Yet another SSD "failure out of nowhere"

[britechguy]

Not looking for any kind of solution here, this is just a rant.

I am coming to hate SSDs with a burning passion because they just crap out whenever they want to without the slightest warning. Every one I've had fail, from the ones that did so straight out of the box (almost) to ones that have lasted several months, and kept showing "entirely healthy" results in their own monitoring software, just up and died without any warning. Even if you have backups, that's just incredibly frustrating.

I never had that issue with HDDs, not that they don't fail, but almost always I had warning sign after warning sign that something was going amiss long before they actually died in a way that would require data recovery in order to get anything off them.

In this case, it's on one of my own machines, and my last backup is several weeks old, and I've been doing some work in MS-Office that I really wish I had saved somewhere other than the SSD, but I hadn't.

Nothing like having your machine freeze up, and when you have to do the hard power button shutdown and fire it up again, getting the dreaded "No OS found" message during boot!

 

[Sky-Knight]

This is why I use WD Blues or Samsungs only.

When the SSDs start approaching their write endurance limits, the app on Windows starts screaming about it... IN ADVANCE.

If it's really critical, the Samsung Pro devices, when they hit the endurance limit fail into a read only state, which is particularly nice.

But otherwise, yes, when you suffer a controller failure it's an instant dead disk. Platter drives have the exact same failure mode, they just also have a ton more failure modes that are more likely, the kind that make the disk slow down or otherwise misbehave so you know it's coming. SSDs never do that... they simply up and stop one day, just like a bad thumb drive.

 

[britechguy]

Well, after one of our more recent threads on SSDs, I'm more convinced than ever that brand loyalty is something I'll never have when it comes to SSDs.

And all of the failures I've had have all been in the very early stages, several months old, at most, so "reaching write endurance limits" has never, ever entered the picture.

Those features you mention are nice, though.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy Yeah I'm not brand loyal, I'm feature loyal. I require a desktop app that manages firmware updates and lifecycle monitoring. The easier that app is to use, the better!

But if you're talking about SSDs that just up and quit in the first 90 days... that's the usual 4% of all electronics failure stat creeping in. It's why I tell people to keep the boxes for the first few months. It's just defective... if whatever it is survives that time though typically it lasts years.

 

[britechguy]

This one, an Adata unit, went 5 months and 2 weeks. Then, *poof*! Very annoying.

I was well past what I thought would be the "keep the packaging" period, but at least I registered the thing the moment I got it. Now lets see how they handle return/replacement.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy Nexgen almost went bankrupt thanks to ADATA drives doing exactly that. I stopped selling them for a reason.

I had that happen in 2016 with 32gb and 64gb ADATA SSDs. I had over 300 of them fail in a year... never again.

 

[phaZed]

I'm an ADATA hater - by far, one of the most failed drives I've seen.

 

[cypress]

This is why I use WD Blues or Samsungs only.

When the SSDs start approaching their write endurance limits, the app on Windows starts screaming about it... IN ADVANCE.

What software is this for the WD Blue? The reason I ask is because I just purchased one to try them out and I wanna know what to download.

 

[cypress]

@britechguy I've had 1 Silicon Power fail and another system I worked on had another off brand SSD on it, then I ended up replacing. But I when it up and fails it is very frustrating. It is one thing when working on a client system but extremely frustrating whn it happens to you.

 

[Sky-Knight]

What software is this for the WD Blue? The reason I ask is because I just purchased one to try them out and I wanna know what to download.

WD Software

List of all WD firmware and software available for download.

support.wdc.com

 

[sapphirescales]

I never had that issue with HDDs, not that they don't fail, but almost always I had warning sign after warning sign that something was going amiss long before they actually died in a way that would require data recovery in order to get anything off them.

SMART seems to be far more accurate with HDDs than SSDs. This is one of the reasons (other than cost, of course) that I don't use SSDs to store data. Only the OS and programs, and I keep an image backup of the C drive in critical machines.

I don't have a lot of experience with Enterprise SSDs, but from what I've seen they tend to be much more reliable and don't tend to just fail without warning. Low quality trash NAND is the main reason why consumer grade SSDs tend to fail without warning. This is why it's extremely important to buy the highest quality SSD you can get (Samsung PRO series, not EVO and certainly not QVO or whatever knockoff brand of the week that pops up on Amazon as the cheapest option).

 

[britechguy]

I'm an ADATA hater

Well, if the replacement (already have the RMA and the failed drive packaged to go back to them) fails similarly, then I'm off of Adata for good.

So far, only this Adata drive, and the Mushkin drives I've mentioned previously, have failed. The PNY, Crucial, and Samsung drives I've used have been fine.

But, again, based upon that recent topic on SSDs I am not convinced, within a given grade (consumer versus pro), that failure rates will turn out to be all that different over the long run.

But in my decades in this business I've never had any type of storage, whether HDD, USB thumb drive, or SD card (regardless of size) fail as frequently as SSDs have. That's not good, in my opinion, and is reflective of an immature and as yet somewhat unstable technology.

All of my system image backups are on HDDs as are my user data backups using File History. It's gonna stay that way for quite a while.

 

[britechguy]

I had that happen in 2016 with 32gb and 64gb ADATA SSDs. I had over 300 of them fail in a year... never again.

Not that I am defending Adata, in any way, but back in 2016 SSDs were bleeding edge technology for all practical intents and purposes. And it appears that the technology is far from mature even today.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Not that I am defending Adata, in any way, but back in 2016 SSDs were bleeding edge technology for all practical intents and purposes. And it appears that the technology is far from mature even today.

Very true! But the RMA process for those MUCH more expensive disks was a nightmare. I'm glad to see your experience doesn't appear to be that bad anymore.

But when you're RMA'ing drives 2-3 at a time... and when I swapped to Samsung devices and it all simply stopped happening... I never looked back.

 

[britechguy]

But when you're RMA'ing drives 2-3 at a time... and when I swapped to Samsung devices and it all simply stopped happening... I never looked back.

The thing being, you (and I mean you personally and you generically) must look back in instances like this. The early days of any technology is fraught, and those at the very forefront of emerging technologies tend to push the envelope, and sometimes break through it in a way that's not good.

What was true 5 years ago with storage could be completely incorrect now.

One of the reasons I watch the, "What SSD do you prefer?," topics so closely is to see if any clear favorite emerges. So far, none has.

Now that hard data is being kept by respected watchdogs for the HDD world for SSDs, over the next couple of years we should know whether any manufacturer is better (or worse) than another and/or whether what's better/worse tends to be limited to specific drive lines at certain time ranges.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy True, but when I've got people screaming at me, and then I swap to another brand and the issues drop like a rock... I lose my patience.

I don't care that it was new, it was defective, and ONLY with ADATA was it so.

 

[britechguy]

it was defective, and ONLY with ADATA was it so.

And all I'm saying is you need to pay attention to whether it's "was" or "is" on an ongoing basis. And not just for this.

But you know that. And it's not easy to let go of being badly burned (and not just in computing, either) but sometimes that's the best way forward.

 

[Sky-Knight]

And all I'm saying is you need to pay attention to whether it's "was" or "is" on an ongoing basis. And not just for this.

But you know that. And it's not easy to let go of being badly burned (and not just in computing, either) but sometimes that's the best way forward.

Oh yeah... well as I said before I'm feature loyal not brand loyal.

I use WD Blues because they're inexpensive, easy to RMA, quickly available, and have an Acronis license, as well as the WD SSD Dashboard attached to them.

Samsung does all of the above as well, just with harder to use imaging, but also has Samsung Magician.

I won't deploy disks I cannot easily inspect and get alerts from via appropriate application support. SMART is just not accurate for SSDs in my experience... and besides all of that I still need an easy way to do firmware updates on the devices as well.

There's a TON that goes into all of this, so I stick with the brands that work well within my process. It's not so much that I'm married to WD and Samsung, it's that the disks do the things I need them to do that keeps me around.

ADATA just isn't a good fit for me anymore, the fact that every drive I've ever bought from them has failed me doesn't help matters.

 

[GTP]

Just my .02c...
I buy Crucial, (mostly) ADATA, (if I cant get Crucial), Kingston, Sandisk, WD, Samsung (rarely, only when on special), TEAM and other brands I cant remember.
Lately, I've stuck with Crucial because I buy them very inexpensively.
Out of all the SSD's I've installed (maybe a couple of hundred by now), only one has failed.
It was an OCZ (Toshiba) 240gb.
Some have been deployed for around 7 'ish years in both residential and SMB/SoHo.
I've set them up in RAID configs as well, which are still running perfectly.

I guess I'm lucky...

 

[sapphirescales]

when I swapped to Samsung devices and it all simply stopped happening... I never looked back.

Well don't get too comfortable with Samsung. They've been caught red-handed doing a bait and switch. They released their normally high quality SSD, then after they got all these positive online reviews, they switch the components to inferior, lower quality alternatives. I don't trust Samsung anymore. They're not the only SSD manufacturer to do this either.

Samsung is the latest SSD maker spotted swapping components

To Samsung's credit it has changed its 970 Evo Plus box, part number, and spec sheets.

hexus.net

Of course they're blaming Coronavirus, but that's BS. They know what their supply chain looks like. They didn't build high quality review units not knowing they couldn't get those same high quality components for their production units. They just didn't want to submit the real product for review because it sucks.