Spirited debate about drives

[phaZed]

This was the response I thought I would get, unanimously. However, it seems that the consensus is mixed.

I think we're getting to the point where a lot of the drives are truly becoming a "commodity device" and we're now on a race to the bottom as per the costs - especially when we're talking about the "slower" 1000mbps-2000mbps memory chips. Now, the high cost, whiz-bang PCIe 5.0 drives that run 8000-10kmbps drives are the technology that command those higher costs.

So, we've seen a tremendous improvement in "cheap SSD's" over the last year or two... where there were quite a few issues with them before.

I'd still stay away from OCZ anything. My go-to cheap drives are "Teamgroup".
Lexar, Crucial have both been good, reasonably priced drives for us.

 

[GTP]

Also, beware SSD's with no cache or a pitifully sized cache.... You'll suffer from slow transfer speeds under certain circumstances when dealing with many files or large files.

Agreed!
Before I retired I was predominantly Residential/SoHo/SMB and I bought drives according to need more so than cost.
Home users didn't need a higher costing Samsung or Crucial SSD/NVMe. Their demands were much less than business clients who did get Samsung etc.

I worked within the clients budget, I didn't run around with my hair on fire because they wouldn't pay the higher cost of a faster, more expensive drive.

 

[britechguy]

These cheaper brands tend to use the cheaper "binned" memory chips - C or D quality chips. These chips generally have a lower lifespan.

Hence the reason I tend to stick with one of the many available "major names" when purchasing.

But I'd certainly not be replacing brand new SSDs shipped from the factory by any computer OEM because I'm not familiar with the name on the SSD. The same was true for RAM, too. Even though I'm more than aware about the "bean counters" those "bean counters" also know that brand reliability and cachet for the finished product matter. Someone has decided what's "good enough" who's in a better position than I am to make that assessment. So what comes with stays until/unless it fails.

 

[phaZed]

Hence the reason I tend to stick with one of the many available "major names" when purchasing.

But I'd certainly not be replacing brand new SSDs shipped from the factory by any computer OEM because I'm not familiar with the name on the SSD. The same was true for RAM, too. Even though I'm more than aware about the "bean counters" those "bean counters" also know that brand reliability and cachet for the finished product matter. Someone has decided what's "good enough" who's in a better position than I am to make that assessment. So what comes with stays until/unless it fails.

I also would not be pulling drives from premade systems. If it's in there, it's met some minimum level of reliability/quality.

 

[frase]

I never purchase WD Drives anymore, that is about it.

 

[timeshifter]

It's time to name names. If you're buying new from the factory computers whose drives have a high failure rate, such that you've taken to replacing said drives before it leaves your shop, I'd like to know what manufacturer, make and model is using these crappy drives.

 

[britechguy]

It's time to name names. If you're buying new from the factory computers whose drives have a high failure rate, such that you've taken to replacing said drives before it leaves your shop, I'd like to know what manufacturer, make and model is using these crappy drives.

No, it's not, because if you re-read the initial post nothing, absolutely nothing, is said about any of the drives that are pictured and being pre-emptively replaced ever having failed.

That's what mystifies me the most about this entire discussion. If there were a track record of failure, that's one thing. Just replacing something because "I know nothing about it and it makes me nervous" is entirely another. I won't tell anyone that they cannot do the latter. I will say that barring some clear reason, and that would be a track record of failure, I just don't see the point. It's a solution in search of a problem.

 

[lan101]

I think we're getting to the point where a lot of the drives are truly becoming a "commodity device" and we're now on a race to the bottom as per the costs - especially when we're talking about the "slower" 1000mbps-2000mbps memory chips. Now, the high cost, whiz-bang PCIe 5.0 drives that run 8000-10kmbps drives are the technology that command those higher costs.

So, we've seen a tremendous improvement in "cheap SSD's" over the last year or two... where there were quite a few issues with them before.

I'd still stay away from OCZ anything. My go-to cheap drives are "Teamgroup".
Lexar, Crucial have both been good, reasonably priced drives for us.

I just don't feel nvme drives are reliable like the older style sata ssd's were...or even old spinner drives lol. Maybe the higher end ones hold up better. In my best machine I have a samsung 990 pro series in hopes that it holds up for years so I guess we'll find out.

But the drives that are OEM like dell optiplex etc....they just don't seem to hold up. I've replaced several of those that were barely 3 maybe 4 years old tops with not a ton of mileage on it either as far as hours used.

It's a hard sell around here when someone gets a new or refurb computer and I have to try to sell them on the hard drives being a POS and they should replace it with a better one lol.

 

[timeshifter]

No, it's not, because if you re-read the initial post nothing, absolutely nothing, is said about any of the drives that are pictured and being pre-emptively replaced ever having failed.

I want to know which computers he's buying where he's seen the need or felt the need to replace the drives in a brand new computer. Are they Dell Inspirons, HP something, Acer, etc.

 

[britechguy]

I want to know which computers he's buying where he's seen the need or felt the need to replace the drives in a brand new computer.

Which is not what your primary question was. You buried this as the afterthought last night.

In fact, based on all information offered so far, we don't have any data points as to the actual functional life of the drives. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Some info on the differences of SSDs....

Are Solid State Drives / SSDs More Reliable Than HDDs?

It's good to know the difference between HDDs and SSDs and understand how the different SSD technologies affect reliability.

www.backblaze.com

And a link to various reliability tests by Backblaze...granted, not a lot of different brands/models tested...

Hard Drive Test Data

Hard Drive test data from the Backblaze data center. Backblaze is affordable, easy-to-use cloud storage.

www.backblaze.com

 

[timeshifter]

Which is not what your primary question was. You buried this as the afterthought last night.

Um, yes. It was actually. I was going to apologize for not articulating my question, then I re-read what I asked...

It's time to name names. If you're buying new from the factory computers whose drives have a high failure rate, such that you've taken to replacing said drives before it leaves your shop, I'd like to know what manufacturer, make and model is using these crappy drives.

That's what mystifies me the most about this entire discussion. If there were a track record of failure, that's one thing.

But there IS a track record for the OP. I asked in post #15 and he responded in post #17.

Pretty clear that he has experienced drive failures in OEM machines he's purchased.

 

[britechguy]

Pretty clear that he has experienced drive failures in OEM machines he's purchased.

With one brand mentioned, and no machine count mentioned at all.

Everyone who inhabits this venue knows that "the odd, idiosyncratic failure" of anything cannot be extrapolated reliably.

There is a very huge difference between having experienced a single drive failure, once, and even more so from a single brand, and there being any indication of a widespread problem.

I've had two SSD failures (one SATA one not) over the years. I can't use either one of those to generalize broadly. The data set is just too small.

The OEMs are going to install what they can get, on the spec they dictate, at any given point in time. This also means that the actual drive manufacturers will be all over the map as well. Worrying about what the OEMs choose to put in their boxes is an exercise in futility because you, I, or anyone will never know when "run with drive X" is going to end and "run with drive Y," is about to begin. You get what you get, and you don't replace it until/unless it needs replacing.

 

[sapphirescales]

The brand doesn't always tell you the quality of the drive. You need to research each individual model before making any assumptions. Samsung makes some low quality garbage drives, but they also make excellent drives. TeamGroup makes mostly garbage drives, but they have a few good models. It's all over the place. The most important things to worry about is whether or not it has a DRAM cache, what the write endurance is on the drive, and the drives SUSTAINED read/write speeds. Avoid anything with QLC NAND because it's absolute garbage. If you're looking at 2 drives of the same capacity and one has like 10x more write endurance than the other, it's because one of them uses QLC NAND. Manufacturers love to hide these details and I tend to either avoid those brands (because they're being sneaky and dishonest) or at the very least contact them and ask for the information.

 

[britechguy]

The brand doesn't always tell you the quality of the drive.

Definitely true. The information you offer in regard to doing research when considering purchases is very valuable.

The above being said, it still doesn't apply to any of us having any control over what we get when we buy a computer from any computer manufacturer or builder that's not ourselves, or a builder where you have yourself specified the drive.

The real question here is whether it's justifiable to do pre-emptive drive swapping on brand new machines because one is not familiar with the component parts inside. My unequivocal answer: no.

It's one thing if something known to you to be flaky is involved, but that was not the case originally set out. And when you have no information, none, you rely on the manufacturers having done their due diligence. HP, Asus, LG, Lenovo, etc., are not putting components in their machines that they believe are going to be causing widespread failures (at least not within the warranty period, and for electronics, most fail very early in their service life or very late indeed).

 

[fincoder]

I'd like to know what manufacturer, make and model is using these crappy drives.

Yes. Why won't the OP @ComputerDave answer this question I asked originally and has been repeated by timeshifter?

That pic does NOT show drives found in brand-name PCs. Even cheap consumer PCs use better ones than those pictured.

 

[sapphirescales]

The real question here is whether it's justifiable to do pre-emptive drive swapping on brand new machines because one is not familiar with the component parts inside. My unequivocal answer: no.

Just as a matter of course, on all machines? I agree that's a waste. But it depends on the client. If it's for a client who you know uses write-heavy applications, then it might make sense to replace the drive right away with a drive that has much higher higher write endurance. Or if it's a client where downtime needs to be minimized because it costs a lot more than the computer when they go down, then replacing the drive with the highest quality drive that's compatible with the system is a good idea. Or, and I experience this a lot, it's a client with money who specifically wants "the most reliable parts" in their computer because they don't like having to come in often, then yeah, I'll put a Samsung 9100 Pro SSD in there even if all they use it for is web browsing. In all of these cases I don't just do it however. I offer it as an option to the client and if they say no and the SSD dies in a year, that's on them. It was their choice to gamble, and they lost. They could have just as easily won though. You're right, most SSDs that come with OEM machines are... fine. Maybe not the best quality stuff out there, but they should get the job done for 99% of people and last at least a few years. That being said, I personally would never use an SSD lower quality than one of the top tier Samsung's because the last thing I want to do is have to repair my own system. I actually use Enterprise drives now personally with petabytes of write endurance. I don't need that much write endurance but I can find deals on these drives quite regularly. I just bought a bunch of 15.36TB Samsung drives for like $800 apiece new old stock.

 

[HCHTech]

We have pretty much standardized on Samsung drives - that makes the procedure for swapping the same for everything, and simplifies our stock as well. I've never felt pressure from clients to move to a cheaper option. The only time we've deviated is due to availability during the pandemic or for server applications. I always prefer drives intended for servers - Samsung DCTs or Intel units mostly.