NP7280 and OCZ Vertex2 256 My Bad Experience

Yesterday my 3rd Vert2 failed on me. In 14 months I have had 3 of the drives fail. That is a horrible track record.

I purchased my 7280 from Xotic and the Vert2 was not an option so I ordered the 500GB Hybrid drive to use as a backup and a Vert2 from NewEgg. The Vert2 was my Primary drive.

OCZ was very quick to replace the failed drives but 3 times it too many. I have lost all confidence in the product and am asking for a refund. I doubt that my money will be refunded. If I receive a replacement drive I will attempt to sell it.

I ordered a Corsair Performance Pro 256 as a replacement.

 

The OCZ Vertex drives aren't an option as SSD with Sandforce drivers have had issues with Sager/Clevo machines. People have reported better luck with them when upgrading to the most current drivers from OCZ, but if you've had 3 fail I'd switch brands like you are doing.

I believe Corsair also uses Sandforce drivers so you might run into the same issues. For Sager computers we highly suggest Intel SSD.

 

Id rather get either the Intel or Samsung if you want reliability.
Sandforce controllers are horrible and OCZ is the worst choice you can make when buying a SSD, thats a well known fact and sadly you expirienced it yourself.

 

I heard that the successor to Intel's 510 line, the 520 line, will use SF controllers. Do you have any predictions about the reliability of that drive in the refreshed clevo models? Or would we have to wait until release to get that sort of information?

 

The new 520 with Sandforce could have no problems with compatibility. People have better compatibility with Sager and updated Sandforce drivers. We won't know how well they work until the 520 series are released and get to be tested.

 

The Corsair I ordered uses a Marvell controller. I did check before I ordered.

The shame is that when the SSDs worked they were fantastically fast. However the failure rate was too high.

 

i had 1 drive totally die after 6 months. tried it in 2 identical laptops and changed the ocz round but nothing.
covered by manufacturers warranty so had to send it back to the netherlands and then await a new one from china which im sure they delivered it all the way by donkey as it took 2 weeks after dispatch.

 

Please stick with an Intel SSD when using a Clevo/Sager. After reading what you experienced, the long term reliability of an Intel SSD is far better suited for you.

Also note that you do not need to buy the Intel 510 SSD because the NP7280 does not have SATAIII capability. You should stick to the Intel 320 series SSDs. I recommend the 120GB or the 160GB variants.

 

Using the Crucial C300 for 15 months now, not one inkling of a problem The Crucial / Marvell C300 has been great. There was an issue with the Crucial m4, but that has already been addressed. daikyu, it's too bad I didn't know you were looking at any SF based SSDs w/ the x7200.

Now, I don't have any scientific numbers for SandForce based SSDs, but I think it is more than just a Clevo issue but rather a problem w/ laptops in general.

OCZ issues can be spotted in the following links:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...-storage/638036-ssd-business.html#post8231349

http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/637814-ssd-help.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...sing-new-ssd-windows-7-drive.html#post8226882

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...ing-ocz-drive-thats-listed-announcements.html

And this is just on the first page. Keep browsing the SSD forum for more negative experiences regarding SandForce based SSDs. -

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...tomer-reviews-current-ssds-who-will-help.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...flash-storage/628950-ssd-war-witch-buy-p.html

 

So the Crucial M4 will resolve in problems too? I mean, they use sand force drivers too right?

 

At first I thought you were serious...but then I noticed the smiley.

 

Ah man, I just noticed no one mentioned the beloved M4 Intel is just too expensive for some, especially the 510 series.

 

Because this post is a bit ambiguous, I'll answer. The C300/C400/M4 do NOT use SandForce controllers. They use a Marvell controller.

 

The NP7280/NP7282 supports up to SATA II speeds so you can save a few bucks and go with the Intel 320 series

 

Not everyone has negitivity to spout.

My 2 Vertex 2(34nm) just keep on ticking since June 2010 without issues.

I also have 3 Vertex 3 MAX IOPS that have been issue free from day one.

One has to wonder....

SandForce SSDs greatly outnumber SSDs with other controllers so which will have more reported issues and defective drives from consumers?

There's a new SandForce SSD reaching the market almost every day it seems which is not necessarily a bad thing.

They must be doing something right.

This could mean things such as more competitive pricing, longer warranties, bundled hardware or even the inclusion of software many consumers might find useful.

Today Kingmax is joining the party.

SSD Optimization:

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/

If the process serves no purpose, it only adds to the number of things that can go wrong at the end of the day. It is like a fifth wheel on a car or a third leg. Disabling fetch and superfetch as well as a few others are optimizations that are recommended by some of the best companies and peer guides. You will see no difference whatsoever and no benefit is gained from leaving it on.

Let me give you an example with pagefile. It was originally created too make up for the lack of memory in a system because of price however, today, there is plenty of memory for the typical user. I have shut down pagefile for years without a single instance of problem and I am very much a power user. The ONLY purpose of pagefile today is to allow a dump file if your system crashes that can be examined. The problem of course is Win 7 does not crash and that file could not be read by the typical consumer. It does nothing to help the situation in any case whereas shutting it down gies you back 4GB of valuable space.

the same can be said of hibernate where shutting it down gives you another 4GB of space yet leaving it on with an SSD is truly pointless as we are already seeing start times of under 20 seconds on most SSD systems.

At the end of the day, this Guide has become the hottest of its kind on the internet by a long shot and yes, it may be time for a face lift in explaining, or even removing, some of the les important optimizations. Thanks for the input and support!

 

Thanks for the input WhatsThePoint.

Great pointers on disabling fetch and super fetch as well as and great example of how the page file works.

I dont have any problems with OCZ drives. I use a Vertex 3 in my desktop rig I built last May and its been flawless in there, not one problem. It even performs faster then the advertised speeds, couldnt be happier with it.

Alot of people have good luck with them as well. But Sandforce & Sager/Clevo sometimes just don't like to play well with each other.

 

OCZ has offered to upgrade me to a newer drive of the same capacity since they will not do a refund. Of course I will take a newer drive but I will not use it in my 7280.

My first Vertex2 lasted the longest of the 3 and it seems the problems have become more frequent. The hardware of my system has not changed. Perhaps it is some unusual/unique combo that is causing the problems on my system.

 

when installing any SSD do make sure you follow the link WhatsThePoint posted and use those if you havent. That will help life of your SSD. You can also download a program called SSD Tweaker that will automatically change most of those settings for you.

 

This is getting a bit OT.

In regards to SSD setup from WhatsThePoint and Hutsady, please see all posts - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...-do-i-do-now-ive-installed-ssd-my-m17xr3.html as it go over suggestions, tweaks, config, etc.

 

This is troubling to me...

I've got a Vertex 2 120GB drive in my Qosmio and was planning on swapping it over into a P180HM and hearing this makes me worry a bit. At the very worst, I can always just raid the two 500GB drives I have and do that but I'd much rather prefer to have the boot drive and data drives as separate.

 

The "non-scientific" OCZ failure rates reported here on NBR are projected to be around 19%. If you haven't had a problem for some time, then odds are you will not have any problems.