SSD Buying Guide

[econgeek]

I've become convinced that here is only ONE brand of SSD to buy: The one Apple ships with their machines, Samsung. Still, for the time being, I'm back to hard drives only. I have a 1TB in the hard drive spot and the stock 500GB drive in the DVD spot. So, I have a 1.5TB Macbook Pro!

I've owned 3 SSDs in my life, and 2 of the three have failed. The first one, an Intel, which I bought purely because I expected it to be more reliable than a hard drive, failed after a year. Intel was a standup organization and replaced it with a newer model in the same capacity. That drive is still going (so far.)

The second drive I bought was a sandforce drive from OWC/MacSales, and they totally screwed me over on it. It failed within 4 days, they "fixed it" and then it failed again within 6 months. For details of that saga, see here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13916337/

The reason SSDs fail is because they have gotten way too clever. Both Intel, and Sandforce, et. al. are doing very complex wear leveling and compression and employing a lot of tricks to try and maximize drive life, etc. But the problem is, this means the controllers have to be very sophisticated.

Further, these controllers are operating in an environment without the protections of most computer software. They have two types of storage DRAM and flash. They can't just save things to flash when they get into a bind, because managing the flash is what puts them in the bind in the first place, and DRAM is volatile.

This is why they fail. Its not a physical failure, its painting themselves into a corner-- which is really easy when the drive is full, and you are asking it to write 3GB of data, but it has to juggle 30GB of data to free up the space (because the remaining 4GB of drive space is spread all over.) It can only "defragment" itself to a limited extent because it has limited extra area to store data.... and that limited extra area declines as the flash wears out over time. I think also, because SSDs are so expensive yet the buyers are so price conscious the quality of the flash chips in them is not exactly top notch...

I'll now only buy an SSD if it came from Apple, and I can just drop it off at the genius bar and get it replaced. I think also, Apple chose the most brain dead simple solution -- samsung-- so that the drive can't get painted into a corner, and the controller doesn't have to have a lot of intelligence.

It turns out that this is a lot more reliable than the super sophisticated "reliability" mechanisms that Intel and sandforce pursued.

 

[Sasha-1]

I've become convinced that here is only ONE brand of SSD to buy: The one Apple ships with their machines, Samsung. Still, for the time being, I'm back to hard drives only. I have a 1TB in the hard drive spot and the stock 500GB drive in the DVD spot. So, I have a 1.5TB Macbook Pro!

I've owned 3 SSDs in my life, and 2 of the three have failed. The first one, an Intel, which I bought purely because I expected it to be more reliable than a hard drive, failed after a year. Intel was a standup organization and replaced it with a newer model in the same capacity. That drive is still going (so far.)

The second drive I bought was a sandforce drive from OWC/MacSales, and they totally screwed me over on it. It failed within 4 days, they "fixed it" and then it failed again within 6 months. For details of that saga, see here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13916337/

The reason SSDs fail is because they have gotten way too clever. Both Intel, and Sandforce, et. al. are doing very complex wear leveling and compression and employing a lot of tricks to try and maximize drive life, etc. But the problem is, this means the controllers have to be very sophisticated.

Further, these controllers are operating in an environment without the protections of most computer software. They have two types of storage DRAM and flash. They can't just save things to flash when they get into a bind, because managing the flash is what puts them in the bind in the first place, and DRAM is volatile.

This is why they fail. Its not a physical failure, its painting themselves into a corner-- which is really easy when the drive is full, and you are asking it to write 3GB of data, but it has to juggle 30GB of data to free up the space (because the remaining 4GB of drive space is spread all over.) It can only "defragment" itself to a limited extent because it has limited extra area to store data.... and that limited extra area declines as the flash wears out over time. I think also, because SSDs are so expensive yet the buyers are so price conscious the quality of the flash chips in them is not exactly top notch...

I'll now only buy an SSD if it came from Apple, and I can just drop it off at the genius bar and get it replaced. I think also, Apple chose the most brain dead simple solution -- samsung-- so that the drive can't get painted into a corner, and the controller doesn't have to have a lot of intelligence.

It turns out that this is a lot more reliable than the super sophisticated "reliability" mechanisms that Intel and sandforce pursued.

I'm my own genius bar. If my SSD fails, they will replace the drive and I will restore my data from a backup. You had a bad experience. But firmware and controllers get updated. This is a bleeding edge technology. If you didn't properly understand that when you got into it, surely you do now. As controllers and firmware are updated within months we will get to a point where the technology is bullet proof. It takes time.

As for the NAND, my drive is tier 1 quality.

 

[econgeek]

I'm my own genius bar.

Right, sure, choose a less reliable option and wait around for your drive to get shipped to you. That's fine. I'd rather choose the more reliable option, have less need for replacements, and be able to walk into any apple store, and have at most a 1 day turnaround.

I'm kinda amazed that you'd be smug like that. You're doing what the OWC idiot was-- assuming I'm unsophisticated. I could build an SSD from scratch, if I wanted to. (from controller firmware to PCB, using off the shelf chips, though my VSLI design skills are out of date, they aren't non-existent.)

And here you are being smug. Whatever, dude. Can you actually argue against any of the points I made?

But firmware and controllers get updated. This is a bleeding edge technology.

Three years ago they were bleeding edge. Now they're an embarrassment.

If you didn't properly understand that when you got into it, surely you do now.

Oh, I understand it. The problem is, you don't.

As controllers and firmware are updated within months we will get to a point where the technology is bullet proof. It takes time.

Its been three years. I don't think you'll get there in a few months.

As for the NAND, my drive is tier 1 quality.

Whatever gets you thru the night.

 

[Weaselboy]

As for the NAND, my drive is tier 1 quality.

You do realize this is just OWC marketing speak and OWC is using the same off the shelf NAND as all the other mainstream SSD vendors.

You like your OWC SSD, and that is great, but there is nothing special at all about the NAND they use.

 

[Sasha-1]

The reality is that I have a fully functional clone of my SSD. If I have any issue at all, I can swap drives in a matter of a couple minutes. So in my case, the worst that will happen to me is a disruption for a short time. And that's 'if' I have a problem. The benefits outweigh any risks.

You think the first hard drives were a picnic? I paid almost $500 for an RLL MFM controller and another $799 for a 5 MB hard drive when they were new. The drive was slow, noisy, and you didn't dare move it while it was running.

I could have stayed with floppy discs and slow tape drives. I remember simple programs taking 20 minutes to load. Were you around for punched paper tape? You could lose the entire sequence of the cards and have to re-org them all. Guess what, we lived. We pushed forward.

It takes years to realize the issues with garbage collection and when you think you have a fix for it, you won't really know until you stop getting customer complaints for long periods of time. If you expect these controller makers to find the answers right off and have that supported by years of zero failures from all their customers then it is you who truly doesn't understand the concept of bleeding edge. I can return my drive right now for all my cash. I paid $1,099 for this SSD. Knowing your pain and others in these forums it would be easy. I'd rather have the speed and benefits.

After your first failure, why didn't you just go back to hard drives? I guess you didn't care about reliability. Having gone through a failure yourself, you chose to take the replacement and rely on it again.

You're going to see the people with problems complaining. The people who are problem free aren't going to show up and complain that they have nothing to complain about.

I'll happily report what happens. If mine lasts a week, a month or a year, you'll hear it from me. Personally all I ask of hardware is a solid 2 years. It has a 5 year warranty on it. They will have to replace it if it fails. If it fails a lot, they will have to replace it a lot. I doubt they'd be in business if they had to replace drives every 6 months. What I think is really happening is you likely have some percentage of users who just get hit with issues. Likely a combination of Apple's firmware and the controller and the NAND chips themselves. All of which are constantly being improved.

Do you what makes you feel comfortable. I'm perfectly comfortable with my choice. I'm not blind to the potential issues. I have a strong plan of action in the event of failure. I'll be just fine.

----------

You do realize this is just OWC marketing speak and OWC is using the same off the shelf NAND as all the other mainstream SSD vendors.

You like your OWC SSD, and that is great, but there is nothing special at all about the NAND they use.

My understanding is that the NAND chips are of the highest quality grade. Typically from Hynix or Samsung and not some unknown NAND supplier. And that as such they carry the greater warranty. Often lifetime for chips. The drive itself, controller included carries a 5 year warranty. Crucial offers just 3 years. Why is that?

----------

Interesting read:

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_extreme_pro_6g_ssd_review_toggle_nand

 

[Weaselboy]

My understanding is that the NAND chips are of the highest quality grade. Typically from Hynix or Samsung and not some unknown NAND supplier. And that as such they carry the greater warranty. Often lifetime for chips. The drive itself, controller included carries a 5 year warranty. Crucial offers just 3 years. Why is that?

OWC started all this in a sleazy attempt to smear OCZ. Read this article by Anandtech that debunks the claims by OWC. OWC's NAND is no better than that used by any other SSD vendor using the same specifications. NAND/RAM is a commodity. Don't perpetuate OWC's false claims.

Consumer warranties are more about marketing and costs to the manufacturer than any indication of quality. Hyundai for example offers a ten year warranty on their cars. Does that automatically mean it is a better car?

 

[econgeek]

My understanding is that the NAND chips are of the highest quality grade.

That's the "understanding" those marketing terms were meant to create in your mind. You don't even know who the supplier is, but you're speculating about it publicly. Further, can you name a process improvement that either of those companies made to produce superior chips? Maybe HYNIX produces crap NAND. Think about that.

That's the brilliance of powerful marketing-- it convinces you that your'e the smartest person in this room, when you don't actually know what you're talking about.

 

[Sasha-1]

OWC started all this in a sleazy attempt to smear OCZ. Read this article by Anandtech that debunks the claims by OWC. OWC's NAND is no better than that used by any other SSD vendor using the same specifications. NAND/RAM is a commodity. Don't perpetuate OWC's false claims.

Consumer warranties are more about marketing and costs to the manufacturer than any indication of quality. Hyundai for example offers a ten year warranty on their cars. Does that automatically mean it is a better car?

Two things:

1. That article is hardly conclusive, and was written well before the change to the OWC SSD, which took place 4 to 5 months after the article was written.

2. My best friend happens to be a currier and owned a Hyndai. It lasted him 480,000 miles! Common business sense says don't offer a warranty that ends up costing you an arm and leg to support. It's not marketing at all. If it is, ask Crucial to match my warranty in writing. See if the marketing department goes for it.

Talk about asking the fox if he ate the hens in the hen house.

OCZ insists that there's no difference between the Spectek stuff and standard Micron 34nm NAND.

What are they supposed to say? Oh yeah you caught us? Mine is using Toshiba chips. Theirs is using 4 different manufactures in who knows what combo. All you did was reinforce my choice.

And for the record, mine indeed falls under the Toggle class Toshiba.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51301639@N07/6406677879/

 

[Weaselboy]

All you did was reinforce my choice.

I can see you have completely bought into OWC's marketing. Enjoy your SSD.

 

[Sasha-1]

I can see you have completely bought into OWC's marketing. Enjoy your SSD.

I got the information from Storage Review, a site that AnandTech endorsed in the article you sent me.

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_extreme_pro_6g_ssd_review_toggle_nand

How is that buying into anything? That's a 3rd party reviewing a change that took place months ago.

And I do know the supplier. It's Toshiba.

 

[econgeek]

See! Some blog on the internet said it, so I know its true!

 

[Sasha-1]

See! Some blog on the internet said it, so I know its true!

What blog would that be? Perhaps you should look up the definition of 'blog' and then ask yourself if StorageReview.com fits that description. It clearly doesn't. Your argument just ran out of gas and this is what you resort to.

I'm more than happy to listen to your argument. But keep it honest.

 

[Weaselboy]

I got the information from Storage Review, a site that AnandTech endorsed in the article you sent me.

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_extreme_pro_6g_ssd_review_toggle_nand

How is that buying into anything? That's a 3rd party reviewing a change that took place months ago.

And I do know the supplier. It's Toshiba.

Maybe I am being unclear. The article you linked shows OWC, OCZ, and Patriot are all using the exact same NAND. That is my point entirely. There is nothing better about OWC's NAND. These three drives all happen to use Toshiba NAND because at this point it appears Toshiba has the market cornered on this new "toggle mode" technology.

As much as OWC would like everybody to believe there is something special about the NAND they use there is just no evidence this is true.

 

[Sasha-1]

Maybe I am being unclear. The article you linked shows OWC, OCZ, and Patriot are all using the exact same NAND. That is my point entirely. There is nothing better about OWC's NAND. These three drives all happen to use Toshiba NAND because at this point it appears Toshiba has the market cornered on this new "toggle mode" technology.

As much as OWC would like everybody to believe there is something special about the NAND they use there is just no evidence this is true.

Yes, the article shows three vendors using the same NAND in their top performing SSDs. That's not to say that the industry as a whole all uses these tier one chips. As I said from the start, there are indeed tiers. You're trying to say there isn't. Clearly there are.

----------

I can see you have completely bought into OWC's marketing. Enjoy your SSD.

I am. Performance is outstanding. Why wouldn't I be thrilled about that?

 

[econgeek]

Alex-

You confuse repetition of meaningless marketing terms for understanding of technical issues, and then you are smug towards people who are patiently trying to explain the technical issues to you.

You lost.

But feel free to have the last word... I know you will.

 

[Sasha-1]

Alex-

Not only do you not know what you're talking about, you don't even understand things well enough to comprehend others explanations of how you don't know what you're talking about.

Yet you continue to be smug. Interesting.

Sincerely,

The Interenets

Yes, you're a legend in your own mind.

 

[econgeek]

Yes, you're a legend in your own mind.

You're bringing personal insults to a technical discussion, and you've been doing that from the beginning.

Its disruptive.

 

[Sasha-1]

You're bringing personal insults to a technical discussion, and you've been doing that from the beginning.

Its disruptive.

That's what you did. I just gave it right back to you.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes, the article shows three vendors using the same NAND in their top performing SSDs. That's not to say that the industry as a whole all uses these tier one chips. As I said from the start, there are indeed tiers. You're trying to say there isn't. Clearly there are.

Go back and reread everything I said. Did I say there is no such thing as different grades of memory? No I did not. What I said is there is no evidence OWC is using any better grade/quality memory than any other mainstream SSD manufacturer. By throwing this line out there they are trying to convince buyers that somehow the memory they use is better than that used by equivalent spec drives from other vendors, and there is just no evidence that is true.

 

[Sasha-1]

Go back and reread everything I said. Did I say there is no such thing as different grades of memory? No I did not. What I said is there is no evidence OWC is using any better grade/quality memory than any other mainstream SSD manufacturer. By throwing this line out there they are trying to convince buyers that somehow the memory they use is better than that used by equivalent spec drives from other vendors, and there is just no evidence that is true.

Wow, such a refinement of your earlier statements. The way your first post read pretty much there is a level playing field. A chip is a chip is a chip. And I said, no, their are tiers. You said, oh no, that's just marketing.

Now, you've changed that to "equivalent spec drives from other vendors".

Thank you sir, I totally agree with your new point of view. Devices that are equivalent are indeed equal. Imagine that.

 

[econgeek]

Go back and reread everything I said. Did I say there is no such thing as different grades of memory? No I did not. What I said is there is no evidence OWC is using any better grade/quality memory than any other mainstream SSD manufacturer.

This is the key point-- not that he won't re-read what you wrote-- but that he didn't read it the first time. What has become "authority" on the internet is the writings of someone on a "technical" site. It doesn't matter how rational, well argued, factual, or how many citations you can make to technical matters in your argument.

You can't convince people who are not technical using technical arguments. All they know is what some "authority" on the internet tells them, and when those authorities are not any more technical (just more published and possibly more thorough) its impossible to convince a follower.

It becomes ideological.

Ever heard a windows user argue for the superiority of PCs over macs using technical terms? They talk about megahertz / gigahertz, the amount of ram and the size of the hard drive.

They don't understand how a computer really works. But these scalar numbers-- 500MHz is bigger than 400MHz they can directly compare.

Its impossible for them to comprehend that the 400MHz computer might be faster, because it has a 32 bit bus rather than a 16 bit bus, and if you point this out, they'll say "It's a 32 bit computer!" .... cause they don't know that 32 bits is referring to the register width rather than the bus width. They don't even really know what "32 bits" means.

Made up marketing terms-- like Tier 1--- are great for creating an ideology. People don't have the time or interest or requisite background to understand these things on a technical level. But give them a marketing term and they can bash people over the head with it and feel like they're "elite".

And when you've just blown $800 on an SSD, and had it for all of 3 days or so, and are still marveling at its speed.... the LAST thing you want to hear is about how that design is unreliable.

 

[Sasha-1]

This is the key point-- not that he won't re-read what you wrote-- but that he didn't read it the first time. What has become "authority" on the internet is the writings of someone on a technical site. It doesn't matter how rational, well argued, factual, or how many citations you can make to technical matters in your argument.

You can't convince people who are not technical using technical arguments. All they know is what some "authority" on the internet tells them, and when those authorities are not any more technical (just more published and possibly more thorough) its impossible to convince a follower.

It becomes ideological.

Ever heard a windows user argue for the superiority of PCs over macs using technical terms? They talk about megahertz / gigahertz, the amount of ram and the size of the hard drive.

They don't understand how a computer really works. But these scalar numbers-- 500MHz is bigger than 400MHz they can directly compare.

Its impossible for them to comprehend that the 400MHz computer might be faster, because it has a 32 bit bus rather than a 16 bit bus, and if you point this out, they'll say "It's a 32 bit computer!" .... cause they don't know that 32 bits is referring to the register width rather than the bus width. They don't even really know what "32 bits" means.

Made up marketing terms-- like Tier 1--- are great for creating an ideology.

And when you've just blown $800 on an SSD, and had it for all of 3 days or so, and are still marveling at its speed.... the LAST thing you want to hear is about how that design is unreliable.

Oh no Sir, I paid $1,099 for this drive. Not $800. As for "blown", I disagree. I spent $1,099. Perhaps when you buy things, you're in the habit of "blowing" your money. I'm not. I choose more carefully than that.

How much longer are you going to continue to pollute this forum with your antics? I like my choice. That shouldn't bother you so much. I said my drive has Toshiba Toggle-NAND chips. I'm not wrong about that. I said there are tiers or grades. Don't believe I'm wrong about that either. I've read your articles and I've read mine. I see zero holes in what I said. You chalk that up to ignorance. Well then, you've made your thoughts of me and view well known. So what else is it that you wish at this point? For me to agree with you? I don't and I won't.

 

[Weaselboy]

As for the NAND, my drive is tier 1 quality.

I'lll just comment on this one last time. I have been consistent in trying to explain that OWC is using the same quality NAND as everybody else and them touting theirs as "tier one quality" is nothing but a marketing line to get people to believe somehow they use better NAND. The fact you bragged about it here in a forum post proves their marketing worked.

* Apologies to Hellhammer for the thread jack.

 

[Hellhammer]

As for the NAND, my drive is tier 1 quality.

And so are all the other equivalent SSDs. Frankly, OWC's SSDs are no better than any other SandForce based SSD. The controller is the same. The firmware is supplied by SandForce. The NAND varies but it's 3rd party and anyone could could change the supplier if one was better than the other.

I'm pretty sure all SSDs use "tier 1" NAND. Worse NAND is saved for applications like USB flash drives, where the quality is not that important (no heavy writing, speed is slow anyway). OWC is trying to make their NAND look better for some reason, although it's exactly the same stuff as the others in terms of quality.

The point is, OWC hasn't been able to proof that OCZ is using worse NAND in their products. Sure, it's supplied by many OEMs, but basically there are only two: IMFT and Hynix. And neither of them is "bad". OWC has had more than enough time to provide proofs for their claims if they were valid. Instead, they have chosen to be quiet about it - most likely to not make them look even more dumb.

 

[ljx718]

Just wondering if our MacBook pros need the laptop kit for the Samsung 830? All I can find is the 64gb with only the desktop kit