I had a desktop with an ocz....every 2 months the ssd hard drive fails....i have a warranty, but its a pain in the you know what....i googled, turns out ocz ssd are NOTORIOUS for failing hard drives....im getting a new hard drive today, i want a drive that is VERY reliable....the hard drive equivalent of a toyota corolla.....

 

should i go with a HDD or an SSD? and which brand is the most reliable?

from my experience HDD's are more reliable, but that's just because SSD's are still fairly new. If you go HDD I'm a fan of Seagate, can't say as I've had many problems with HDD's though. If you go SSD I'm afraid I don't have much personal experience with them; however, reading reviews on them at newegg.com is typically a safe route to take (looks like Crucial and Corsair have a large number of good reviews).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233312

 

Built a new battlestation about 3 months ago with one of these. There's a 120gb version too at 1/2 the price. 3 months isn't long but it's been flawless. Brand-wise I'd read that OCZ had problems like you describe with their early gen. SSDs, but they've been sorted out since. I don't have 1st or 2nd hand experience to confirm this though, just posts around Tom's Hardware, Overclockers forums, etc.

 

 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339

 

Never had a problem with these either, and pretty quiet. Have one paired with the Corsair SSD linked above.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Joesixxpack

would a mechanical drive last me longer than an ssd?

 

iv heard of mechanical drives lasting for years and years

I'm building a new PC in the next week and I'm currently planning to buy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

 

If anyone has reviews on this or opinions on which are better this could sway me too.

would a mechanical drive last me longer than an ssd?

 

iv heard of mechanical drives lasting for years and years

 

It should. Personally the best I've used is Western Digitals; preferring caviar blues. Caviar blacks are faster but I've had some that I found annoyingly noisy. EDIT: My last caviar black I put in a padded little cooling box, made the noise just fine.

 

Only used 1 seagate years ago and it was good too. Tried a maxtor diamond-whatever model when they were popular. It crapped out early, was junk.

 

I don't have years of desktop SSD experience to talk from and never had a failure, but from any credible reports I've read their life expectancy (or at least the amount of time to expect great performance from them) is shorter than a quality mechanical. Even if you do it all properly in terms of set up, writing/deleting, and storage on a separate HDD. More prone to different types of failures also.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Joesixxpack

I would recommend a combination of the two. Get a smaller SSD drive to put your operating system on, and a larger HDD for storing all your files. Make the SSD your D drive, and it should protect you better against worm viruses and the like. And having all your files on the HDD should reduce wear and tear on the SSD while not sacrificing speed.

I would recommend a combination of the two. Get a smaller SSD drive to put your operating system on, and a larger HDD for storing all your files. Make the SSD your D drive, and it should protect you better against worm viruses and the like. And having all your files on the HDD should reduce wear and tear on the SSD while not sacrificing speed.

 

^ This.

 

Side Note: It appears the scuba jawa look is favored by builders....

I have a decent video card, quad core processors, 3 ghz each....6 gigs of ram, i had an ocz SSD the game ran fast, if i get a good mechanical HDD it will be more reliable, but will it be a huge difference in speed/performance/lag?

 

 

Or i could just get a good ssd drive this time, it wont be as crap as the ocz ones...a good corsair one maybe...and take a risk, but atleast it will be fast?

Edited November 2, 2012 by Darth_Bond

I have 2 Plextor SSD's running in RAID 0 for 2 years now without a problem.

 

I recently bought a Mushkin SSD to store games on, and I've also had no problems with them.

 

At work, I have 4 other Mushkin SSD's....and haven't had any problems with those, either.

 

I don't use mechanical drives anymore, except for external storage.

 

Technically, SSD's should last longer the mechanical drives....simple because there's less moving pieces to break and less heat, which is how most of mechanical drives fail.

 

There's programs out there that let you know how well your SSD's are running. Most of mine have a 8+ year life expectancy.

 

Note: I don't store music/photo's/movies on my main rig, I store them on a external. If you were planning on storing alot of stuff, then a combination (as mentioned above) would be the best bet.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Skoobie

Easy solution as I just built a new comp 3 months ago.

 

Went with a SSD+HDD combo 1st but found it a pain to get the stuff I wanted on the SSD as most of my games are on Steam. There were also various other problems I won't go into. Finally went with a Hybrid drive that is like a normal HDD with a small SSD cache, it works fantastic and is much cheaper than the alternative combination. Windows 7 boots in about 15secs for me and the stuff you play or use the most has information in the cache so it will run and load faster.

 

This is the Hybrid I ended up with and it's great no problems whatsoever: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148837

ok, after doing hours of research, im going with intel for an SSD, theyre most likely to be reliable, unlike the 2 ocz drives i bought, apparently the problem with these other ssds is some company named sandforce has been selling bad firmware/controllers to alot of manufacturers

ok, after doing hours of research, im going with intel for an SSD, theyre most likely to be reliable, unlike the 2 ocz drives i bought, apparently the problem with these other ssds is some company named sandforce has been selling bad firmware/controllers to alot of manufacturers

 

a) Intel's are a little more expensive, but definitely some of the best SSD's out there.

 

b) Yes and no. Sandforce had a issue with their controllers for a short time, but those were mostly fixed (eventually) by firmware updates.

 

Unfortunately, OCZ's have a reputation for failure. If you know anyone who is a retailer selling them, ask them about the return rate of OCZ's compared to other SSD's.

 

Saying that.....OCZ apparently solved their problem too, and the new Vortex 4 series is suppose to be pretty good. However, I won't use OCZ products in my personal PC, or any I build for others. Their reputation (with both SSD's and PSU's) have soured me.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Skoobie

I had a desktop with an ocz....every 2 months the ssd hard drive fails....i have a warranty, but its a pain in the you know what....i googled, turns out ocz ssd are NOTORIOUS for failing hard drives....im getting a new hard drive today, i want a drive that is VERY reliable....the hard drive equivalent of a toyota corolla.....

 

should i go with a HDD or an SSD? and which brand is the most reliable?

 

I've been through most brands of SSD (been using them in two computers for about 5 years now), and yeah, I would avoid OCZ unless you like RMAs or have cash to spend on replacements.

 

My desktop currently has a Samsung 830 which has been working well since the spring (upgraded from a Intel X25M G2), but REALLY needs trim support so make sure you have the right chipset drivers installed if you get one. It has actually been good enough I would consider the new 840 as my next one.

 

Intel SSDs have generally been rock solid, only had one die (an old 80Gb gen 1). My laptop has been using a different 160G X25M G2 for about 3 years now.

 

Had a crucial m4 in the laptop for a short time...but the performance was spotty, and I went back to intel.

 

HDDs are reliable as heck by comparison, but the performance difference is just too great for me to ever go that far back.

 

One last piece of advice...if you use disk encryption, prefer a drive whose firmware does NOT rely on compression for performance.

Edited November 2, 2012 by NoFishing

yeah the ocz suck.....they may have improved them, maybe by now, but after spending all that money why go back?

 

im def getting the intel ssd

I hope you disable hibernation and defragmentation as it is written on SSD manuals.

Good SSD setup is with more RAM and set to absolute minimum page file also.

(SSD controllers fragment files to prolong live of SSD cells, defragment shorten live of SSD as hell).

It is interesting how heavy is this game cache arena file load on SSD?

kingston ssd for over a year without trouble

or you could just do 2 hdd's one smaller on for osi and other main programs and another larger one for everything else that you want to keep when you reformat.

I would recommend a combination of the two. Get a smaller SSD drive to put your operating system on, and a larger HDD for storing all your files. Make the SSD your D drive, and it should protect you better against worm viruses and the like. And having all your files on the HDD should reduce wear and tear on the SSD while not sacrificing speed.

This is the way to go for sure. It is what I have done. I have three SSD's in my PC and one 1.5TB HD for storage. One SSD is just for the OS, one SSD is just for Games, and the other SSD is sort of a spare since it had a Firmware issue out of the gate. That was a 60GB Corsair Force 3 GT.

 

a) Intel's are a little more expensive, but definitely some of the best SSD's out there.

 

b) Yes and no. Sandforce had a issue with their controllers for a short time, but those were mostly fixed (eventually) by firmware updates.

 

Unfortunately, OCZ's have a reputation for failure. If you know anyone who is a retailer selling them, ask them about the return rate of OCZ's compared to other SSD's.

 

Saying that.....OCZ apparently solved their problem too, and the new Vortex 4 series is suppose to be pretty good. However, I won't use OCZ products in my personal PC, or any I build for others. Their reputation (with both SSD's and PSU's) have soured me.

 

Personally I have had good luck with OZC products in the past. (Cross Fingers to not jinx myself now.)

 

My first SSD was a Corsair Force 3GT 60GB and out of the gate it had a Firmware issues that took them a little while to fix. It runs alright now but not as good as my OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD that I replaced it with. I bought a second one of the OCZ SSD's since then. Both still run great with no issues.

 

That Corsair though gave me a bad taste sort of speak. I am hesitant on buying another one of there SSD's again. Not to say that they do not have any good ones. I just happened to buy the one series that had a bad Firmware on release which took them a while to fix. Just bad timing really.

 

My next one might be a Vertex 4 if not that then an Intel Brand.

 

 

 

 

On a side Note:

I read reviews all the time. Especially before I buy something.

But...

Unless the reviews are pretty much leaning toward one side I do not put to much stock in them until I try it myself. I have seen many products with such mixed reviews that if I relied upon such things I would not have anything.

 

Not many are willing to take a chance though unless there is a sure fire choice. Which is alright. If you do not feel that a product is for you then do not buy it. My advice to people is to not be scared on trying everything based on some reviews.

 

From my experience. A lot of reviews are just based in luck. First hand experiences sort of speak. Even some of mine. Like my experience with the Corsair SSD. I would not suggest to others that they do not try that brand though.

 

Many brands are going to have people that have had both Good and Bad luck with them. Brands like Logitech, Razer, Corsair, G'Skill, OCZ, Intel, and so on. Each having had reviews based on a lot of first hand experiences. Looking through the brands you will see large mixed reviews and you can even tell from a lot of which ones they are.

 

So for me I can say that I have good luck with the OCZ brand as well, and bad luck with things like Corsair and Logitech. But I know that not everyone has. The reviews are evidence that some have had both good and bad luck with them. That is why I do not always put to much into a lot of reviews. The only time I do is when the reviews lean toward one side so much that it is obvious. For me OCZ has not been like that. At least for my Vertex 3 and definitely not when I bought it.

 

 

@ OP

So Darth_Bond good luck on your search for the right product. I hope you find one that you like and one that you have good luck with.

yep, i just got an intel ssd drive, its fast, and its bigger than my old ocz crap

If reliability is your #1 goal, stick with mechanical drives (HDD). Seagate has always treated me well. Intel SSDs are pretty reliable, but the SSD technology in general just isn't as mature. Like some other posters, I run with a combo of SSD (OS and some games) and HDD (most programs that don't need a speed boost and crucial files like pictures).

well honestly, i just backup all the important stuff on a usb drive(32 gigs, kingston) but it just got really annoying taking my desktop to the shop every few short months to replace the crap ocz drive...even though i had warranty and it was free, it would take 2-3 weeks to order the new drive, recieve the drive, and finally replace it and fix everything...

well honestly, i just backup all the important stuff on a usb drive(32 gigs, kingston) but it just got really annoying taking my desktop to the shop every few short months to replace the crap ocz drive...even though i had warranty and it was free, it would take 2-3 weeks to order the new drive, recieve the drive, and finally replace it and fix everything...

 

Is that warranty for the actual Desktop or just the SSD?

If it was just for the SSD I would suggest still replacing it to keep it as a spare drive.

But...

Store bought PC Warranties can be such a pain. I had to deal with a few throughout the years for some Laptops that we got in our family, and none of them worked out well. We had more frustrations and headaches with the warranties than we did with the actual problems.

I am glad I build my personal Desktops.

Edited November 2, 2012 by WarbNull

the warranty is for the entire desktop, which included the ssd....ofcourse the hard drive was the problem, so i got the new intel ssd drive today, got it installed, runs well....it has 5 year warranty on it...the new intel ssd drive warranty doesnt affect the pc warranty, i have 2 warranties atm.