SSD or RevoDrive?

[Bolas]

Which is better for a desktop's boot and program drive?

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Vertex-2-5-Inch-Solid-VTX3MI-25SAT3-240G/dp/B004W7D6QW/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IV269K0FXHJM2&colid=2FRVYOINQAOHB

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-RevoDrive-PCI-Express-OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0240/dp/B0043UWRSG/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3EMLO9DXR7LGF&colid=2FRVYOINQAOHB

[zalbard]

Crucial C300 and M4 are the best. But you need a good SATA3 controller. Otherwise stick to Intel 320 in RAID 0.
I recommend to stay away from SandForce unless you want issues.

[M31]

I recommend to stay away from SandForce unless you want issues.


Could you please elaborate?

I've ordered an OCz 60 GB Agility 3 and OCz 240 GB Vertex 3 yesterday for my new build both that I understand have the Sandforce controller, ordered OCz again after great results with my close to 2 year old OCz Vertex 2 SSD ... the reviews I've read on the new drives are great, so what are these issues, are they serious ... can they be overcome ... surely the drives would not be on sale if they were flaky ... also they seem to be top sellers from the retailer I bought from.

You've got me worried now, spent a fair packet on my new build and those two drives were a fair percentage of it, the motherboard I'll be using will be a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 if that makes any difference.

:confused::confused::confused:

[Wendy]

M31, I wouldn't worry about your purchase, it's mostly scaremongering among people who have never owned SandForce based drive.

For your intended system. Just make sure you don't overclock it until you are sure the SSD stable. In my experience most problems are caused by P67 and Z68 which have overclocks which are not as stable as the owner think they are.

Also make sure you have the proper drivers installed. Make sure you have the Intel power management drivers installed, otherwise you will for sure have issues, and also use the Intel RST drivers supplied from GigaByte's site.

[One_Hertz]

Could you please elaborate?

I've ordered an OCz 60 GB Agility 3 and OCz 240 GB Vertex 3 yesterday for my new build both that I understand have the Sandforce controller, ordered OCz again after great results with my close to 2 year old OCz Vertex 2 SSD ... the reviews I've read on the new drives are great, so what are these issues, are they serious ... can they be overcome ... surely the drives would not be on sale if they were flaky ... also they seem to be top sellers from the retailer I bought from.

You've got me worried now, spent a fair packet on my new build and those two drives were a fair percentage of it, the motherboard I'll be using will be a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 if that makes any difference.

:confused::confused::confused:

The chances are you will probably be OK since most of them do work, but sandforce is by far the least reliable controller at this time. I wouldn't buy one in a million years due to all the issues they keep having. As an example, they messed up the last version of their firmware which caused a lot of people to BSOD over and over and over. There is a thread in this subsection about this.

Like Zalbard said, C300, M4, or any of the Intel drives is your best bet at this point in time.

[M31]

Thanks Wendy and One_Hertz, wont be doing any overclocking until everything is running smoothly and will look out latest drivers for my build tonight, parts will be here tomorrow so too late to change my mind on the SSD's ... really hope I don't have any problems.

What sort of firmware should I be looking for OCz 60 GB Agility 3 and OCz 240 GB Vertex 3 respectively?

[Wendy]

If the drive arrives with firmware 2.02 I would stick with that firmware, as firmware 2.06 is said to have some issues, although I have had none with 2.06 on P67/Z68 systems.
If it arrives with 2.06, then you can't roll it back to 2.02.

I have had many SF1200 based Sandforce SSDs in my systems (P55/P67/Z68) from time to time, from many manufacturers and have had zero issues.
The same applies with SF2xxx series SSD's (including engineering samples) which have had zero issues.

[LexDiamonds]

... Surely the drives would not be on sale if they were flaky ...

:stick:

[johnw]

I have had many SF1200 based Sandforce SSDs in my systems (P55/P67/Z68) from time to time, from many manufacturers and have had zero issues.
The same applies with SF2xxx series SSD's (including engineering samples) which have had zero issues.

Anecdotal evidence such as this is not helpful in determining statistical reliability. Even if the chance of having problems in the first year is very high, say 25%, and for a person who has had a lot of Sandforce drives for a year, say 10, there is a 5.6% chance that this person would have no problems with any of the drives. In other words, out of 1000 people with 10 drives for a year, 56 of the people would happily post "I have had 10 Sandforce drives for a year and have had zero issues". But in this example, there would be a 25% chance of problems with each drive.

Anecdotal evidence of reliability is useless.

[Wendy]

^ Information based on "facts" rather than hearsay, is never useless. :)
I don't recall having claimed that my findings would be repeated for everyone else, only that these were my findings based on fact.

[johnw]

^ Information based on "facts" rather than hearsay, is never useless. :)


True, anecdotal evidence such as you posted is worse than useless, since such misleading anecdotal evidence mixes with OCZ propaganda to convince the naive that OCZ SSDs are problem-free, when in reality, the FACT is that the 2.06 firmware has problems. Another FACT is that OCZ has shipped SSDs with out-of-spec dimensions. Yet another FACT is that OCZ has shipped SSDs with less usable capacity than advertised, and with questionable quality flash chips. Additionally, a large collection of data on return rates shows that OCZ SSDs are among the worst for problems.

So the fact is that anecdotal evidence such as that is worse than useless, it is misleading.

[Wendy]

Not once in this thread have I mentioned any manufacturer other than who manufactures the controller, so get off my case.
There is far more than one company who uses SandForce controllers.

[thebanik]

True, anecdotal evidence such as you posted is worse than useless, since such misleading anecdotal evidence mixes with OCZ propaganda to convince the naive that OCZ SSDs are problem-free, when in reality, the FACT is that the 2.06 firmware has problems. Another FACT is that OCZ has shipped SSDs with out-of-spec dimensions. Yet another FACT is that OCZ has shipped SSDs with less usable capacity than advertised, and with questionable quality flash chips. Additionally, a large collection of data on return rates shows that OCZ SSDs are among the worst for problems.

So the fact is that anecdotal evidence such as that is worse than useless, it is misleading.

Infact I find your remarks to be completely useless with NO evidence at all. After starting with sandforce controller being unreliable you are now complaining about OCZ and their business tactics, where does sandforce controller comes into the picture here?????

[johnw]

Not once in this thread have I mentioned any manufacturer other than who manufactures the controller, so get off my case.
There is far more than one company who uses SandForce controllers.

Did you read the first post in this thread? It was about OCZ drives. Ditto for post #3.

And I'll stop pointing out your misleading information when you stop posting it.

[johnw]

Infact I find your remarks to be completely useless with NO evidence at all.

The evidence is out there, for anyone who takes the time to search the forums and the Internet. I am not going to link to it in every post I make.

[thebanik]

The evidence is out there, for anyone who takes the time to search the forums and the Internet. I am not going to link to it in every post I make.

If you search on the internet you will find problems with every tech product out there, that certainly doesnt say much. When you claim some1's else comment to be useless and make a statement yourself be prepared to back it up.
Thats not to say OCZ's products and tactics have not been shady lately. But in here people have started saying Sandforce controllers are unreliable and I havent seen any out of proportion controller complains apart from here, :D

[M31]

Anyway ... been reading the OCz forums on the Sandforce issue and pray that my drives tomorrow will be firmware 2.02 (and just simply work as advertised) and that this mess gets sorted out ASAP, there are a lot of drive owners on their forums being asked to (what amounts to) post release beta test (don't overclock, don't do this, don't do that) and that seems totally wrong, though I'm quite sure its a minority of people effected it still looks like an issue that shouldn't have happened, only enthusiasts would put up with this, what about the majority of Joe Public who have no idea why their computer is BSOD'ing?

For sure there will always be problem posts on any hardware, but this issue seems much larger than just that.

I'll report back on the stability of my drives in my other thread on this, sorry to the OP for hijacking.

My fingers are now crossed.

[M31]

and I haven't seen any out of proportion controller complains apart from here, :D

Just been reading quite a few posts about this on the OcUK forums about this as well, looks like its more wide spread than we are lead to believe, thankfully I never bought my drives from that store, RMA'ing is a nightmare there.