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SSD Reliability question

Technical Info On SSD Reliability

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld.html

Lots of info including stuff that some Macrumors SSD users don't mention (or don't know about...) while they trumpet SSDs as being akin to the Second Coming...

Excerpt:


Rules of thumb for buying an SSD

Don’t be suckered.

The honeymoon might feel good, but 3/6/9 months later you might want a divorce! Many SSDs just don’t hold up with use. They can hold up just fine for casual use (web, email, etc), but become badly degraded in other scenarios.

Don’t buy just any SSD. These things cost money! Do your research. Some are far slower than others (even when new), including those offered directly by Apple in new Macs.

Many SSDs degrade in performance with use. They offer a quick “high”, with a hangover. But if you have such a drive, you can recondition it to bring performance up to a better level.

Many SSDs have a limited lifespan. Some simply crap-out without warning, because they have no over-provisioning for bad blocks. Others suddenly go into read-only mode. Don’t waste your money on a future coaster for your martini.

RAID-0 striping is not advisable with SSDs not rated for it (striping splits file blocks between drives, so failure of one drive is a complete failure). RAID-1 mirroring or spanning (JBOD) is OK because file data is not split across drives.

Favor SSDs with over-provisioning. Over-provisioning (OP) sets aside extra storage for bad blocks and helps maintain performance. OP reduces usable capacity, but is worth it. Drives that have 0% over-provisioning (yes zero percent) are OK if your only use of the computer is light-duty (web, email, etc).
 
Article is from 2010 and seems to me thats outdated when talking about SSD. Ive heard they have come a long way in a short period of time. The price drops alone has to make you think about them. 500GB SSD in 2010 would have cost around $1000+ easy now just over $400. Im sure reliability has been increasing as well.
 
No doubt about it, prices have come down. That's to be expected with new technology... But I think that the information regarding reliability and other aspects of SSDs is still relevant.

A lot of folks get caught-up in the increased speed without considering the down-sides of SSDs.

But it's your dough...! ;)
 
Mojo1 said:
No doubt about it, prices have come down. That's to be expected with new technology... But I think that the information regarding reliability and other aspects of SSDs is still relevant.

A lot of folks get caught-up in the increased speed without considering the down-sides of SSDs.

But it's your dough...! ;)
Click to expand...

So do you run a SSD?

What would you recommend?

I just brought the 512GB M4 after reading reviews on here etc as I next to squat about this stuff.
Its only been a few days so if these are not as good as said I will send it back now!

The speed off my machine is night and day compared to how it was so I will defo be keeping SSD just want to make sure I got the right one as I plan on keeping this machine until the next refresh as it only 2 months old.
 
I don't use an SSD because there is currently no compelling reason for me to do so. My needs are satisfied with the stock internal drive and external drives connected via Firewire 800.
 
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