SSDs Fail. Period.
I've taken a lot of flack from some of you since I started posting on Icrontic for my outspoken criticism of SSDs and their reliability. Most of my criticism has been rooted in my personal experience at my job where I have seen an inordinately high percentage of SSDs die as compared to traditional SATA and SAS drives. I've been told by at least one of you that I'm downright wrong about the lack of reliability of the drives. Well... not only am I not wrong, but now even some of the ardent (higher profile) supporters of SSDs are admitting that they're not as reliable as many people like to make them out to be.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html
Now then, am I saying that nobody should use SSDs? Surely not. If you really need better disk performance, an SSD is most likely the way to go. You damn well better make sure that you have backups though (as well as the spare cash to replace the drive) because, no matter what Thrax says, they fail... and they do it just as often if not more often than traditional drives. Plus when a traditional drive fails you can often recover some if not all of your data. When an SSD fails, you can kiss your data goodbye.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html
Now then, am I saying that nobody should use SSDs? Surely not. If you really need better disk performance, an SSD is most likely the way to go. You damn well better make sure that you have backups though (as well as the spare cash to replace the drive) because, no matter what Thrax says, they fail... and they do it just as often if not more often than traditional drives. Plus when a traditional drive fails you can often recover some if not all of your data. When an SSD fails, you can kiss your data goodbye.
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Give us something like what percent of drives fail in 6mo/1yr/2yr/etc, broken down by manufacturer (maybe). If it is consistently high across all manufacturers or you can say that between the 1 and 2 year mark, a lot of drives die.
And then compare that to the percent of mechanical drives that die at those same times. If you want to be fancy, put confidence intervals on those percentages and see if the difference is statistically significant.
Now your comment about data on a failed SSD is true. I typically have my OS and main programs running on SSD's but the valuable data is saved on a data (Platter drive) and is backed up weekly.
@shwaip - that blog is not just one guy. It's one guy saying 2 of the 3 he purchased failed, and another tech savvy fellow he knew had his only one fail, and a 2nd tech savvy fellow that he knew had 8 of various makes and models all fail.
I'd LOVE to see real data on SSD failure rates and the potential causes. Shwaip's suggestion would do nicely.
I don't have a horse in this race, but for full disclosure I'll say I have an SSD running in my rig right now (with the presumption that it would end-of-life well after I'd moved on to something else anyway). In any case, I'll second the fact it's hard to believe anything one way or another without hard data to stare at. I'd really like looking at your particular company's failure rate of SSDs, if that's possible. Until then, I'll have to go off what (a rather large pool of internet users more knowledgeable than I with this technology) are telling me: they're good, they last, and they're fast.
I'm not risking getting fired to satisfy you, since even if I gave you real data you'd just regurgitate industry supplied stats at me and tell me I'm wrong.
All I'm saying is that a more influential and trusted blogger than you, who was (and still is) a proponent of SSDs has admitted that they fail, they fail often and when they fail they do so spectacularly. Regardless of the fact that his sample size is only 12 SSDs, it still puts a dent in your "omg, SSDs are the greatest thing ever, they can sustain 20GB of writes per day for 20 years always blahblahblah" that you post everywhere.
Also, as I said, I'm not telling people NOT to use SSDs. I'm just pointing out more information backing up what I've been saying for the past 2 years. SSDs are not as reliable as the Thraxes of world like to hype them to be... so make sure your data is backed up and you have a spare laying around if your computer is mission-critical.
Not data.
Where's YOUR data. I'm talking the stuff that's not industry supplied, I want first hand data that backs up the reliability claims you've made.
This chart provided by 10 hours of research in MS paint through a nonprofit, unbiased organization.
The burden of proof is on you.
Why? Because I'm advocating that people backup their data? You're the one that's been making ridiculous claims about SSD reliability.
My rage is entirely based on people that lose their data because they don't have backups of it, their SSD fails, then they throw a fit at me because they have unrealistic expectations of SSD reliability thanks to people like Thrax overhyping the technology.
People like Thrax give people unrealistic, industry supplied numbers which instill unrealistic expectations which then make the lives of people that have to deal with the consequences miserable. I hate them.
Cut the shit, brohammer. Don't try and revisit an old and, on my part, completely forgotten debate about the reliability of flash memory and then change the nature of the debate when I push you for something more than anecdotal evidence.
You can do better, and I expect better.
Also, I will do exactly fuck all about this topic when I'm facing unprovoked posturing like this even before I take a seat at the table:
You can sit there all night long and ragepound the keyboard like an angry fucking chimp, but I won't play ball with it. Why should I? What do I have to gain by enduring your arrogant tantrums?
Nothing.
Find someone else to care.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Answer a loaded question originally posed to sympathetically strengthen an argument.
http://www.osra.org/itlpj/bartlettkotrlikhiggins.pdf
Quick journal searches (and yes, google scholar searches too... I'm not too proud) reveal no statistical studies simulating the reliability of SSDs, most data at this point is for specific variables (magnetic susceptibility, humidity, temperature, speedy CTE changes, etc). Overall reliability data would be a theoretical construct out of these calculations along the lines of 'which one gonna fail first?' Done by - guess who cares about the reliability of the device - industry.
Calling them "industry statistics" while hinting about their inaccuracy is a disservice. It's a disservice to the scientific studies behind them, and it's a disservice to the engineer that came up with the factor of safety for that number. I used to work in an industry that built numbers like that.
The only people who will do reliability research are the people that care. University researchers will be much more interested in performance. University research on reliability will be (more often than not) funded by industry grants (as opposed to other third party organizations), making even these studies "industry statistics." I used to work in a university lab that performed "industry" studies like that.
A better request would be "In order to refute a claim that I am bringing against established claims, I want YOU to show me some first-hand, impossibly extensive research that hasn't yet been done and therefore must be self funded. Any study that at one point was done using existing research systems will be discarded because I prefer my research photodocumented on websites rather than in a scholarly journal."
We all understand why you don't want to publish data from your job. It would be very interesting data to see, but not at the price of your income. However, if you cited sources other than what amounts to a guy with a blog and two other people he knows (however well respected that blog may be), I'm sure you'd get a lot less flak.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if SSDs were more prone to failure - they're a newer technology...however until I see something detailed like this paper (PDF!), you have to understand why I and others would be skeptical.
I just happened to see this story while watching some Tekzilla today and thought I'd bring it up. Sue me if I preemptively mentioned you since I knew you'd post the same. old. shit you post every time I tell someone that plans on using an SSD to back up their data because they're not as reliable as the industry likes to claim.
Back up your stuff regularly to minimize risk of total data loss.