for the heads up. Putting them on the DNB list.

 

[tcsenter]

Thanks for the heads up. Putting them on the DNB list.

One caveat, well maybe two. Products are quite dated out-of-production models, from like 2014 ~ 2018. All were PNY's entry-level products. e.g.

- PNY "Classic" Attache USB 2.0 flash drive (older style, not USB 3.x)
- PNY CS1311 & CS1211 SSD

PNY would not be the only company whose software and utilities seem to be geared only toward their premium segment products and treat their entry-level products like the ugly step-child. So maybe I'm asking too much.....or am I??? Perhaps their utilites and software work with their premium line product offerings. I don't know.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Still, it's their loss. Anyone burned by buying their cheap stuff is going to think twice about spending more on a premium product.

 

[tcsenter]

Oh yeah, it may have read as though I just recently tried their SSD utility on these 'older' models. It wouldn't be surprising to find that a newer software utility no longer downloads firmwares for discontinued products. I tested back when I purchased them and they were still active/current model, around abouts 2016. It was the USB flash drive utilities that I tested yesterday, bringing forth the recollection that I had the same experience with their SSD utility = useless.

 

[aigomorla]

Still, it's their loss. Anyone burned by buying their cheap stuff is going to think twice about spending more on a premium product.

On a flash drive? lol...
Please tell me what a "premium" flash drive is, thats not gold plated with hand glued diamond mosaic, sold in UAE.
Pretty much: Samsung, Patriot, Kingston, PNY, Sandisk, Corsair are in the same class when it comes to flash.
I usually don't think twice about flash drives as long as it says its 3.0 and the price is reasonable.
I won't buy those chinese ones which offer litterally billion billion TB, and sold for $2.99 on wish.

 

[igor_kavinski]

On a flash drive? lol...
Please tell me what a "premium" flash drive is, thats not gold plated with hand glued diamond mosaic, sold in UAE.

I was referring to PNY CS1311 & CS1211 SSD. Gave up on flash drives quite a while ago. Passed up some deal recently to get 256GB USB flash for $14 a piece. Didn't see the point. I would store data on them and then one day, they would stop working and I lose all the data. I'm tired of losing data.

By the way, Corsair Survivor flash drives look pretty premium Still not gonna get them!

 

[tcsenter]

On a flash drive? lol...
Please tell me what a "premium" flash drive is, thats not gold plated with hand glued diamond mosaic, sold in UAE.
Pretty much: Samsung, Patriot, Kingston, PNY, Sandisk, Corsair are in the same class when it comes to flash.
I usually don't think twice about flash drives as long as it says its 3.0 and the price is reasonable.
I won't buy those chinese ones which offer litterally billion billion TB, and sold for $2.99 on wish.

So these companies none have entry-level flash memory products i.e. low performance, low feature vs. premium lines with branding like Elite, Extreme, FURY, MAXX, Pro, Ultra, etc. or marketed as enterprise, industrial, endurance, advertise substantially higher performance/read/write speeds and cost more than their entry-level stuff?

 

[aigomorla]

dvertise substantially higher performance/read/write speeds and cost more than their entry-level stuff?

thats mostly down to the cost of the actual control.

The Nand is typically the same stuff, unless were going real cheap.

But again tell me what is the difference between a sandisk extreme pro, and a regular sandisk ultra, and a sandisk regular.
Besides the obvious controller, and the usb3.2 vs usb 3 its pretty much the same nand, because as far as i can think of, other then capacity, there is no tier in nand.

 

[igor_kavinski]

there is no tier in nand.

NAND is silicon so it must be binned. Cheapest USB flash drives may be using the lowest binned NAND and so on.

 

[tcsenter]

Besides the obvious controller, and the usb3.2 vs usb 3 its pretty much the same nand, because as far as i can think of, other then capacity, there is no tier in nand.

The controller/bridge MCU chip and other enabling BOM circuitry (e.g. more/better SMT caps, discrete resistor), heatspreader, housing/enclosure, higher QA/QC were what I was going for.

 

[aigomorla]

NAND is silicon so it must be binned. Cheapest USB flash drives may be using the lowest binned NAND and so on.

i dont think thats the case when looking across same platform.

Meaning yes i think SSD nands are higher density and higher class, but most SSD's nands are all the same if they were designed for SSD's.

Flash drives i think are the same.
I haven't heard of or seen yet, a SSD which uses flash nand and vice versa, unless we look at these made in china fakes.

 

[tcsenter]

Having said all that, I really haven't had any problem with PNY products. The SSDs have been working fine. CrystalMark and other utilities (NOT from PNY) appears to correctly report host writes, temps, etc.

As for the offending USB flash drive, don't know what happened. I robocopied data with read verification to fill the entire drive up to 0KB free space to spare, copied them back again with no errors. /shrug

 

[aigomorla]

Whenever i have a problem that works itself out and i have no clue how it happened i always place blame on this guy: