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How Not to Buy a SSD

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Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#171

Post by vel0city »

bullen wrote: post #131
Havoc wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big fan of 2nd hand enterprise SSDs strategy too but wow not like that. The slightly more modern intel MLCs like S3700 crush the early SLCs across the board - including endurance. Would have cost you 1/3rd the price for vastly superior specs.

No MLC lasts 5 years tops. I have 5x SLC (40-60GB) drives from 2010 still running. Not a single SLC has failed for me ever. I also have 5x MLC (120-400GB ones) drives that failed. All MLC have failed for me. The stats don't look too good.

I've had a few Kingston V300 120GB SATA MLC SSD's I bought on a stupid cheap sale at Microcenter and tossed into a raid 0 for funzies in 2012. They're still running just fine after being online all the time for the last decade.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#172

Post by vel0city »

thisislife2 wrote: post #43
crinkly wrote: post #13

I usually buy second hand enterprise SSDs off eBay. No one bothers to fake them and they last longer than the consumer ones even if they are a few years old.

I hear this a lot online - buy used enterprise stuff online, it'll be cheaper and lasts long (at least you get your money's worth). But when you start to explore the online market for these used enterprise hardware, you find that nobody really sells it for cheap any more, at a price that makes sense to buy it. For example, if a new enterprise class SSD is $250, you may find a used one for $125. But then, brand new co…

Yeah I tend to agree, used enterprise storage can still be expensive depending on what you need compared to buying used enterprise compute, memory, networking, etc. When old gear gets decomm'd it's common to just toss all the old storage medium into a shredder while selling all the rest so it's an imbalance of equipment.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#173

Post by ciupicri »

toss1 wrote: post #140
PeterStuer wrote: post #62

At the start of the eCommerce business, people flocked to Amazon because they had trouble trusting smaller retailers. These days it is the opposite. These brands went from trusted sellers to whitewashing marketplaces for the most dubious fraudulent drop-shippers by means of things like "sku-pooling" (you by design can not and never will know who shipped your specific item into the giant pool at Amazon). So now I shop…

YUP. It used to be that people would use local brick & mortar stores to examine the item and then buy it cheaper on Amazon. I now use Amazon to search, then go buy more reliably at the source company itself, a specialized online store, or locally. It isn't just about getting ripped off, it's about actual personal and household safety. Many categories such as electronics and batteries, I NEVER buy from Amazon, and I a…

I don't understand how someone can use Amazon to search, it's horrible.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#174

Post by Moru »

traceroute66 wrote: post #50
Moru wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go out of my way to support local business. I don't care if I have to wait a day or two more. So be it. I am NOT supporting amazon.

> I go out of my way to support local business. Let me tell you a little story my friend .... Near my friend's house, there used to be a little mulit-generation "mom & pop" hardware shop. It was an aladdin's cave. As a customer the place looked a mess, floor to ceiling (and even the ceiling !) covered in hardware widgets. But the owner could wave his magic wand and go find exactly what you wanted. One day, across the…

That's some mighty high horses you have there my friend.

I live in a city where McDonalds shut down because the local burger place was more popular.

I have spent my whole life not supporting big companies, I have been running those small local businesses myself. And I'm pretty tired of the 20-year olds coming there with the usual "It's the year 1999, this is the future, keep up!".

yawn get off my lawn.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#175

Post by qingcharles »

chao- wrote: post #31
jchw wrote: post #4

In general I am afraid to buy storage devices except directly from the vendor at the moment. I've heard that there's also lots of fraudulent HDDs being sold with botched SMART data, even on Amazon, even marked as "New", even sold by Amazon. Scary proposition unless you're dying to test out your RAID array redundancy.

If there is a Micro Center near you, they have been reliable. I recently had to replace an entire array of SATA SSDs with models that could support DRAT/DZAT*. Their Samsung 2.5" SATA SSDs came with the original Samsung stickers sealing them, and they scanned each one to attribute it to my purchase. I'm sure it as much to protect them as me, i.e. that if I returned a drive, I gave them back the drive with the exact D…

Micro Center ran one of those "Free 128GB flash drive next time you drop by!" offers last year. I picked one up. It was fake :(

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#176

Post by qingcharles »

brudgers wrote: post #23
zargon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, for the same reason. Also if you use their store credit card, they give a discount equal to the sales tax.

Yep, and living in CA that’s almost 10%.

10.25% here! I need their store card. Jeesh, I remember the days of no sales tax on other-state transactions. The golden days.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#177

Post by toss1 »

ciupicri wrote: post #173
toss1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YUP. It used to be that people would use local brick & mortar stores to examine the item and then buy it cheaper on Amazon. I now use Amazon to search, then go buy more reliably at the source company itself, a specialized online store, or locally. It isn't just about getting ripped off, it's about actual personal and household safety. Many categories such as electronics and batteries, I NEVER buy from Amazon, and I a…

I don't understand how someone can use Amazon to search, it's horrible.

Yes, it's definitely degraded, but there are some categories where it is handy to just get a survey or discover some options. But to really try to actually complete a purchase, it is nearly completed its enshittification.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#178

Post by os2warpman »

ndriscoll wrote: post #135
criddell wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage - it's much easier to get up and running. If you are on Windows, you can probably download it and be running it in less time than it's going to take to download the source code for f3.

`nix-shell -p f3` took about 1 second to run on my machine. I didn't even have to install Windows or sign up for an online account.

Installing and learning to use NixOS probably takes a layman longer than ordering a laptop from amazon, receiving it, realizing something's wrong with it, returning it, getting a replacement that works, then downloading and running this tool on an ssd they already own.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#179

Post by mock-possum »

Moru wrote: post #7
jchw wrote: post #4

In general I am afraid to buy storage devices except directly from the vendor at the moment. I've heard that there's also lots of fraudulent HDDs being sold with botched SMART data, even on Amazon, even marked as "New", even sold by Amazon. Scary proposition unless you're dying to test out your RAID array redundancy.

I'm curious with what you mean with "Even sold by Amazon". The last few years I see nothing but reports of cheap fake products over Amazon. Years ago I ordered some T-Shirts to test and they were all fake versions that barely survived the first wash. Haven't ordered anything since then.

So did you get them refunded?

I’ve never had it take more than a quick chat to get a full refund for anything I’ve been dissatisfied with.

That’s part of the appeal, for me - there’s no risk of being scammed by poor quality items - because you can always just get your money back and buy something else. And with free two day shipping, sometimes even one day, it hardly even registers as an inconvenience. They just make it so easy.

Re: How Not to Buy a SSD

#180

Post by atlanta90210 »

drfuchs wrote: post #110
morninglight wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's problems with fraudulent memory products were well documented in 2023 when GRC published their test results for a dozen such drives purchased from the site. In response, GRC developed a free program, called "ValiDrive", to scan and test drives for this growing problem. ValiDrive performs a quick, random-sequence spot-check across the drive's entire declared storage space. At every location it verifies the su…

Steve Gibson? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time… Maybe 30 years? SpinRite?

Steve Gibson also does a show called Security Now with Leo. One of the best IT security podcasts out here. He knows so much about IT and IT security it is amazing.

https://twit.tv/shows/security-now

Long Live Steve Gibson

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