despite using and abusing their SSD as daily OS drive and some have written A LOT of TBs.

I'm definitely guilty of that. :giggle2: Great run everyone, feels like we started just yesterday!

I thought the most questionable part of SSD reliability was the lack of usage. I remember hearing how enterprise SSDs had compromised data integrity after a week of being powered off. I also recall hearing specifically only enterprise SSDs had issues, but consumer-level models were generally reliable. I think at least one of the 10 testers should've filled the drive with various sized files and then leave the PC off for a full month between tests. Then do SHA256 sums or whatever to make sure everything looked correct.

I only have SSD's in my PC, so I'm not worried at all. Glad to see my belief is backed up by these results.

I'm definitely guilty of that. :giggle2: Great run everyone, feels like we started just yesterday!

It's definitely been a great run, and you're right about saying it feels like we started yesterday. Time really does fly.

FireFox does a LOT of writes to my SSD, I know I have up to about 20 windows open each with Many tabs. I have moved the Temp Internet files directory to a RAM drive to reduce writes and also have moved my pagefile to the same RAM drive. Initially the pagefile was used very little at all for a long time. However more recent changes to the way FireFox works have seen it using the pagefile Heavily despite my PC having plenty of free RAM (32GB installed). It is now to the point that FF over a day pulls close to 10GB or pagefile !!! Despite these efforts my Samsung 512GB 850 Pro has: 487.5 days of on time 24,242GB written This equates to about 49GB or writes per day. FF is responsible for almost all of that despite the efforts I made to reduce SSD writes. I know this from using an app to records all system writes over a period of time. My previous SSD and OCZ 256GB Vertex 4 shat itself and lost it's file table (once I worked out what happened I was able to recover most of my data thankfully). OCZ web support were very helpful and told me to go through certain steps to reset my SSD and told me it would be as good as new and would almost 100% not suffer the same issue a second time. By this point I had my new 850 Pro so the OCZ drive sat on a shelf for about a year after which I installed Linux on it for my spare system.... which crashed after about 30mins use. - thereafter it would always crap out and no longer be seen by the system after about 5 mins use. I've tried quite a few times, but it has a serious issue now. It was a damn good SSD while it worked.

My Crucial MX100 is about 2.5 years old and is at 96% health. Sure does require some care and I have HDD's on the system to do the heavier workload, but SSD's are really great tech.

FireFox does a LOT of writes to my SSD, I know I have up to about 20 windows open each with Many tabs. I have moved the Temp Internet files directory to a RAM drive to reduce writes and also have moved my pagefile to the same RAM drive. Initially the pagefile was used very little at all for a long time. However more recent changes to the way FireFox works have seen it using the pagefile Heavily despite my PC having plenty of free RAM (32GB installed). It is now to the point that FF over a day pulls close to 10GB or pagefile !!!

I just disable the caching in my web browsers entirely, on PCs that involve an SSD anyway. The performance improvement of the cache is nearly negligible in my eyes, and I don't have to worry about anything being outdated. I find it strange that your paging file got utilized so much despite your large amount of RAM. Maybe you had a memory leak in one of the extensions? The way Windows handles paging files is great for those who don't have enough memory, but it is incredibly inefficient for those who have an abundant amount like yourself. I wish there was a Windows equivalent to Linux's "swappiness". I'm considering using my spare M.2 slot for a 16-32GB SSD for caching purposes. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any drives that small that are PCIe based; a SATA-based drive would be slower and have worse latency.

I have been using an OZC Agility 3 60GB since launch and it still has 99% life left!

I thought the most questionable part of SSD reliability was the lack of usage. I remember hearing how enterprise SSDs had compromised data integrity after a week of being powered off. I also recall hearing specifically only enterprise SSDs had issues, but consumer-level models were generally reliable. I think at least one of the 10 testers should've filled the drive with various sized files and then leave the PC off for a full month between tests. Then do SHA256 sums or whatever to make sure everything looked correct.

I remember that too, was from a very reliable source too. Consumer SSDs were also said to have their data compromised in a powered off state after periods leading up to 1 year as I remember it. Pretty worrying really, surprised I've not heard any more about it since then. Would be very interesting to hear an update or some testing on newer generations of SSDs.

I thought the most questionable part of SSD reliability was the lack of usage. I remember hearing how enterprise SSDs had compromised data integrity after a week of being powered off.

Many SSDs show data and/or firmware corruption within a month if left with no power source. That isn't really a realistic usage pattern though as most users apply power periodically. As for storage drives that remains a primary concern. It is a sad deal what happened to OCZ. They had many, many missteps and tried to do too much with too little. They had good support, great top end products but some junk in the value segment. Value drives should have been slower but not less reliable but again that isn't realistic. Many users bought Agility drives and the infamous Petrol and - splat - time for new undies. OCZ as a brand is strange even now. They have a nice RD400 that is competitive with the 950/960 Pro and the VX500 is a nice drive. Toshiba seems to be affecting support, as their Windows-based utility has been "temporarily unavailable" for a couple months. I assume it has compatibility problems with CU since the alt versions are available. Apparently the lights are off in that department now.

Many SSDs show data and/or firmware corruption within a month if left with no power source. That isn't really a realistic usage pattern though as most users apply power periodically. As for storage drives that remains a primary concern.

Agreed, but a week of not using an SSD is within reason. Many times I have had my most high-end PC off for longer than 2 weeks. For servers, a week of downtime is a bit weird. IIRC, some enterprise SSDs lost data just from being idle for too long, which is a bit worrisome. Generally though, I'm not really concerned about data integrity. Anything important to me is on redundant storage.

Toshiba seems to be affecting support, as their Windows-based utility has been "temporarily unavailable" for a couple months. I assume it has compatibility problems with CU since the alt versions are available. Apparently the lights are off in that department now.

Aside from maybe firmware updates (which are uncommon), what exactly was the utility for? Most utilities that come with SSDs are just bloatware, offering features that you can do without installing anything or a very basic SMART tool could do. Worst-case scenario, you might have to look up what the IDs are.

My Dads PC still uses the OCZ Vertex (1) from 2009 ^^

My Dads PC still uses the OCZ Vertex (1) from 2009 ^^

Both my parent's and my sister's laptops have my two OCZ Vertex 1 120GB drives that I had raided back in 2009. Both use their laptops fairly often. Both still run. In fact out of the 6 OCZ Vertex drives I bought, 2xV1, 2xV2, 2xV4 only one Vertex 2 drive died. The rest are all still running active machines.

Never used an OCZ ssd and lately only using Samsung drives. I remember this "contest" and Solfaur is right, its been like it started yesterday. Time is passing so fast. 😀

Aside from maybe firmware updates (which are uncommon), what exactly was the utility for?

Firmware updates as you noted, which Toshiba/OCZ do have available for their TL100, TR150, and RD400. It also performs SE, should you have an older drive and require a fresh start or performance restoration. Less common but necessary for my purposes, it gives DAS control so I can have correct activity lights in my 6 drive dock. It's minor but still if advertised like it is on product pages, their own website, and box it should actually exist for use.

I thought the most questionable part of SSD reliability was the lack of usage. I remember hearing how enterprise SSDs had compromised data integrity after a week of being powered off. I also recall hearing specifically only enterprise SSDs had issues, but consumer-level models were generally reliable. I think at least one of the 10 testers should've filled the drive with various sized files and then leave the PC off for a full month between tests. Then do SHA256 sums or whatever to make sure everything looked correct.

That data was from end of life SSD's, not fully functional drives.

Firmware updates as you noted, which Toshiba/OCZ do have available for their TL100, TR150, and RD400. It also performs SE, should you have an older drive and require a fresh start or performance restoration. Less common but necessary for my purposes, it gives DAS control so I can have correct activity lights in my 6 drive dock. It's minor but still if advertised like it is on product pages, their own website, and box it should actually exist for use.

What is SE? Secure erase? Because if so, there are other programs for that. If you keep the Windows disk optimization enabled, that should be all you need for performance restoration. But for me personally, I don't use SSDs+Windows for long enough to know how fragmentation and such gets in the way. My experience with SSDs+Linux has remained pretty consistent. Assuming I fully understand what DAS does, I'm sure there's some software alternative, though I'm not aware of any [free] ones that are Windows compatible. At the very least, the Windows 8+ task manager is pretty useful when monitoring usage between multiple drives. If you have a drive dock, shouldn't that be responsible for controlling the LEDs? Also I think there are SATA controllers that allow for individual LEDs per port. One of the nice perks of ATA was the status pin could be tapped into.

I have two OCZ Vertex 4's. They have been solid, never and issue.

Hello. I Got Crucial M4 250 GB just after review here on Guru, running like new since then , about 6 years. SMART says 99% health , no errors , everything looks like new. I wonder when it will die ? It doesnt report total GB written tho , dont know why....

Hello. I Got Crucial M4 250 GB just after review here on Guru, running like new since then , about 6 years. SMART says 99% health , no errors , everything looks like new. I wonder when it will die ? It doesnt report total GB written tho , dont know why....

Try crystal disk info and see if it reports there.