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In the market for a new SSD or HDD any advice ?

SammeyC
Level 7
Hello members, it has been a while hope you are all doing well

I'm currently in the market for a new SSD or HDD or SSD/HDD Hybird


Just under 3 years old System Spec are as follows-

Primary Drive- SanDisk SSD 256Gb (This is the guy in question I want to replace)

Secondary Drive- Seagate Barracuda 3Tb

CPU- Intel Core i7 3960x

RAM- Patriot Intel extreme masters 16gb (4x4)

GPU- Asus GTX680 Direct CU II

Mobo- Asus Rampage 4 Extreme



Here's the reason why-

The SSD is only used for the OS and the OS only for everything and anything else, including downloads, games, videos, music and software- e.g. MS office or Google Chrome are installed or saved to the 3tb Seagate HDD

Working fine until today- 31st of July 2015



Symptoms include-

Start up- taking longer than expected, SSD now takes 40 seconds to load where as before it took 18 seconds to boot.

Laggy inputs= eg when pressing the "Start button" usually be in an instant now takes 4-5 seconds to open the menu

Accessing programs= MS Office for example takes longer than expected to load up.

Saving items= documents/ CAD models and saving screenshots results in the program not responding

Ran diagnosis at first I thought my OS was corrupted but ran a boot check as well as when logged into windows no errors found.

Ran the Sandisk Dashboard program and got Error Code 1,



So rang up SanDisk to see what Error Code 1 means, in short I need to replace it- as it was failing . As my SSD was covered for 3 years Warranty, I asked can I claim off the warranty- they said yes and offered to replace my old SSD with a new one, they said my one- the
"normal" SSD was out of stock and they are offering me the "Ultimate Pro" version 256 SSD as replacement.

SanDisk also said if I was to buy this SSD it comes with a 10 year Warranty, but because I'm claiming off warranty I will only have up
until May 2016.

I took them up on the offer to have a replacement sent out anyway BUT-

Now part of me is thinking that "hmmm I dunno should I go with this SSD for my primary drive ?"

After all I don't want it to fail less than 3 years down the line despite what the company has said on their headlines.



So when I get this one I'm planning to sell it to my mate.

I still want a secondary Drive to put my OS on only, not too bothered with SSD technology, yes its good to have but would go for reliability more than anything.

Or am I being too optimistic on how long an SSD should last here ?

Any advice and comments are welcomed and I'll be looking forward to reading them
Regards
Sam
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11 REPLIES 11

kkn
Level 14
over time an SSD will degrade, and the same will a HDD.
ive had HDD's die on me after just a month, or less then a year.
i have HDD's witch are close to 10 years and stil works like a charm, so there is always some thing that will die on us whit out knowing.

i dont have knowledge on the hybrid drives, but i dont think you will have as quick load/start up time as a SSD.
HDD well you know how slow that is compare to SSD.

if you want to sell off the replaced ssd to get a new one whit longer warranty that is up to you.

heres is a "Best SSDs For The Money" from tomshardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

if you want to sell it? sell it. ( you may have to give some discount on it ).
or you can put it in the laptop ? ( if it need a second drive unless you have one ).
mabye have one to put a few games on? ( the ones you play the most? )

but in the end its your desission on what you end up doing.

heres a few UK sites.
hotukdeals -> http://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/ssd
maplin ( 250ssd ) -> http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/sandisk-256gb-ultra-plus-ssd-sata3-6gbs-a65lu
amazon.uk ( 250ssd ) -> http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-SDSSDHP-256G-G25-Ultra-Notebook-Internal/dp/B0093HMLAS
scan.co.uk ( 250SSD ) -> http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-sandisk-ultra-plus-7mm-slim-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-read-530mb-s-...
all of the abow exept hotukdeals have the sandisk listed ( taken from a google search )

SammeyC
Level 7
Thanks for the advice, really insightful.

I was planning to sell the replacement to my friend, lower price than retail.

I was looking at the list for "Best SSDs For The Money" looks like the one I'm getting is in there, which does boost my confidence in the product.

Also a big thanks for finding UK retails too.

I do have a laptop, the Asus G73 JW-A1, its got 2 HDD in it- so I'm not going or even fit anymore in.

But again I just want a separate Drive just for my OS, yes I do have a 3tb secondary drive, but I want to keep my OS away for that so if anything goes
wrong I can fix that drive and not worry about my data on the other.

SanDisk also said I needed to send of my old SSD first before they send me out the new one so I have relocated my OS temporarily onto a different
drive for now- One I pulled from an Apple Macbook, but its terribly slow, its not a long term solution but it will do until I figure out what to do- sell it
or keep it.

Once again thanks for the reply Kkn

1sthurricane
Level 7
Love my Samsung 850 Pro ssd's.....super fast and quite reliable.And a pure joy when gaming.

I would stick with the replacement they offered, to me the 10 year warranty they offer on it is a good indication of the expected lifetime, also it seems larger ssd's preform beter on both speed and reliability.

I cant seem to find the link but there is a couple tweaks you can make to ease the wear on your ssd, theres software to do it for you called ssd fresh but i can not vouch for that.

SlickCooling wrote:
I would stick with the replacement they offered, to me the 10 year warranty they offer on it is a good indication of the expected lifetime, also it seems larger ssd's preform beter on both speed and reliability.


well as stated in OP, he looses the 10 year warranty if he goes for the replacement drive.
he only get the remaining time on the old one.

Korth
Level 14
I believe Samsung 850 SSDs have the best warranty you'll find. And best performance, especially if you use their caching software (and allocate a little bit of main RAM). Unless you write over 50GB per day, every day, these drives will easily last over 10 years - and if they happen to fail within the first 10 years Samsung will simply replace them with new units, lol.

Stability and reliability just aren't the same sorts of issues they were in the early SSD days. NVRAM semiconductors are generally more robust these days (and always getting better), and their statistical failure-longevity cycles are now calculated with exacting accuracy. In fact, the expected write-erase cycles are now part of the binning parameters, consumer products are typically rated for 3K. Because costs are lower and densities and speeds are greater the manufacturers always install some (maybe ~7.5%) overprovisioning capacity. Advanced real-time wear-levelling algorithms are now embedded into the flash controller firmware runtimes, along with some onboard DRAM cache and even compression logic.

Bottom line is that every SSD starts eroding right from the first day onwards. But all but the very cheapest of today's SSDs actually have longevity/failure rates and statistical MTBF specs which generally exceed the best HDDs.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

SammeyC
Level 7
Sorry guys, It's been a while since I was on, and low and behold- more replies, and as usual great replies.

I've did what Sandisk have told me and sent off my drive at the start of the month- basically I still haven't received my replacement yet.

I was on the telephone with them, think it was last week or the week before- they said they don't have the one they originally said they would replace it with in store anymore.

I will spare you the nitty gritty- but they offered me 2 other choices-

1 an "entry level" enterprise SSD their model x210 @240gb. Read about the x210, mostly designed for Servers

Or I can have their "Ultra II SSD @480gb. More consumer based SSD

I reviewed both the drives by watching and reading reviews the Ultra II has a better write speed

I know I only have till the end of my original products warranty, about a year and a half left.

Both the x210 and the Ultra II have 3 years warranty if I did purchase them new.

I was not will to loose out on space, 256 vs 240- I took them up on the offer of having the Ultra II with its 480gb

Hopefully my new drive arrives ASAP, next thing is to install Win10 back on it, I can imagine how long thats going to take (sigh)

Nate152
Moderator

SammeyC
Level 7
Quick update.

Just received my new SSD today and have just started installing Win10 back on it. As of writing 10% done : )

Originally was going to sell it- But Spending a month with an HDD I DO miss the superfast boot speeds :3 Oh man I'm looking forward to those days again.

Should this one fails, touch wood, not in the near future, I'll be back on asking for a recommendation of which brand to go with next.

So far I'm getting a consensus that I should go with a Samsung SSD next