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OWC SSD's Die Fast?
- Thread starter CountlovE
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I have a 240gb Mercury pro extreme 6g in my new late 2011 MBP 17". Absolutely fantastic performance. no issues at all. I'm in no hurry to "upgrade it". I usually wait until a few upgrades have been released before doing anything. Why be a beta tester for Apple, OWC, or any company if your gear is working great?
Your lucky your link and their link are cooperating. Make sure you have backups. When mine died there is no warning. Just DEAD. Nothing.
Of course one should ALWAYS have back up. Any drive can fail. The sad thing is problems are much more prevalent on older gear.
That is from general malaise on the firmware writing not because of the age of your SATA controller. They just didn't test it extensively on Nvidia chipsets vs. Intel ones.
I've had an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 120gb in use for about a year now. Works flawlessly with no issues.
Also, OWC service/support is very good.
Also, OWC service/support is very good.
And notice what maker has the highest return rates across the board...
Absolutely...look what SSDs have gotten the most publicity and "professional" reviewer hype. (I'll give you a hint...it's the one with the highest return rates)
The largest studies on hard drive failure rates show this to be only partially true. The highest rates, in many cases, are seen during the first year. With all the DOA SandForce SSDs, this makes sense. With all of the OWC failures reported in this thread, there is something other than age at play. Google found HDD failure rates were higher at the 2-3 year mark than the 4-5 year one. While age is certainly related to failure rates, there is more at play.
Studies show spinning drives fail at a MUCH higher rate than SSDs, so all one can do is buy from a quality manufacturer with a long warranty and BACK UP!
Agreed partially. How much more reliable the SSDs with less-than-ideal reviews are than high end enterprise grade HDDs may be hard to say though. There are HDDs with far better reviews and fewer reports of failure than some SSDs. OWC advertises their products as 100 times greater data protection than enterprise grade HDDs. Do you believe that? Some SSDs have proven to be utterly unreliable, many of which are still produced today. The initial Micron controllers would be a prime example for when SSDs first got big and the ongoing SandForce issues for today.
This thread in itself shows that there are still some major issues with SSDs, especially SandForce models, which include the OWC. The amount of people who have reported a problem here is totally unacceptable...especially given how the product has been advertised. The issues with the OWC SSDs and their advertising has made me go from a die hard user of their products to not using them at all.
My point in discussing Google's study was to point out that the failure rates were not occurring exactly as expected, as a large majority of failure were within the first year. The only model which I have personally seen enough data for me to say that it is absolutely, positively a super reliable drive is the Intel X25 series.
If we look at trends from SSD reviews (from the owners) we see that DOA models or models that die within the first few months are not that uncommon. However, DOA models are almost non-existant for some brands, where as it is the norm for others. For some models, DOA or dead within a month constitutes as much as 50% of all reviews. While obviously more people report negative experiences than positives, when one SSD has 95% 5 out of 5 star reviews where as another has 60% at 2 out of 5 stars or below, then a flag needs to be raised. This is not just experience bias...this indicates a issue with the manufacturer.
So, anyhoo... Having 2 more OCZ Vertex 3s which are not doing much at the moment except serving as a mission-critical RAID for faster loading of games on a PC, which I could toss back into the MP if the firmware update from OWC ended up bricking 'em and required an RMA... I went ahead and applied the firmware update to 2, 240GB 6Gs with the SF-2282 controller.
It was mostly painless other than the major annoyance of their "native" Mac support, being booting to an Ubuntu DVD via optical drive (which I tossed out of my MP a long time ago). Can't write OWCs firmware updater to external HDD, can't boot from external optical via FW, basically can't do ****** except boot from an optical directly attached to the SATA bus which is incredibly awful. While the sentiment may be naive, some dude ranting in OWC's blog summed it up nicely, "when I need a firmware update for my iPhone, I click the OK button, it installs, reboots, and just works. This is terrible." For something being described as a "native Mac firmware updater" it is terrible.
I just pulled the SSDs out of Mac Pro, dumped 'em into Windoze box, and ran Windoze updater.
I did not extensively test the individual drives prior to upgrade, nor post, 'cuz I just don't care enough to bother. But running DigiLloyd's DiskTester on the dual SSDs in RAID0, my numbers were:
Before new firmware: Average SSD Write = 484MB/sec, Read 526MB/sec.
After: Average SSD Write = 488MB/sec, Read 555MB/sec.
No issues (with old, or new firmware, so far), no destruction of data on drives, slight speed increase with new firmware (about what OWC states on their blog).
Just unpacked and installed my brand new OWC Mercury Electra 6G. Lasted less than 2 ours and now is dead. I'm running a 5,3 MBP.
My almost-1-year-old OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 115GB SSD that I've happily been running in my 2008 Mac Pro suddenly died last night. EFI can't see the drive at all. Windows BIOS can't see the drive. It's dead as a doornail.
I did notice write speeds steadily decreasing lately. But, this was a boot drive in the MP, and user directories are on a separate disk, so it wasn't getting heavy write action.
Also, it has been living in an IcyDock since new (also purchased from OWC).
I sent e-mail to OWC customer support this morning; hopefully I'll hear something soon.
I did notice write speeds steadily decreasing lately. But, this was a boot drive in the MP, and user directories are on a separate disk, so it wasn't getting heavy write action.
Also, it has been living in an IcyDock since new (also purchased from OWC).
I sent e-mail to OWC customer support this morning; hopefully I'll hear something soon.
Well, I did hear from OWC this morning, and they gave me an RMA number. So far, I'm pleased with the support...
They're quite nice, but since I'm from overseas, I'm having a big headache, since they won't refund any taxes I'd payed on the drive and also won't pay taxes on a new drive (although other companies do). At this point, I decided to get a refund and forget OWC even exists.
Kingston SSDNow 40 GB is now 6092 hours working ok, 4 reallocated sectors
Intel X-25 80 GB used 24/7 in server about 8000 hours, 11 reallocated sectors
Kingston SS100S2 SSD 16 GB, two of four got some errors, one was constantly removed from array, got money back
OCZ-Vertex 3 120 GB working great, so far 2408 hours 24/7 in server
A-Data AS396S-30GM-C just ordered will see
Intel X-25 80 GB used 24/7 in server about 8000 hours, 11 reallocated sectors
Kingston SS100S2 SSD 16 GB, two of four got some errors, one was constantly removed from array, got money back
OCZ-Vertex 3 120 GB working great, so far 2408 hours 24/7 in server
A-Data AS396S-30GM-C just ordered will see
OWC Experience (Aura 3G)
I figured I'd post my experience with a 180 GB OWC Aura 3G in a 2011 MacBook Air. A clean installation of Lion was performed on the SSD, and the system was promptly updated to 10.7.3 thereafter.
I'm not sure if the SSD is to blame, but on random intervals, the Air takes longer to wake from sleep in Lion, in comparison to the stock 128 GB Toshiba drive. The difference is especially prominent if I close the lid without manually putting the machine to sleep.
Occasionally, the MacBook also freezes upon waking from sleep with the OWC drive, but I've yet to see this happen with the stock one. The OWC drive was purchased arfter March 2011, and it has the latest firmware according to OWC's site. I'm not sure if I should try requesting a replacement, or if the drive functions "as expected."
On the flip side, the read and write speeds are a bit faster with the OWC drive, and I notice this when transfering large files via Thunderbolt.
I should add that with both SSDs, SmartSleep was installed and configured to sleep only. I prefer this (even with the sacrificed battery life) over Apple's new hibernation rules in Lion and the 2011 models.
I figured I'd post my experience with a 180 GB OWC Aura 3G in a 2011 MacBook Air. A clean installation of Lion was performed on the SSD, and the system was promptly updated to 10.7.3 thereafter.
I'm not sure if the SSD is to blame, but on random intervals, the Air takes longer to wake from sleep in Lion, in comparison to the stock 128 GB Toshiba drive. The difference is especially prominent if I close the lid without manually putting the machine to sleep.
Occasionally, the MacBook also freezes upon waking from sleep with the OWC drive, but I've yet to see this happen with the stock one. The OWC drive was purchased arfter March 2011, and it has the latest firmware according to OWC's site. I'm not sure if I should try requesting a replacement, or if the drive functions "as expected."
On the flip side, the read and write speeds are a bit faster with the OWC drive, and I notice this when transfering large files via Thunderbolt.
I should add that with both SSDs, SmartSleep was installed and configured to sleep only. I prefer this (even with the sacrificed battery life) over Apple's new hibernation rules in Lion and the 2011 models.
I have 120 GB OWC 3G SSD installed on Macbook Pro 2010 in December 2011, then after 3 months it failed. I called and got the replacement. Then I installed the new one on April 2012, then guess what, 3 months later it fails again.
This can't be random. 2 SSD FAILS every 3 months.
Storage is very crucial, you can lost you data forever. I can't understand how can someone manufacture unreliable products !!
This can't be random. 2 SSD FAILS every 3 months.
Storage is very crucial, you can lost you data forever. I can't understand how can someone manufacture unreliable products !!
My experience with OWC ssd, as previously posted, has been bad. The drive not being recognized was the symptom.
It appears that the Sandforce controller and some Mac Pro's don't play well together.
It appears that the Sandforce controller and some Mac Pro's don't play well together.
The issues and reliability of SandForce controllers is notorious. It's not limited to OWC drives nor Mac's. It's widespread amongst OCZ and others on Windows as well. To top it off, in recent months, SSD prices have been dropping like a rock... except for OWC. There are much better drive choices for Mac Pro owners... Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 to name a couple.
VR - just ordered the SAMSUNG 830 - I believe they developed their own controller - NOT SANDFORCE.
Yeah, that's right. I think I read somewhere that it appears to be the SSD controller Apple is using in the refreshed MacBooks too.
For more than a few of these more puzzling than obnoxious. There seems to be folks reporting their 6Gb/s SSD not working well. Probably, because the controller is a 3Gb/s. A 3Gb/s SSD is a better match and almost certainly not going to have link negotiation speed problems.