That little 60gb ssd, did you use that for OS?

Drives fail - even optical media will fail in time.  I understand the principal behind it, but it sure sounds like planned obsolescence.

if you really do not want failure, use raid 5 or even 10.  Costly, and you do have to replace members periodically, but that is what the big boys use (and considering the wear and tear, they are very reliable).

Enjoy your SSD!  But beware!  Saltwater plays havoc on them thar computers!

Based on your article title. Just how many drive fails have you had? I've had a couple myself, lost 500GBs worth of video and audio. Luckily I had backups of my audio files at least. The video part took time to get again but I eventually got most of it back.

I would love to get an ssd for my OS and games but too expensive for now. I did get a WD raptor for the speed and it does work wonders. To small size though.

Yes.... Win7 Ult 64bit.  Hiberfil is on it too ...needed by the UPS ....swap is on a platter now.... 12gig of ram means the swap's pretty big.

All the proggies are on the SSD...the games are on a platter.....they're way too big.  {there isn't a SSD made that'd hold all my FSX stuff let alone the other games].

Thanks, although anecdotal that kind of evidence about the durability is just what I wanted. People talk back and forth about it so much I don't know which way is which.

The last HD failure I had was way back when 1gig was about as big as you could buy.

I lost 2 before working out what was crashing the heads.....namely a bad solder job on the PC speaker...so the box/chassis was LIVE.

The Comp co couldn't work it out....I did though whilst doing the second replacement myself [else a third drive would have died].

I do have a much later 160gig that's getting old and frail....sometimes forgets to wake up, but as I mentioned...by the time you need to replace one you'll WANT to anyway because it's too small/slow/old/not trendy enough.

Not an overstatement at all.  But maybe I should have clarified.  My statement should be in context of the main hdd for the OS.

Good for you!!

OUCH!  I hope it was not a shocking experience for you!

Generally true.  I keep them until they die, but after a few years, they become secondary drives that just stores backup stuff.  So if they do fail, no harm no foul (unless the primary fails as the same time).

I guess the speaker felt left outside the PC case an was trying to crash the party inside.

I still have a 40GB and 200GB IDE hard drive in my kids old computer. I don't use the 200GB much but it's there just in case. Both work fine, I think. I do get a hard drive failure msg every time I restart the PC, but I have been seeing it for nearly 2 years now. Must be set on slow motion failure.

Well not everything went to plan, unfortunately, as the cloning of my OS drive did not/would not work.  I used Acronis' clone disc feature and no go... I used another proggie I got from Major Geeks, but that wouldn't/didn't work, either.  Turns out I installed this SSD at the right time because the Hitachi HDD housing my OS has died completely.  It doesn't show up in the BIOS anymore so I'm figuring it'll become a doorstop somewhere around here.

Anyway, I used up another of my installs and re-wrote Win 7 on my new SSD.  It all went smoothly and in record time, with the entire process completing in under 20 minutes... like I went upstairs to make a cuppa and by the time I got back it was done.  All I had to do was set the network preference and voila, an up and running OS.  Now all I have to do is install all my apps again.

I got it in a little plastic packet with no box no info, but I rang the bloke where I bought it and he told me the warranty is 12 months... and no, it's not because he couldn't be bothered.  I've been going to this store for the past 9 years and he has never let me down/refused to return goods on warranty.  However, I will never purchase another Hitachi HDD, given this experience

No, I only have SATA 2 ports at the moment.  However, while I have notice a marked speed increase from before, my primary thought was geared more toward longevity/durability than speed.... and I hope that no moving parts will provide that.

As sole user of this PC, I don't think I'm going to come anywhere near close to the read/write usage you speak of, and given the experiences of people with the same SSD as mine, I am not too worried about its longevity or over-extending its write capability.  Sure all things wear out or die in the end, and I've not had the best of luck with HDD's recently, but I feel this SSD is a step in the right direction.

Not for an OS, at least.  They're still too expensive to become data storage vessels as yet, so obviously I will continue using the regular drives as storage and SSD's for OS/boot drives.  The thing is, I like what I've seen thus far.  Program installations are lightening quick and data transfers seem to be a few kbs faster as well.

I have an Australian freecall number to call for support should I need it, so hopefully I do not experience the same low standard as you did.  And yeah, let's hope the odds are... that I'll not need to call that number.

Yours is one of the experiences that I based my decision to go with an SSD rather than a mechanical drive. 

And no, it had nothing to do with yrag's considered opinion that you could fuck up anything PC.... and haven't... as yet. 

No, it was because your SSD experience came across to me as one of stability, reliability and great performance.  Furthermore, your comments coincided pretty much with many others I'd read about the OCZ drives, so it seemed like a no brainer to me... though I opted for the larger 120gb so as not to feel cramped. 

Besides, if yrag is right, and you can fuck up anything PC, then the OCZ nust be one tough little mother......

Just as everything fails or dies, but I'm hoping this SSD's life expectancy exceeds the 'planned obsolescence'   If it lasts until I'm 65, and I'm 58 now, I'll consider that I've gotten my money's worth.  If it lasts longer, then that's a bonus.... and maybe by then they'll be as cheap as chips [fries, that is] and it's not a financial pain in the butt to replace them.

Thank ye, me bucko, an' I'll be shure ta keep me PC out o' tha sea air.  P'raps I'll cut orf a bit o' sail ta make a lil encloshure fer it.

Over the last 9 years or so, 4 all up.  One was from a known faulty batch and was replaced without question... another was second-hand and I don't know how much usage it had beforehand [I had it at least 4 years]..... the third was the 6 y/o drive I recently migrated my OS from, and that pretty much had 24/7 usage during those 6 years... and the fourth is this Hitachi POS that's now a doorstop.

Yeah, my second HDD failure dropped quite a bit of music, but being that it's all on CD's I've collected over the years it wasn't the calamity it could have been.  It took a while to rip it all back to my PC, but never mind, at least it kept me off the street a while.  As for the videos and photos lost with that HDD failure, well those were all backups of backups anyway.... family stuff that goes way back and was on disc as well as being kept by other family members as well. 

One thing I've noticed with this SSD, there's very little noise coming from my tower.  If I take the time to listen I can hear the CPU fan humming away, but only just, and perhaps the front case fan a little as well, but there's no more clunkedy clunk of the Hitachi in its death throes. Yup, I'm pleased with my purchase thus far.

just pick up the ssd and connect it again and it should work again unless it is in several pieces(ssd's are rated for very high "G" loadings whereas the HDDs are if LUCKY rated to 5 "G", but expect only 1-2 "G" when parked, and ONE "G" in use)

harpo

I had a problem like that, and Yrag had me make a boot dic and boot from it, and then run chkdsk /f /r . Turns out I had some bad sectors which prevented making the image and which were fixed.

Sorry I only saw reply #26 just now, Mark (time difference). You might want to try that on the old disk anyway... ? Don't know if it's worth your time or not.