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I thought I had decided on the Corsair Force GT or the OCZ Vertex 3. But then I read about all the sandforce controller problems and blue screen or death issues. I have no idea what to get now, I am going to be spending upwards of a 120 quid on something I would like a guarantee I will have no stability issues.
Is crucial m4 now my best bet?
Samsung 830 is your best bet, it has its own controller and there is no known BSOD problems. It also gets super fast Firmware updates as its all in house
There is for every Sandforce based SSD, and also the Marvell ones. Just have a read on the Crucial forums, as well as Corsair forums, and OCZ etc etc
The Crucial M4 is fine - the Marvel ones did have some compatability issues with certain laptop motherboards but this affects virtually all SSDs. Certain M4s also did have an issue for a very short period recently - however it has been solved within a few weeks by a firmware update.
The Sandforce drives are not comparable though in terms of firmware updates to the Intel and Crucial drives. The BSOD issue with the latest Sandforce controller took months to be resolved.
The Samsung 830 is a good drive but is so new that long term reliability is an unknown. The previous generation 470 was very reliable. However,this means nothing. Intel has its own controller which was used on the extremely reliable X25 drives, which are supposed to have the lowest return rates of its generation AFAIK. This very same controller was used on the 320 drives which ended up having an issues with certain examples which deleted all data on the drives. However,like with Crucial the problem was solved relatively quickly.
Edit!!
Even the 830 has compatability issues:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1303929
The safe thing is to always back up your SSD partition onto another disk.
Crucial M4 cant go wrong, with current firmware it is a fast and reliable beast... write capacity is very high so you wont have to worry about wearing it out :).
Samsung can be good but its more expensive, the m4 is closer to your budget.
Get either the samsung or m4 whatever is cheapest as you shouldn't notice a difference between the two
Anyone else agree with this samsung 830 is best for stability!? I had a look on the crucial forums and it does appear they having a BSOD problem as well. But not sure if the samsung will be immune to these problems either seeing as the sandforce controller and now the marvell controller both have the problem (i know the samsung is a different one).
Thanks for the tyip though pancake I will look into the samsung 830 128gb.
I have to say Cat that the crucial problem sounds just as serious as the sandforce ones http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-St...-M4/td-p/79098
Also I know samsung make SSDs for Apple but I am not sure if the guy on that forum was using a proprietary apple one or a consumer samsung ones becuase according to samsung their consumer SSDs are only compatible with Windows 7 or later ... which is obviously a bit of a bummer but since I am running windows 7 anyway it doesn't effect me.
I feel I am leaning more to the samsung now, or I might just wait until Crucial release that fix next week and see what the response on forums is to that.
Put it this way, SSD's are "Not Compatible" with Link State Power Management on laptops. With the Samsung 830 i have it set to Max power savings and its still fine. Not had a single BSOD in the month or so i have had it.Quote:
Originally Posted by c.ruel
With the Crucial M4 i had, that was on the latest 0009 firmware when i had it. I had 8 BSOD's in the FIRST DAY with LPM off. If i had LPM on i couldent even get to my deskop without it locking up and/or BSODing
You saw the link - Samsung 830 drives even have compatability issues too and it was launched in late September.Quote:
Originally Posted by c.ruel
The BSOD issue has been remedied by a firmware update last week and only affect some drives with over 5000 hours usage(bascially SSDs which had been on 24/7 for the last 6 months).
You know what the error was?? It was down to a SMART Power On Hours counter error which shut down the drive prematurely on certain drives after an hour of use.
If Intel is not immune to having issues with their own SSDs using tried and tested technology which was used for years,then anyone saying that Samsung will NEVER have issues too is not really telling the whole truth.
You want a look at another metric:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...e-25nm-Vs-34nm
In the extended write tests done,the Samsung 470 wore out and the much cheaper M4 64GB has lasted after 700 TB of data was written to it.
Look at how low the MWI is with the 470 drive - hopefully it will be better with the 830.
Sandforce took over six months to rectify the issue and it affected drives from launch - the Force 3 was recalled at launch.Quote:
Originally Posted by c.ruel
Its not even down to that with laptops. Laptops generally have issues with almost every SSD out there. They are not designed with user upgradeability in mind - I have never had incompatible RAM with a desktop but I have had it with laptops. This is because the BIOS is only made to be compatible with the parts the laptop company uses.
The fix has already been released:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/support/firmware.aspx
Which is not so useful for a desktop user and even the 830 series has issues with the MacBook Pro. There are loads of desktop M4 Hexus users who have had them for months with both Intel and AMD motherboards and not had an issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancake
Picked up a Crucial M4 128GB for £140 from Aria. I'm not sure if they're still on offer though. :)
Thanks for all the help guys. What is so frustrating with SSDs is their does seem to be stability issues and endurance issues with a lot of them and you can't discover that until x amount of use.
Add to that the different loads people apply to their C drives and sample variances and it is just impossible to know what to get.
I am going to just have a long think about it and try and do some more research. I think I will either get the samsung or the m4 ... not sure which at the moment I am also going to ignore price differences between them.
IMHO,even with the Samsung I would wait until March or April. Why?? If will give at least six months of usage by early adopters to see if there are any issues as it was launched in late September 2011.Quote:
Originally Posted by c.ruel
The same goes with the M4 update - I would give it a month or two to see if the problem is solved and if anything else crops up.
The SMART Power On Hours counter error issue with the M4 only really was observed in the last month or so. The M4 was launched at the end of March 2011 - so it was only after around 9 months or thereabouts this happened.
No drive, whether it's HDD or SSD, is guaranteed to work perfectly forever - look at WD Green aggressive head parking, Seagate 7200.11 data loss, old Hitachi Deskstar failure rate, and so on. Which is why you always back up.
As CAT says, laptop compatibility is a funny thing - I tried to upgrade the WLAN card on a laptop from an Atheros G card (IIRC) to an Intel N card and the system wouldn't detect it. For desktop use, compatibility is a non-issue and shouldn't impact your choice. Note I have Pancake's M4 which works fine on my desktop despite causing problem on his laptop. The 5k hour issue was detected + patched quickly and did not cause data loss. 'No known problems' does not mean no problems will ever arise, bear in mind it's new and not, at least ATM, as popular as some other drives.
Test done by random users with different machines, no thanks :whip:Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
I always read your posts and thought you were a fair guy, who knows his stuff. You cant even take that as half the truth. Its not a fair test in ANY way shape or form.
Perhaps you are just buying crappy laptops? And that bit about the BIOS couldn't be more wrong, do you have anything to back it up? I am using a Laptop with an 830 in now and it couldent be better, and before this i had an older Sandforce SATA-II drive and that was fine, as was an older Samsung SSD.Quote:
Its not even down to that with laptops. Laptops generally have issues with almost every SSD out there. They are not designed with user upgradeability in mind - I have never had incompatible RAM with a desktop but I have had it with laptops. This is because the BIOS is only made to be compatible with the parts the laptop company uses.
Lets face it, we cant even mention a Macbook. They actually DO have BIOSes written for only there hardware, even the hard drives in them have special firmware. (Even though you can replace them)Quote:
Which is not so useful for a desktop user and even the 830 series has issues with the MacBook Pro. There are loads of desktop M4 Hexus users who have had them for months with both Intel and AMD motherboards and not had an issue.
Neither is saying anything but a Samsung drive is unreliable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancake
Compatibility with laptops are relatively common.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancake
The same data set was run on all the drives and on top of this,many of those drives are sharing common controllers. The chap who started the thread actually does know what he is talking about especially if you see the other stuff he has done. As time progresses that thread is going to have more and more repeats for similar drives. How many review sites bother to do that??Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancake
Is it isn't saying that a Samsung drive is unreliable at all. It is just indicating the M4s controller/firmware combination seems to keep the NAND in a functional state for long, unless the 34NM NAND used by Samsung in the 470 has a lower lifespan that the 25NM NAND used in M4. Someone is also testing an 830 too in the thread.
Look at the Hexus Handbrake charts for example:
http://forums.hexus.net/2097828-post2.html
There is variation in results but generally speaking specific CPU models running at a similar clockspeed tend to have similar results. User testing can be useful too.
?? I have helped people rebuild and upgrade their laptops for over 7 years now and I have seen the issues multiple times. All you can say is that is that your particular laptop setup does not have an issue which is not true of all laptops.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancake
Laptops are not made for end-user upgradeability like DIY desktops and how often are BIOS updates released for ALL laptops?? Even pre-built desktops with OEM motherboards can have the same issues.
The piece of hardware you are installing might end up being much newer than the latest BIOS revision of the motherboard. There is no impetus for ALL companies to release BIOS updates as their only concern is to have the specification they sell you work and if you want upgrades they would rather you sent it to their affiliates.
It is not an issue which tends to affect DIY desktops as the BIOS updates are usually released much quicker, but even then you do see DIY build desktop motherboards throwing hissy fits with certain hardware too. This includes RAM too and not even with cheap motherboards.
Even the 830 has an inconvenient bug with the latest firmware:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pancake
http://www.overclock.net/t/1199062/w...-update-bugged
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series...20/td-p/600253
OTH,you are extrapolating your laptop issues with the M4 with desktop usage, which even by your own admission was down to a clash with a laptop specific feature.
The OP has a desktop,so far I have not heard any of the M4 users on Hexus accounter BSOD issues from the start with their desktop setups. The Intel X25 has the lowest return rate of any SSD of its generation and yet the near identical Intel 320 had a problem at launch. I too would have expected the 320 to be the most bug free SSD under £200 but I was surprised with the problem TBH and so were many people.
The 830 has barely entered retail. It was launched in late September and only in the last two to three months has been available in reasonable quantities.
BTW,all of my desktops have Samsung HDDs which have tended to be fine,but IMHO early adoption of any SSD is not a good choice if you want to gauge longterm reliability. It takes around 6 to 12 months for most teething problems to become obvious it seems.
The M4 issue with desktops reared its head around 8 to 9 months after it entered retail. Even then it was an issue with incorrect SMART parameters being reported.
Yup got a m4 64gb, m4 128gb and none have failed yet with no BSOD or anything... same with my c300 128gb, no issues at all!
Seriously the M4 is a solid drive, the issue that has been pointed out has been fixed and its only a minor error, fixed immediately and the issue isnt destructive, much better "issue" than sandforce performance drops inconsistent performance and BSOD etc . As cat has said, the samsung is to early to give concise details on reliability, the m4 is proven reliability... if you look at the support forum of course you will see issues but they get fixed and relatively minor.
Having a desktop negates most issues so your sorted, m4 is cheaper and is solid as a rock... performance is pretty damn close to the samsung as well so get the cheaper drive!.
Even though the slow(er) speeds on an M4 kinda put me off, everyone raves about them so that's what i'd go for if buying an SSD right now.