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Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

arstechnica.com

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Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#91

Post by chihuahua »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #47
antasvara wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is what Western Digital says the speed for the drive is. I would guess that the changes don't touch the stated top speed, as the article seems to indicate that this only slows down write speeds after the cache is filled. If Western Digital specified an average write speed, this might be affected. However, that average could technically not have changed depending on how they determined this average s…

> The real question is what Western Digital says the speed for the drive is. They say "Up to 1,800 MB/s" So if they decided to put in flash similar to a samsung 860 QVO, which drops down to 80 MB/s when the cache is full, that would still satisfy the spec.

There's a reason they state the specs using this kind of language. Anyone who experiences performance 1,800 MB/s is going to be happy.

Where it becomes absurd (and amusing, but still not fraud) is when the manufacturer claims "up to XYZ or more!". Any number is going to match that spec. So the statement says nothing.

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#92

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

dijit wrote: post #50
cableshaft wrote: post #19

This happens to video games also. Publishers give review copies with microtransactions not included, the reviewers review it, and then shortly after release they add their free-to-play garbage so they get reviews that don't take the microtransactions into account and then they add it later. The also do it during ESRB submission to get around having to have a label that mentions in-game purchases. I'm surprised ESRB l…

I work on an upcoming free to play game, we will have microtransactions on cosmetics and possibly new character archetypes. Microtransactions are not in the early builds of the game because we literally hadn't made the content for it yet, we were focusing on the game mechanics. The store is a lot of work in a game, and the cosmetics themselves are mostly content work which is not hyper critical to have in place (unli…

Bottom line is reviewers are reviewing one version of the game, and players are getting a sometimes significantly different version. That is anti-consumer behavior no matter how you cut it.

Some responsibility does also fall on reviewers for being aware and where appropriate mentioning this fact.

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#93

Post by sebazzz »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #80
cableshaft wrote: post #19

This happens to video games also. Publishers give review copies with microtransactions not included, the reviewers review it, and then shortly after release they add their free-to-play garbage so they get reviews that don't take the microtransactions into account and then they add it later. The also do it during ESRB submission to get around having to have a label that mentions in-game purchases. I'm surprised ESRB l…

Phone manufacturers do this as well. Release a phone to reviewers with awesome performance and battery life (by aggressively killing background apps), then a month later, release a build that doesn't do those things so people don't complain about missed notifications, etc. Hell, even Apple nuked the noise cancelling in the Airpods Pro right after launch [1], possibly for battery reasons or to prevent hearing damage l…

I see a market for a site called "The late review".

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#94

Post by exporectomy »

p_j_w wrote: post #49
post_break wrote: post #26

Ship the top tier hardware NVME drives to reviewers, wait a few months then start swapping out slower memory chips, controllers, go through multiple revisions while keeping the same name so when gamers look for reviews they see blinding speeds only to be duped. It's incredible what drive manufacturers are getting away with.

>It's incredible what drive manufacturers are getting away with. I think it's more incredible that we continue to elect governments that let them get away with it.

This doesn't need more regulation. Just stop trusting professional reviewers who are not bound by the existing false advertising laws that the manufacturers/retails already are. If you want to know how something performs, read the specs published by the manufacturer. If they're too shy to say how slow it is, then there's a reason for that!

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#95

Post by randerson »

Const-me wrote: post #2

We only have 4 manufacturers of SSD drives who also making their own chips: Intel, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Here’s the table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solid-state_drive_manu... I tend to buy Samsung and Intel, both working well in my devices.

And Intel just sold their SSD business to SK Hynix, so soon there will only be 3!

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#96

Post by BearOso »

Also, a warning on Western Digital”s SN750 SE series. These are PCIe 4.0 protocol ones that claim to outperform the regular SN750 drives. In reality they’re slower because they’re DRAM-less. Last I checked they were the same price, so be careful to not get the SE model.

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#97

Post by dalmo3 »

sebazzz wrote: post #93
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone manufacturers do this as well. Release a phone to reviewers with awesome performance and battery life (by aggressively killing background apps), then a month later, release a build that doesn't do those things so people don't complain about missed notifications, etc. Hell, even Apple nuked the noise cancelling in the Airpods Pro right after launch [1], possibly for battery reasons or to prevent hearing damage l…

I see a market for a site called "The late review".

Not sure about consoles, but Steam solves that by ranking recent reviews and those submitted by players with more game time as more relevant.

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#99

Post by fomine3 »

Const-me wrote: post #2

We only have 4 manufacturers of SSD drives who also making their own chips: Intel, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Here’s the table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solid-state_drive_manu... I tend to buy Samsung and Intel, both working well in my devices.

This issue happened on WD (acquired SanDisk). So the "just buy NAND manufacturer's SSD" strategy don't work. Also you miss Kioxia!

Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%

#100

Post by olao99 »

exporectomy wrote: post #94
p_j_w wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's incredible what drive manufacturers are getting away with. I think it's more incredible that we continue to elect governments that let them get away with it.

This doesn't need more regulation. Just stop trusting professional reviewers who are not bound by the existing false advertising laws that the manufacturers/retails already are. If you want to know how something performs, read the specs published by the manufacturer. If they're too shy to say how slow it is, then there's a reason for that!

Yes it does need more regulation. It is fraud and as a manufacturer you shouldn't be allowed to get away with deceptive shit like this.
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