OCZ Vertex 2 180GB SSD - High Failure Rates?

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#85092 13-Jun-2011 22:15

I just bought a couple of OCZ Vertex 2 180GB SSDs to replace hdd primary drives in a couple of laptops. One of the installs went just fine and seems to be running well, and super fast, after a few days. The other however resulted in a non-responsive SSD after formatting/partitioning the SSD in the windows 7 sp1 setup and rebooting. The HP laptop wont see the SSD, and if i attach it to an external sata dock and plug it into another laptop i dont see it there either.

I went over to the OCZ Support Forums to see if there was anything i could do - firmware update (cant see the device to update it), device driver update etc.. but saw a lot of posts that start like this "my ssd stopped working" followed by "please start the RMA process".

i'm now wondering if the OCZ drives are particularly prone to failure and, as such, am a bit concerned. I'm going to take this one back to the retailer for swap over, but am wondering if i should return it and get an Intel one instead...

Anyone else here running OCZ drives and had problems requiring an RMA?

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#480786 13-Jun-2011 22:32

hmm i run a vertex 2 120GB and have been fine ... fingers crossed ...

firefuze

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#480804 13-Jun-2011 23:14

Had a Vertex 2 in my HP Laptop, Went like a dream, no issues at all.

Now have a Vertex 3 in my MBP and am having constant issues with system hangs, and the OCZ flash tool wont update the drive to the newer firmware either. (drive becomes unresponsive and sometimes cant be seen/mounted without a restart when trying to flash) Im considering sending it back for RMA.

Ramjet007

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#480829 14-Jun-2011 06:14

My V3 was freezing too.

http://geekmontage.com/texts/ocz-vertex-3-freezes-locks-up-stutters-and-crashes/

Enable "Hot Plugging" for Vertex 3 fixed mine. havent had one since.

wreck90

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#480833 14-Jun-2011 07:20

My OCZ vertex 2 120gb has worked perfectly for over a year now.

But, my OCZ vertex 3 240gb has some issues. Firstly, on my P8P67 mobo, it would sometimes just 'disappear' from the BIOS which would cause my windows to freeze. I'd do a soft restart, but the drive would not be detected by the OS at all. To fix, I'd actually have to do a full system power off.

Changing the BIOS to enable hot swap mostly fixed it. But, I've still had 3 of these resets over the last couple of weeks even with the enable hot swap . Its usable, but will be waiting for a firmware update to fix this. If nothing eventuates, I may start an RMA if the problem does continue.

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#480847 14-Jun-2011 08:45

No probs with Vertex 3 in my MacBook Pro, and have just yesterday purchased a Vertex 2 for my fiancee's MacBook Pro. Will let you know if it fails!

kyhwana2

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#480890 14-Jun-2011 09:49

hmm, i've heard of lots of issues with the Vertex 2/3's. Which is why I bought an intel 320 series 160GB SSD instead. No issues so far :)

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#480920 14-Jun-2011 10:31

kyhwana2: hmm, i've heard of lots of issues with the Vertex 2/3's. Which is why I bought an intel 320 series 160GB SSD instead. No issues so far :)

bit slow though eh!

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#480958 14-Jun-2011 12:02

wreck90:
kyhwana2: hmm, i've heard of lots of issues with the Vertex 2/3's. Which is why I bought an intel 320 series 160GB SSD instead. No issues so far :)

bit slow though eh!

mmm ~600MBps!!! can't wait to get one myself too!

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#480972 14-Jun-2011 13:09

wreck90:
kyhwana2: hmm, i've heard of lots of issues with the Vertex 2/3's. Which is why I bought an intel 320 series 160GB SSD instead. No issues so far :)

bit slow though eh!

The 320 series? Not really. The important bit is random accesses, which are still 40x faster than any spinning disk and ~240MB/s seqential reads..

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#481163 14-Jun-2011 19:44

i've swapped my failed ssd for a new one, but i'm waiting on news from OCZ before installing it in the HP laptop. someone in the OCZ forums suggested that HPs have a habit of eating SSDs and to ask OCZ for help on how to run the two together..

my thread:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?89804-OCZ-Vertex-2-180GB-SSD-Dead

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#481181 14-Jun-2011 20:53

how weird! i wonder why if it is true

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#481194 14-Jun-2011 21:17

This post on codinghorror sums SSD reliability for me
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html

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#481207 14-Jun-2011 21:47

Ragnor: This post on codinghorror sums SSD reliability for me http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html

the hp that this ssd is destined for is a demo machine with 16gb ram running windows 2008 r2 Hyper-V and a handful of virtual machines (exchange, crm, sharepoint, win7client). there isnt really much data that is 'at risk' as its all VHD images. even the OS it boot into is a VHD so backing up the laptop ssd will be simple. when the hyper-v system is up and running on SSD - it is amazingly fast compared to standard SATA. the whole system seems to run 10 times faster (or more). creating and rolling back snapshots takes mere seconds, startup and shutdown of images incredibly fast. after my first taste, i'd have to say that for a demo machine, the SSD is not optional any more :)

if i was running ssd in my personal machine, based on this experience, i'd probably run dual HDDs and keep the critical data on a traditional disk (along with off-machine backups).

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kyhwana2

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#481209 14-Jun-2011 21:52

Ragnor: This post on codinghorror sums SSD reliability for me
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html

I think that guys just had a bad run, because we've been using Intel SSDs at work and while we've had one or two fail, they've been because a) we hammered them trying to break them and b) some bad firmware.

If you want a good fast reliable SSD, get a newer Intel one.

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#481232 14-Jun-2011 22:39

The point of the post is really that regardless of how often SSD's are failing (and they fail quite a bit as a bleeding edge tech) they are still awesome and a computer without a SSD is like going back to dial up after broadband.

Just run a daily/weekly disk image backup so you can restore quickly on your replacement SSD.