6 ms·

SSD stress testing finds Intel might be the only reliable drive manufacturer

31 points by prajjwal 13y ago

JSno 13y ago
academic paper and presentation about this topic. https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast13/understanding-robustness-ssds-under-power-fault https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast13/understanding-robus...
midas007 13y ago
So I have an OWC 480 GB Pro 6G that, at the time, was $1.5k. It has an interesting intermittent failure mode: If the temperature of the laptop goes below 16 C (60 F), the system won't recognize it. Guess what the problem is? Condensation. It collect inside the SSD's plastic clamshell and shorts some of the pins. They failed to seal it and failed to include a desiccant in that space, or just pot in the whole thing in epoxy. Conclusion: Cheap, poorly engineered and poorly tested.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
yskchu 13y ago
This is just republishing of a ssd report which was already on hacker news a few days ago, old news.
- taspeotis 13y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973179
  - shaneofalltrad 13y ago
    Not only old news but this site is a link farm, scroll down to this recommended blog (http://lifefactopia.com/shopping/m1/?mb=out&sub=usm1&aid=h44 http://lifefactopia.com/shopping/m1/?mb=out&sub=usm1&aid=h44). Ii is for QuiBids a full on scam.
happycube 13y ago
Interestingly, both intel drives reviewed use their own controllers. I doubt their Sandforce drives would do as well!
orik 13y ago
Didn't test samsung huh? I've been exclusively using Samsung and Intel SSD for production machines- however I'm not too worried about the power cutting out. With dual power supplies and several diesel generators in my datacenter, I'll be okay.
- sjwright 13y ago
  I've heard numerous stories of racks losing power for innumerable stupid reasons, such as mislabeled wiring, misconfigured wiring, misguided UPS migration procedures, and yes, in one case, where cleaners tripped over a cable. Point is, even the best systems aren't infallible. It's always, always a matter of reducing and/or managing risks.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    We had one of our racks losing power for a whole day because smoke started pouring out of a UPS at the data centre, triggering the fire alarm, causing the fire department to demand a full shutdown before they could send people in... No fire, but a failed component in the UPS. Supposedly the first time the manufacturer had ever seen that failure mode. But that's the second full data-centre outage we've been affected by, in two different data centres operated by two different companies. Which makes me very happy to have equipment in two entirely separate locations.
reinhardt1053 13y ago
What about Corsair?
dm2 13y ago
I have a few SanDisk Extreme SSDs and have found them very reliable. http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-2-5-Inch-Solid-SDSSDXP-240G-G25/dp/B00COF7E3K/ http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-2-5-Inch-Solid-SDSSDXP... It seems like they picked very random SSDs to test, and everything from 8GB to 480GB drives, but only 6 drives total. The website below indicates that smaller capacity drives will wear out faster, so the original posts tests are completely flawed. http://ssdendurancetest.com/ http://ssdendurancetest.com/

31 points by prajjwal 13y ago

JSno 13y ago

academic paper and presentation about this topic. https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast13/understanding-robustness-ssds-under-power-fault https://www.usenix.org/conference/fast13/understanding-robus...

midas007 13y ago

So I have an OWC 480 GB Pro 6G that, at the time, was $1.5k. It has an interesting intermittent failure mode: If the temperature of the laptop goes below 16 C (60 F), the system won't recognize it. Guess what the problem is? Condensation. It collect inside the SSD's plastic clamshell and shorts some of the pins. They failed to seal it and failed to include a desiccant in that space, or just pot in the whole thing in epoxy. Conclusion: Cheap, poorly engineered and poorly tested.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

yskchu 13y ago

This is just republishing of a ssd report which was already on hacker news a few days ago, old news.

taspeotis 13y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973179
- shaneofalltrad 13y ago
  Not only old news but this site is a link farm, scroll down to this recommended blog (http://lifefactopia.com/shopping/m1/?mb=out&sub=usm1&aid=h44 http://lifefactopia.com/shopping/m1/?mb=out&sub=usm1&aid=h44). Ii is for QuiBids a full on scam.

happycube 13y ago

Interestingly, both intel drives reviewed use their own controllers. I doubt their Sandforce drives would do as well!

orik 13y ago

Didn't test samsung huh? I've been exclusively using Samsung and Intel SSD for production machines- however I'm not too worried about the power cutting out. With dual power supplies and several diesel generators in my datacenter, I'll be okay.

sjwright 13y ago
I've heard numerous stories of racks losing power for innumerable stupid reasons, such as mislabeled wiring, misconfigured wiring, misguided UPS migration procedures, and yes, in one case, where cleaners tripped over a cable. Point is, even the best systems aren't infallible. It's always, always a matter of reducing and/or managing risks.
- vidarh 13y ago
  We had one of our racks losing power for a whole day because smoke started pouring out of a UPS at the data centre, triggering the fire alarm, causing the fire department to demand a full shutdown before they could send people in... No fire, but a failed component in the UPS. Supposedly the first time the manufacturer had ever seen that failure mode. But that's the second full data-centre outage we've been affected by, in two different data centres operated by two different companies. Which makes me very happy to have equipment in two entirely separate locations.

reinhardt1053 13y ago

What about Corsair?

dm2 13y ago

I have a few SanDisk Extreme SSDs and have found them very reliable. http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-2-5-Inch-Solid-SDSSDXP-240G-G25/dp/B00COF7E3K/ http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-2-5-Inch-Solid-SDSSDXP... It seems like they picked very random SSDs to test, and everything from 8GB to 480GB drives, but only 6 drives total. The website below indicates that smaller capacity drives will wear out faster, so the original posts tests are completely flawed. http://ssdendurancetest.com/ http://ssdendurancetest.com/