Most Reliable SSD

[primexx]

So now that Intel is using Sandforce controllers, are there any updated benchmarks for SSD reliability? I've only been able to find performance benchmarks on Google. What is the current most reliable SSD?

[Ambroos]

My intuition tells me Crucial m4. Fast and a great Marvell controller.

[abysal]

Personally I haven't had any issues with Samsung 830 512gb or Crucial M4 256gb / 512gb, but I've also only been on SSDs for about 6 months. Now two of my friends had 128gb OCZ drives that died within a similar time frame, although many others had lots of positive experience with OCZ. I think the technology has matured enough that all manufacturers are probably decent. I looked at MTBF numbers and warranty when choosing my SSDs.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Samsung 830 128GB here. Love it.

Though my OCZ Vertex 30GB and Vertex 2 60GB is still kicking since ~2011

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Ironically, my OCZ drive in my laptop just died a few moments ago. About the 6 month mark... It only makes a high pitched whine and won't actually boot or show up as a drive.

My experience isn't anything more than anecdotal evidence, but there you have it.

[UseLess]

Regardless of "reliable" or not, every SSD can and will brick eventually. Imagine what happens if you lost the data on it...if you can't handle losing it, then back it up! Buy a standard WD Green and back it up! Use any tool you want - Windows Backup does a great job.

TLDR: Back it up!!

Oh, most 'brand name' (Crucial, OCZ, Samsung, Intel, Corsair) SSDs are good. Some may be a little better, but they all have a reasonable chance to brick on you.

[+Byt Subscriber¹]

My gut feeling tells me it is a toss up between the Crucial M4 and Samsung 830,

I have a Crucial M4 128GB, it is my first SSD so i dont really have anything to compare it to, and im not going to say its better than the Samsung because that would be biased!

Its just given me no problems, and i know Crucial are very good with their support should anything go wrong.

[primexx]

Regardless of "reliable" or not, every SSD can and will brick eventually. Imagine what happens if you lost the data on it...if you can't handle losing it, then back it up! Buy a standard WD Green and back it up! Use any tool you want - Windows Backup does a great job.

TLDR: Back it up!!

Oh, most 'brand name' (Crucial, OCZ, Samsung, Intel, Corsair) SSDs are good. Some may be a little better, but they all have a reasonable chance to brick on you.

well, yea, obviously. but it's still a PITA when you have to reinstall everything because the OS disk failed. And although every major brand is good, I'm wondering if there's a clear winner anymore. The old Intel controllers were less than 1 percentage point better than the next best but it was still the undisputed champion in reliability. Is there still someone like that anymore with everyone using either Marvell or Sandforce?

My gut feeling tells me it is a toss up between the Crucial M4 and Samsung 830,

I have a Crucial M4 128GB, it is my first SSD so i dont really have anything to compare it to, and im not going to say its better than the Samsung because that would be biased!

Its just given me no problems, and i know Crucial are very good with their support should anything go wrong.

A couple of people have mentioned Samsung, weren't they pretty bad a while ago? Is the current generation much better?

[The King of GnG]

SSDs and other Flash-based storage devices are on the other side of the "reliability" universe: when they die, they die with a sudden bang and you will never, ever be able to extract a single bit from them.

If you want "reliability", you just need to purchase a server-grade hard disk drive. At least, when the end will come for the drive, you will be able to recover something before (and even after) the drive's demise....

[Noir Angel]

The problems with Sandforce controllers have been fixed now.

[remixedcat]

Samsung 840 pro.

[TruckWEB]

Intel.... But they tend to cost more....

[primexx]

Intel.... But they tend to cost more....

I would get a 320 but they're expensive as hell now. Had I known that Intel would discontinue it so quickly I'd have grabbed two when I bought my first one.

[abysal]

SSDs and other Flash-based storage devices are on the other side of the "reliability" universe: when they die, they die with a sudden bang and you will never, ever be able to extract a single bit from them.

If you want "reliability", you just need to purchase a server-grade hard disk drive. At least, when the end will come for the drive, you will be able to recover something before (and even after) the drive's demise....

I would tend to agree, but the performance you get from the SSD is worth the risk of it dying on you. So to protect my self I run an image of my boot / OS drive 3 times a week to an external USB hard drive. My other two machines with SSDs are imaged manually once in a while; but their contents are mostly static so I don't need a weekly backup. Either-way, whether you go with a SSD or a spindle / mechanical drive, you want to have a backup in place if you have important data or just want to save time during recovery.

[tsupersonic]

Ironically, my OCZ drive in my laptop just died a few moments ago. About the 6 month mark... It only makes a high pitched whine and won't actually boot or show up as a drive.

My experience isn't anything more than anecdotal evidence, but there you have it.

Yep, my OCZ drive lived very shortly, and I've had friend's with failed OCZ drives. Some people have good luck with them, and others don't. I can't recommend them at all. My choice is between the Samsung 830 (or newly released 840, although don't know how reliable they are since it's a new model), Crucial M4, and I've had good luck with Intel 320 series. In any case, the lesson is backup all your data, regardless of the brand.

[articuno1au]

My OCZ disks have been pretty good.

I had one fail on me, but I overwrote the error flags and it just kept on trucking.

I'd recommend OCZ or Samsung. The Samsungs seen quite good, and as you can see, lots of people recommending them :)

Yarp

[ajua]

I have little experience of my own with SSDs but the Sand Disk Extreme 256GB that I have is been more than good. The price was a steal and the speeds are awesome.

I think many of the early SDD issues like reliability and rewrites have been improved by all manufacturers. I would say try to find the best bang for the buck.

And as other guyhere pointed out: Back everything up just in case. In my case, I keep separate file backups from folders I use on the SSD, not the entire drive because I don't mind reinstall eveything again.

[+kpo6969 Subscriber¹]

Plextor M5 Pro

[PGHammer]

My intuition tells me Crucial m4. Fast and a great Marvell controller.

Three-way tie between Crucial m4 (Marvell controller), Intel 330/520 (modded SandForce controller), and Samsung 83x/84x (Samsung MCX controller).

Note that the generic SandForce controller is not listed (along with the generic Marvell controller) - also MIA is the newer version of the OCZ Vertex 4 (modded Marvell controller, different from the controller of the Crucial m4).

[PNWDweller]

On this topic, we have been switching laptops at work over to Samsung 840's but haven't seen any failures or issues yet, albeit we are just starting to convert over and a few months old. The drives are in laptops with 100% data on SSD. Also drives are encrypted with a third party program so that makes more use I suppose.

I have been wanting to switch to SSD myself in the past but have been too gun shy about it because of the relatively short life on them. I have figured the best practice would be to install OS only on SSD and then use HDD for data/programs etc.. Would this in theory bring the life span of the drive to last longer since the amount of writes is less?

[The King of GnG]

I would tend to agree, but the performance you get from the SSD is worth the risk of it dying on you.

It's a choice you have to make. And until SSD drives won't have something more meaningful for data storage like PCM of memristor chips (let's say, within the next five years?), I will always choose to spend the extra money an SSD will cost on a server-grade hard disk drives with spinning platters....

[primexx]

It seems like the general concensus is a toss-up between Crucial M4 and Samsung 830/840. I read on Anandtech that their review units of the 840 Pro both broke, has that been fixed? And are there significant differences between the Marvell controller on Crucial and the Samsung controllers?

It's a choice you have to make. And until SSD drives won't have something more meaningful for data storage like PCM of memristor chips (let's say, within the next five years?), I will always choose to spend the extra money an SSD will cost on a server-grade hard disk drives with spinning platters....

that's assuming that you value reliability above all else.

[Hum]

Regardless of "reliable" or not, every SSD can and will brick eventually.

Live fast -- die young. :shifty:

And it's always good advice to Back-up, no matter what drive you use.

[SlimShady]

And the general warranty is a good thing, right. So you can RMA the drive if it would fail even on short-term.

[Arkos Reed]

Plextor M5 Pro

I second that.

The Plextor M3/M5 series are basically Crucial M4s without the firmware problems (legendary Plextor Firmware engineering and QA) and with an included 5 year parts warranty (the 1st 3 years you don't even pay shipping in case of a RMA, they send someone pick up the drive at your doorstep)