Possible SSD Issues

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

I'm getting a weird issue with 8.1, although I suspect it's hardware as we have two other machines running 8.1 (different hardware) that are fine.

 

This problem machine (mine, annoyingly) is initially fine for 2-3 weeks, then suddenly the SSD slows to a crawl - Task Manager shows very little throughput on the disk, and access times of seconds.

 

Reinstalling 8.1 fixes it, but then 2-3 weeks later the same thing happens again. I'm now on my fourth install of 8.1.

 

The machine has an MSI-7788 motherboard, for which I've updated the firmware. The SSD is a Crucial V4, which I've tried to update the firmware for but Crucial's update tool (USB boot disk) doesn't boot. It does appear though that it has the latest firmware (25) from its Device Manager properties.

 

Does anyone know what could be wrong?

 

TIA

[Gongalong]

Windows reported disk errors this morning (first time I've seen it) with a dialog that asked to reboot. I did, checked Event Viewer, and it's full of disk errors. So that explains that!

[3s-gtech]

The Crucial V4 is absolutely notorious for this exact issue.

[synaesthesia]

As above, I've had this on multiple V4s. Firmware update appeared to solve the issue though.

[Gongalong]

I tried Crucial's firmware updater, but it didn't create a bootable USB disk (tested it on a couple of machines). It did appear from Device Manager though that it was on the v25 firmware, as far as I could tell.

 

We had a third of a batch of OCZ drives fail as well.

 

Are there *any* SSD manufacturers that can be trusted?...

[synaesthesia]

Samsung, we're a wholly Samsung shop now. One drive failure and return system was awesome. Intel similarly, plenty of people swear by those.

 

If i remember right with the USB creator tool it's very picky about what sort of drive is used. I think I got it to work with a kingston datatraveller. Try a few different drives.

[sonofsanta]

We've had 100 Crucial m4 SSDs for 18 months that have had zero problems, and 150+ Samsung 840s for 6 months where one has only just failed, so I'm happy with those figures.

 

Wasn't the V4 horrible for performance and controller? Targeted at the old SATA2 standard and failed to even make the most of that.

[synaesthesia]

Yeah they're not good. We only got a couple and the ones still working have been lumped in ancient staff laptops. I think we've an m4 somewhere, if we have it can't be bad that we haven't heard about it

[localzuk]

I am a fan of Kingston's SSDs. Never had any issues with any of theirs. My colleague swears by Sandisk (although, they are super flimsy in comparison to every other SSD I've seen).

 

And then of course there's the daddy of all SSDs - Intel. They had just about the best reliability rate in the industry when I last checked.

[Arthur]

Wasn't the V4 horrible for performance and controller?

Phison make the controller in the V4. They normally make controllers that go in USB flash drives.

 

It's always a good idea to avoid really cheap SSDs like the V4 since they almost always suck.

[sonofsanta]

I think the Samsung 840 EVO tends to be the first decent SSD when sorted by price ascending, IME (TLC flash is really not an issue for school machines where everything is written to a server). The Plextor M500s are supposed to be good, as are the Toshiba drives, but there's no point when the Samsungs are cheaper.

[Gongalong]

I'm glad I went for a Samsung in my home PC!

[zag]

Oh dear, another Crucial SSD error.

 

They give SSDs a bad name, SSD is the most reliable storage technology ever made and companies like this somehow manage to mess it up with cheap components!

 

Go intel

[3s-gtech]

It's not Crucial as such, but the V4 specifically. The M4 is an awesome piece of kit, we have hundreds. We also have a number of Kingston and Sandisk units which have been excellent. Crucial's M500 has a bit of a bad rep currently though.

[Gongalong]

I was forgetting I had the Crucial M4 in my home laptop (Samsung's in the home desktop). I had a problem with the M4 where it wouldn't be detected by BIOS, and I had to go through a rather tedious routine of powering it up and down in a certain sequence, but a newer firmware seems to have fixed that.