Reliability for Corsair and OCZ SSD - is it as bad as customer reviews make it seem?

[phexac]

Looking though newegg reviews, Intel SSDs look great with close to 90% of people giving it 5 stars and no cons. OCZ and Corsair drives, have roughly half non-perfect reviews, and the proportion is higher for with longer ownership times. A ton of reviews talk about SSD either being DOA and needing to RMA or SSD dying within a month or two. Some people have several stories like that with the same company.

This puts me in an odd spot. On the one hand, according to official reviews, sandforce drives murder the competition, especially Intel drives in performance. However, going by customer reviews, it seems that they aren't actually reliable enough to have in your system.

So is the situation as bad as it seems or what is the real deal with those drives?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Never use newegg reviews to make decisions on your purchases. Matter of fact, they tell you that on their site. Check anandtech, [H] or, any review site as opposed to a retail site.

 

[LamTek]

I think it is unfair to simply say never use it. I find the reviews/percentage breakdowns to be rather useful especially if there are > 20 reviews.

Now I would suggest to NEVER use it as the ONLY decision maker, but rely on other sources as well (reviews/forums etc.). Obviously our topic poster has already understood that by even asking about it.

Now in regards to your question....I have the same one. 😀

 

[superccs]

Looks the same way for WD harddrives on Newegg. Though they are the best in the business. But yeah I know what you mean.

 

[acx]

Anandtech's review of Intel's newest SSD has a sample failure rates for each manufacturer in it from a French etailer.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review/3

 

[Zap]

People that are upset over failed hardware are probably 10X more likely to post a bad review than people who are happy with their hardware are likely to post a good review. Thus, if Intel has 1% failure rate they may get 10% negative reviews while some other brand with 3% failure rate may get 30% negative reviews.

Obviously I'm just pulling numbers out of my ass, but I think they're ballpark. :sneaky:

 

[alaricljs]

Basically, no it's not as bad as customer reviews make it seem.

For one, those who buy on perceived quality (of the company, product and support combined) generally will go with Intel. They'll also know that Intel has awesome support when you need it. They'll use that support and generally have a positive experience even if they have to RMA the drive. Less people with problems on Intel drives will end up at the point of posting a review.

Those who buy on price are likely to get OCZ, or perhaps sometimes Corsair on a good deal. People who buy on price frequently aren't too solid on how their warranty works. They're also likely to bitch really loud at the drop of a bit. There were definitely issues with Sandforce drives and OCZ in particular at different stages of their availability. There have been a rather large number of firmware revisions and then throw in the 34->25nm switch inside the same SKUs. Really a bad move for OCZ, I for one will not purchase their products again. A higher percentage this type of buyer will post a negative review on a bad experience, even a bad experience with a happy ending. They'll also neglect to update the review with the happy ending part.

I have 2 OCZ Vertex 2's that are running just fine, never an issue and both get hit reasonably hard. Here's the one in my 24x7 home server drive is ~245 days old:

  9 Power_On_Hours_and_Msec 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       5912h+09m+33.540s
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       25
231 SSD_Life_Left           0x0013   094   094   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
241 Lifetime_Writes_GiB     0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       960
242 Lifetime_Reads_GiB      0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       2624

When I bought OCZ I was going on 2 things, price and my understanding of the performance of SF based drives. I need high 4k random IOPS both read and write. At the time of purchase it was my determination that the Vertex 2 had what I needed at the right price. I was also willing to take a slight gamble on less than great support if the drive should fail. I've had all kinds of hardware fail and dealt with everything from Intel's great support (dead CPU) to non-existent defunct support (abit mobo).

Given that I am happy with SF based drives for my needs it's looking like Corsair is going to be my go-to since I've dealt with their support before (RAM and PSUs) and it is definitely among the best in smaller companies. (When I say smaller, I mean smaller than Intel/HP and similar)

 

[Termie]

While Newegg reviews might be only the outliers, there's no doubt the Intel drive are more reliable. Multiple review sites have made mention of this in the past. Intel just has more money to invest in quality control.

If you're building a system with an emphasis on reliability, go Intel. If you want maximum speed, go Sandforce. The difference in speed is not that big, so I think if you're risk-averse, just buy an Intel. I have both, and both work fine.