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According to this older article Intel SSD were the only ones that reliably stored data in a write-sync-powerloss scenario: http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_analysis.

According to this older article Intel SSD were the only ones that reliably stored data in a write-sync-powerloss scenario: http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_analysis.html http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_analysis.html But if they also completely brick themselves at EOL then it doesn't like a good choice, so ... are there any reliable SSDs??

personZ 12y ago
are there any reliable SSDs?? For most rational definitions of reliable, absolutely. In this case inexpensive MLC or even TLC drives withstood hundreds of TB or more of writes before failing, clearly indicating their remaining lifespan the entire time. In the common applications of these drives, they're unlikely to ever see tens of TB of writes. They can't last forever. It is odd that the Intel "bricks" itself, and that sounds more like a fault than anything (I'm at a loss to explain how that makes sense as a behavior, beyond maybe "hiding your data after you've lost the ability to wipe it"), but again it was clearly communicating the entire time that its death was imminent. As an aside, that power test you linked was an extreme test of thousands upon thousands of abrupt power cuts while a write-back cache was enabled and populated, against a very small number of drives. It is not relevant to consumer products (where few or no drives have power retention), but it's even odder in the enterprise space, where power assurance is at the rack or even center scale, not component by component.
- edwintorok 12y ago
  Good point about "communicating the entire time that its death was imminent". Regarding the power tests I think the relevance is that the drives lie to the OS about sync, and just claim they completed it when its in their cache, and then hope they can write it to flash before power loss / before the capacitor runs out. The cache wouldn't be a problem if it could be reliably flushed. As it is they will corrupt the integrity of anything that relies on syncs / write barriers like databases.

personZ 12y ago

are there any reliable SSDs?? For most rational definitions of reliable, absolutely. In this case inexpensive MLC or even TLC drives withstood hundreds of TB or more of writes before failing, clearly indicating their remaining lifespan the entire time. In the common applications of these drives, they're unlikely to ever see tens of TB of writes. They can't last forever. It is odd that the Intel "bricks" itself, and that sounds more like a fault than anything (I'm at a loss to explain how that makes sense as a behavior, beyond maybe "hiding your data after you've lost the ability to wipe it"), but again it was clearly communicating the entire time that its death was imminent. As an aside, that power test you linked was an extreme test of thousands upon thousands of abrupt power cuts while a write-back cache was enabled and populated, against a very small number of drives. It is not relevant to consumer products (where few or no drives have power retention), but it's even odder in the enterprise space, where power assurance is at the rack or even center scale, not component by component.

edwintorok 12y ago
Good point about "communicating the entire time that its death was imminent". Regarding the power tests I think the relevance is that the drives lie to the OS about sync, and just claim they completed it when its in their cache, and then hope they can write it to flash before power loss / before the capacitor runs out. The cache wouldn't be a problem if it could be reliably flushed. As it is they will corrupt the integrity of anything that relies on syncs / write barriers like databases.