[Noel]

I'm new at this! What can expect in terms of service life in a fast SSD solution for desktop applications? The apps I use will not involve a lot of write operations per se...

Thanks in advance,

Noel

[FastMHz]

The latest generation from the big names are pretty reliable. Of course, always keep a backup image on a platter drive because SSDs are still a young, evolving technology.

I personally recommend the Samsung drives, since they're made entirely in-house.

[Brian]

They're very reliable, most failures will happen fast, but in general, they're more reliable than hard drives. And with prices coming down well below $1/GB, consumers will continue to keep up the adoption.

[Bytebite]

I can recommend Samsung 830 SSDs, but like the other already mentioned, please make backups on a hdd. A drive failure is much less hassle having an update on site!

[compwizrd]

My experience over the last year has sadly been with OCZ's.. they just drop dead. We switched over to the Intel 520's and so far it's been trouble free.

[Beenthere]

Noel, on 14 October 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

I'm new at this! What can expect in terms of service life in a fast SSD solution for desktop applications? The apps I use will not involve a lot of write operations per se...

Thanks in advance,

Noel

If you do your homework you'll find most SSDs are not all that reliable. When someone says they've been using one for a year or whatever and have had no problems, that is a sample of (1). If you check any of the PC hardware forums you will find many people that have had to do firmware upgrades to fix problems. You'll also see that sometimes these SSDs refuse to work with specific hardware or that the size of the drive magically drops or that the SSD just disappears from your system along with your data.

If you're going down the SSD route I would only suggest it if you can and want to deal with all of the very real issues that exist with this "immature technology" as AnandTech calls it. You might have minimal issues or you might have a nightmare. By doing your homework you should be able to narrow the SSD options down to the more reliable, lower hassle models. With SSD makers introducing newer models every few months, there is a lot of untested, half-baked products rushed into the marketplace for great profits as the customers are unpaid Beta testers.

[phog]

Beenthere, on 22 October 2012 - 10:52 AM, said:

If you do your homework you'll find most SSDs are not all that reliable.

Haha.

SSD's are a massive improvement, and there is a reason they are insanely popular these days. I switched to SSD's years ago, and as long as you use a reliable brand, you should switch immediately. It is by far one of the best performance increases to be gained in a PC.

I don't know why Beenthere is so jaded, we rolled them out in our enterprise months ago, and people love them. I own six at home, and all are still running rock solid (as well as the very first Intel I bought years ago.)

Just my opinion, but I've had great luck with Samsung, Intel, and Corsair. My office has Samsung 830's.

[continuum]

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You'll also see that sometimes these SSDs refuse to work with specific hardware or that the size of the drive magically drops or that the SSD just disappears from your system along with your data.

Same things have happened with harddisk too. Plenty of firmware issues to boot too (Seagate 7200.11's, Western Digital Velociraptors, etc. all have had significant firmware issues).

The rule remains, any storage device is vulnerable to failure. Keep backups accordingly, and if you truly are concerned, stick to slightly older, more proven SSDs on the market that have a known good track record. Last year that was probably Intel 320-series SSDs as far as affordable goes, this year the Samsung 830-series is probably safe to add to that list, as well as the Crucial m4 (again, assuming you are on current firmware). Who knows.

(technically the Intel 510-series also seems pretty solid, but its volume was pretty low compared some others, so not sure on it. The Intel 520-series seems decent too... but when you tear open a shipping box from HP's Elitebook line or Lenovo's Thinkpad T-series line and find only Intel SSDs in the couple of dozen, if not hundreds, you've worked on... that's a vote of confidence from a major vendor ).

[Beenthere]

^^^ I respectfully disagree.

I have not had to do a HDD firmware update in 25+ years of building and using PCs. I've also never had a HDD change size or disappear from the system. I have never had an issue installing a HDD in a PC. While my experience may be limited to a few hundred PCs, I think you will find that my experience is typical of HDDs that have existed since the 80' when I started building PCs.

If people do their homework they will see the many compatibility and reliability issues that still exist with consumer grade SSDs. These issues exist due to an inadequate validation process. Intel has not been immune to problems with the SSDs.

I fully understand that some folks think the SSDs are the next best thing to sliced bread and bottled beer... (Actually neither is an improvement). Each persaon can decide what their tolerance and pain level is for "immature SSD technology" and if they desire to be a Beta tester or if they should wait another 6-12 months as AnandTech advises, in hopes that the SSD mfgs. will get their act together. Knowledge is power and the Net makes it easy to educate yourself.

[continuum]

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I have not had to do a HDD firmware update in 25+ years of building and using PCs. I've also never had a HDD change size or disappear from the system.

You, sir, have lead a charmed existence.

I have encountered all of these things on a regular basis. Then again, my sample size where I am is many, many orders of magnitude bigger than even the craziest home user will get into, both in new production and what we support long-term.

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If people do their homework they will see the many compatibility and reliability issues that still exist with consumer grade SSDs.

Not arguing that.

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Intel has not been immune to problems with the SSDs.

Not arguing that either. My experience is that both SSDs and HDDs have firmware issues, neither is perfectly reliable (nor sufficiently reliable to allow anyone reasonable to skip backups!), and even going with major name brands and established product lines can still lead to issues from both harddisks and solid state drives.

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r if they should wait another 6-12 months as AnandTech advises

Question is, when is it enough. Several years of field experience? A year? Honestly, that's up to the user to decide. With Intel X-25M G2's and Intel 320's now in the field for 2+, 3+ years, some would say that is reasonable enough, and some would say no, it's not enough. *shrugs*