[DustFalcon85]

Anyone got an SSD drive? Thinking a/b getting one for my PS3 sooner or later. Anyone know what's the best company that makes SSDs? Example SanDisk, Intel, Samsung, Seagate, OCZ, Kingston an so on.

[TerminX]

You should ask again when "sooner or later" comes around... different companies have the best product available at any given time. If you were buying it today, I'd probably recommend the Crucial M500. There are some superior options (read: more expensive) but I doubt you want to spend more than the value of the console.

[Person of Color]

Another vote for the M series drives. I have the older M4 128GB and my friend has the M4 256GB. Super reliable and very fast.

Don't get anything with a Sandforce chip in it.

[DustFalcon85]

Thinking a/b getting a Samsung 500GB for my gaming laptop. Recommended?

[Person of Color]

Samsung is boss.

[DustFalcon85]

Viper The Rapper, on 09 August 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

Samsung is boss.

Meaning Samsung also a great brand. Now I'm thinking of getting an Seagate SSHD 1TB for my laptop. Already have one in my desktop. It cost cheaper than an SSD, so I won't have to break the bank.

[Tea Monster]

I have a Samsung in my desktop and it's brill. I put my old 5000rpm hard drive as a 'storage' drive and I'm a happy camper at the moment. Photoshop and Blender on C, Max, Steam and other apps on 'D'. Rock and Roll.

[DustFalcon85]

Viper The Rapper, on 22 January 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

OCZ is shit, their SSD's are mad unreliable. Sure, they may have 4 eggs, but look at the reviews. Their longevity sucks, as does their DOA rate.

Get a Crucial M4 256GB and a 3.5" bay adapter. I have the 128, my friend has the 256, they are very fast and bulletproof reliable.

http://www.newegg.co...CFUOK4AodmDgAWw

Don't get anything with a Sandforce chip in it.

Relaying this from another post. Avoiding the OCZ series. Also:

TV Tropes: Obvious Beta - Hardware said:

OCZ's "Agility 3" series of SSD hard drives featured a controller that was prone to failure, which was fixed in the next generation.

Let me guess: They had Sandforce chips in them.

[Person of Color]

You bought a Seagate product? Shit, dude...

[TerminX]

Viper The Rapper, on 13 August 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

You bought a Seagate product? Shit, dude...

I don't think WD's hybrid drives have hit general availability yet.

[The Commander]

Viper The Rapper, on 13 August 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

You bought a Seagate product? Shit, dude...

I had a external HD that lasted me a good 3 years, guess I was lucky or something.

[Radar]

I wouldn't consider an HD that only lasted three years to be a lucky pick...

[TerminX]

Depends on how much he uses it. External drives are by nature more likely to be dropped or banged around, and the enclosures they reside in are typically fairly poorly ventilated. Physical impacts and heat are two of the biggest killers of hard drives, if not the biggest.

[The Commander]

Ok I used it as my main drive for all my steam games etc. so we are looking at around half a terabyte back then and I leave my PC on 24/7.

Gives a slight idea of how it was used, took a couple of knocks around when going places etc.

[DustFalcon85]

Viper The Rapper, on 13 August 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

You bought a Seagate product? Shit, dude...

Got any beef w/ Seagate? If so, how come? SSHD's are a cross between HDDs + SDDs. Also a money saver too.

[TerminX]

Well, honestly, Seagate is pretty crap these days. It all went downhill back in 2006 when they bought Maxtor... instead of upgrading Maxtor's tech and facilities to the level of quality Seagate once held, it seems more like all of their products suffered a drop in quality so that they were at Maxtor levels. I go with WD whenever possible.

[Kathy]

What kind of drop in quality?

Edit: Just looked it up. I have a Seagate on my PC.

[TerminX]

Just general reliability concerns... Seagate used to be known for making enterprise class drives that were solid as a rock with very few failures, and now they're considered to be much more failure prone by many people. Most drives either fail within the first 30-60 days or last a really long time, however, so I'm definitely not saying Seagate just totally sucks nowadays... just that you're much more likely to get a "dud" than you would have been 10 years ago. I wish I could qualify these statements with some kind of hard information to back them up, but I can't. You will, however, find a lot of other people sharing the same opinions!

[The Commander]

I have always been curious about this, is a HD going to last longer constantly left on or would it last longer if a user switched there PC off when they are done with it. (thinking about the disk spin ups from 0RPM at boot up etc)

[TerminX]

A hard drive will last the longest if it's left spinning continuously in a temperature-controlled environment, in my experience. Powering a drive on from a full stop is actually one of the most common times a drive will completely fail... you can end up with a parked head stuck to a platter, etc.

I actually have several drives that have 8-10 YEARS of powered on time logged by SMART. You can keep them going for a really long time in the right conditions.

[Kathy]

TerminX, on 14 August 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

Most drives either fail within the first 30-60 days or last a really long time, however, so I'm definitely not saying Seagate just totally sucks nowadays... just that you're much more likely to get a "dud" than you would have been 10 years ago.

Whatever then. I have it since 2010 and regularly do backups.

[TerminX]

Yep, you're probably just fine then. A drive that goes for 3 years without issue will probably go for much, much longer in the proper environment. I really recommend everyone use active cooling (fans) on their hard drives to achieve the longest lifespan. Hard drives are cheap and easily replaced but the data you store on them might not be..

[Person of Color]

I agree with TX, every system I design or build for people has super low temps, and I always mount the drives near the front intake fan. Nothing makes a system last longer than quality parts kept cold.

In systems with one hard drive, I always mount the drive in the bay closest to the bottom of the fan. That way the top of the drive gets a nice rush of air over it and airflow is unimpeded for the rest of the system.

[DustFalcon85]

Viper The Rapper, on 14 August 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

In systems with one hard drive, I always mount the drive in the bay closest to the bottom of the fan. That way the top of the drive gets a nice rush of air over it and airflow is unimpeded for the rest of the system.

Well I just made an unlikely wise move when I put the SSHD close to the fan, while building my desktop.

Anyways. Just bought the Samsung 500GB SSD off of Amazon.com. It'll arrive tomorrow. Plan on putting it in my laptop. I need to take some precautions a/b upgrading the firmware, cloning/migrating the data from HDD to SSD, and anything else so I don't want to risk SSD failure. Any tips?

[TerminX]

Disable any drive defragmentation tools you might have, and make sure you enable TRIM support in Windows.

[DustFalcon85]

TerminX, on 15 August 2013 - 07:43 AM, said:

Disable any drive defragmentation tools you might have, and make sure you enable TRIM support in Windows.

How a/b RAID?

[TerminX]

You bought two 500GB SSDs?

[DustFalcon85]

TerminX, on 15 August 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

You bought two 500GB SSDs?

Nope. Just one. RAID is for two SSDs right?

[Kathy]

Not necessary. There are various RAIDs, but on home PC usually you merge 2 drives into RAID1 making them identical to each other(mirroring) thus you use only 1 hdd worth of size but gain redundancy(and faster read speed). It is not advisable for SSDs unless you have a shitload of money.

[TerminX]

What? Almost nobody uses RAID 1 at home... they usually use RAID 0 (striping) to increase performance.