SSD realiability tested

[savantu]

The guys from hw.fr have managed to get hold of hardware failure data from a retailer service center. Interesting findings :

1TB HDDs
- 5,76% : Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B
- 5,20% : Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C
- 3,68% : Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
- 3,37% : Samsung SpinPoint F1
- 2,51% : Seagate Barracuda 7200.12
- 2,37% : WD Caviar Green WD10EARS
- 2,10% : Seagate Barracuda LP
- 1,57% : Samsung SpinPoint F3
- 1,55% : WD Caviar Green WD10EADS
- 1,35% : WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS
- 1,24% : Maxtor DiamondMax 23

2TB HDDs
- 9,71% : WD Caviar Black WD2001FASS
- 6,87% : Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000
- 4,83% : WD Caviar Green WD20EARS
- 4,35% : Seagate Barracuda LP
- 4,17% : Samsung EcoGreen F3
- 2,90% : WD Caviar Green WD20EADS

SSDs
- Intel 0,59%
- Corsair 2,17%
- Crucial 2,25%
- Kingston 2,39%
- OCZ 2,93%

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12...more_than_hdd/

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/810-...omposants.html

[El Mano]

And how long have this drives been working? How many hours per day? How stressed where they?
Did all SSD and HDD in this article performed the same job for the same time?
This is not a test. As a SSD vs HDD comparison is useless.

However there's some interesting data.
That WD2001FASS failing one out of ten simply shows what some others have already said: WD drives are no longer what they were. A year ago I would had bought a WD drive without hesitating but right now I would consider Samsung or Seagate.

Intel failing 0,59% is also interesting. The other SSD manufacturers show a similar fail rate, which is not a surprise since almost all of them share memory modules, controllers etc.


If I buy a 2TB drive and take it to friend's houses very often it's going to suffer much more than a SSD installed on a gaming rig.

[One_Hertz]

The data LOOKS real, but without knowing more about the sample, these are just numbers.

[El Mano]

Double post sorry.

[Ao1]

It looks like the figures are based on one (large) e-retailer over a 6 month duration (1 October 2009 to April 1, 2010) and the statistics are based on returns within 12 months of sale. Direct RMA’s are excluded.

Hard to understand the translation, but the statistics are based on either a minimum sample range requirement of either 500 or 100 sales.

Figures they have posted previously for HDD vary considerably. This is the first time they have posted SSD statistics.

For products sold between June 1 and December 1 (or 0-6 months of use) the top 3 returns were:

Hard Drive:
- 8.62%: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 160GB
- 4.48%: Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB
- 3.41% Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000

SSD:
- 2.80%: Vertex 2 OCZ 90GB
- 2.66%: 2120 GB OCZ Agility
- 1.83%: Agility 2 OCZ 60GB

[little_scrapper]

Well, if I only have a <3% chance of a drive failing... i can live with that.

HOWEVER!!! WTF are manufacturers thinking!! OMG if AMD or Intel had a 3% failure rate of CPU's coming off the line they would start lining up people in front of a firing squad because that is a rediculously high failure rate for electronics!!

Something with NO moving parts should have a failure rate of about 3 in 10,000.

[Ao1]

From the conclusion in the Harware.FR:

“Compared to our previous record in April 2010, there was an overall improvement in failure rate, which is great news. It rises from 2.74 to 2.57% on motherboards, from 1.61 to 1.39% on power supplies from 1.9 to 1.58% on graphics cards and from 1.42 to 1 , 25% on memory. Conversely, and more damaging to our beloved data, the failure rate of hard drives is increasing, rising from 1.63 to 1.94%. SSDs are measured for their share to 2.05%, the most reliable component of the machine remains the CPU with a rate of 0.18% only!”

CPU’s are indeed the lowest returned item, however if you look at Intel SSD’s only the return rate was 0.59%, which (aside from CPU’s) puts it as the most reliable piece of hardware in a PC and significanly better than HDD.

[One_Hertz]

HDDs are getting worse because manufacturers are not truly ready to release them at their current capacities...

[ZOMGVTEK]

While the SSD failure rates are surprisingly high, I still feel much better knowing my data isn't spinning around in my laptop. Much less of a issue for accidental drops and bumps. This data likely includes the people who improperly flashed firmware to the drive, or had a issue along those lines. On a desktop, I have yet to experience a drive failure. It helps that I usually replace drives yearly, however.

Of course, I still do weekly backups...

[Johnny87au]

thanks for the news, kinda figured intel ssd's were the best, I dont believe the wd blacks beat the f3 1tb's though

[[XC] Oj101]

Did you notice that OCZ is bringing up the bottom of SSD AND RAM reliability?

[generics_user]

Did you notice that OCZ is bringing up the bottom of SSD AND RAM reliability?

sadly this lines up with my own experience

on SSD it's intel and samsung all the way for me

[savantu]

Well, if I only have a <3% chance of a drive failing... i can live with that.

HOWEVER!!! WTF are manufacturers thinking!! OMG if AMD or Intel had a 3% failure rate of CPU's coming off the line they would start lining up people in front of a firing squad because that is a rediculously high failure rate for electronics!!

Something with NO moving parts should have a failure rate of about 3 in 10,000.

I work in a field where the accepted failure rate for a fairly complex electronic control unit is 3 in 1,000,000.

[El Mano]

I work in a field where the accepted failure rate for a fairly complex electronic control unit is 3 in 1,000,000.

What storage soution hhave you adopted?
I'd like to hear more about what components you find acceptable, 3 in a million is such a small number. May I ask in which field do you work at?

[Nightstar]

Interesting statistics but It'd be difficult to derive anything meaningful beyond expectations for future warranty rates. I expect enthusiast brands have a higher rate of failure just based on the type of user who buys them and the use/abuse they sustain.

Failure mode on the drives would be nice to know. I bet a lot of the HDDs died from excessive deceleration(when they impacted the floor) or speaker magnet/stator related magnetic damage. I've seen so many people kill HDDs that way.

A client's PC had endless windows problems until I discovered his PC table was a giant sub-woofer with a board on top. I'd take it off site for service and it worked perfectly as soon as I returned it windows would be corrupt within a day.

[savantu]

What storage soution hhave you adopted?
I'd like to hear more about what components you find acceptable, 3 in a million is such a small number. May I ask in which field do you work at?

Just some nitpicks : automotive industry, electronic safety systems & driver support systems. Storage is ROM on older stuff, flash on the new ones.