[TSullivan]

Intel has announced they will be extending the warranty on their Intel SSD 320 from three to five years. This marks the first time a consumer SSD has been given a warranty length that matches that of hard drives in the consumer space. Until now, the only drives with lengthy warranties under their belt have been enterprise SSDs like the Micron RealSSD P300 we reviewed earlier this month.

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[continuum]

Er, 5 years is LONGER than most consumer harddrives, most of those only have a 1 year (external disks) or 3 year warranty...?

The only consumer drives with 5 year warranties tend to be the highest-end ones like WD Caviar Black's...?

[TSullivan]

Well most of the 7200RPM drives are all 5-year. I think only the 5400-5900 models are three-year now.

[Brian]

Regardless on the HDDs, the new warranty is 2 years better than every other client SSD that I can think of. That's pretty strong - I wonder how long, or if other vendors will follow suit. We've always talked about 5 years as the magical productive lifespan for an SSD, a 5 year warranty pretty much seals the reliability and endurance deal for the SSD 320.

[dhanson865]

@Brian it's big news no matter how you slice it.

@all, I agree with continuum that 3 years was more common in the HD world.

WD Green 3 Year
WD Blue 3 Year
WD Black 5 Year



Seagate Momentus XT (the only hybrid hd I know of on the consumer market) 5 year

Seagate Barracuda XT 5 year
Barracuda 7200 5 year based on the STX web site but still says 3 years on newegg and other retail sites so it may be a very recent change
Barracuda 5900 5 year

I hope Seagate will treat the samsung drives with the same 5 year policy but I don't know.

Nothing else really matters after that as after mergers those two companies make the policy for more than 90% of the consumer hard drives.

So my memory and continuum's memory aside it looks like 5 years is going to be the more common warranty period for storage going forward. Looks like a shift in the industry just happened or is about to happen.

I have to imagine this will force WD to step up and match STX and INTC who are both offering storage with 5 year warranties. And it may force other SSDs to increase their warranties.

[Brian]

We checked in with Intel on the SSD 510 and their others...none are getting the 5-year right now. Sounds like Intel is largely protecting against buyer concerns about 25nm NAND.

[slyphnier]

i just read from a newegg user
warranty policy for intel 320series SSD:
(A) A PERIOD OF FIVE (5) YEARS BEGINNING ON THE DATE THE PRODUCT WAS PURCHASED IN ITS ORIGINAL SEALED PACKAGING IN THE CASE OF AN ORIGINAL PURCHASER OR THE DATE OF ORIGINAL PURCHASE OF A COMPUTER SYSTEM CONTAINING THE PRODUCT IN THE CASE OF AN ORIGINAL SYSTEM CUSTOMER; OR ( THE PERIOD ENDING ON THE DATE WHEN THE USAGE OF THE DRIVE, AS MEASURED BY INTEL’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE “SMART” ATTRIBUTE (E9) “MEDIA WEAR-OUT INDICATOR”, REACHES A “NORMALIZED VALUE” OF “1”, AS REPORTED BY THE INTEL® SSD TOOLBOX. The “Media Wear-out Indicator"

while we can safely translate 5year in common HD world = 5year of drive usage with/without replacement

but on Intel 320series SSD = 5year warranty IF not wear-out
so if intel 320series SSD wearing faster than their previous generation (34nm?) then 5year warranty means nothing, right ?
i read somewhere that 25nm nand wear faster than 34nm, and it seems wearing on SSD is more an issue rather than failure rate
so for me personally, i think its just marketing technique

apologizes for my bad english, but hope you get what i mean

[Brian]

I think you're thinking about write cycles - and that's not a factor with 25nm SSDs, or at least it's not expected to be an issue.

[slyphnier]

i read somewhere that mention 25nm NAND have less write cycles than 34nm
which i thought that's the reason intel making 320 series warranty longer

like we know many people that use ssd been doing things to longer their ssd life (like disabling pagefile, indexing etc.)
i haven't use any ssd yet, so i don't know how much my daily usage and whether it impact to ssd lifetime or not

been thinking to get and SSD soon too, but still considering/holding it because SSD wearing and firmware issue on some ssd

but it is great if write cycles not an issue
reading that newegg comment make me think write cycles used up faster than warranty period even for average user

[dhanson865]

slyphnier, on 31 May 2011 - 11:56 AM, said:

but it is great if write cycles not an issue
reading that newegg comment make me think write cycles used up faster than warranty period even for average user

The general expectation is that it won't be an issue for anyone let alone the average user. But the only way you'll know if anybody can wear one out is to wait 5 years and revisit the issue. I'm betting 99.x% of the drives that work at the end of 3 years still work in 5 years and no one will care that the warranty was extended when 5 years have passed.

This post has been edited by dhanson865: 31 May 2011 - 02:38 PM