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Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

arstechnica.com

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Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#51

Post by danielvinson »

Mithaldu wrote: post #6

> Once-great They were never great. They lied to their customers by selling hardware under the same name as previously produced hardware with cheaper components and lesser specs. They built hardware that was simply off-spec, an example being drives where the connectors were an entire millimeter shifted, such that when installed in certain machines the connectors literally could not make contact with the corresponding…

Those numbers are actually incredibly skewed and not very accurate - I can confidently say that a large amount of the returns in the Vertex 2/3 and Agility 2/3 lines were due to firmware problems which were fixed very early on. Customers simply didn't understand that upgrading firmware was not optional, and the support team was not large/capable enough to teach this to every customer. Many of the drives which were returned were simply re-flashed to the new firmware and sent back, working perfectly.

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#52

Post by mgkimsal »

acchow wrote: post #49
aray wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plural of anecdote is not data. (Just a note to keep in mind when seeing all these personal testimonies)

> "The plural of anecdote is not data" -unknown source. FTFY. I read this about a year ago and have been unable to find the source. Does anyone know where this is from?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6812217

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#53

Post by tanzam75 »

ek wrote: post #48
kabdib wrote: post #28

In the "hardware junkies" mailing list at work (Microsoft) the OCZ drives were a periodic source of derision. "My OCZ drive failed..." / "I'm on my fourth RMA, what should I do?" "Real junkies buy Intel." (Or Samsung). And they don't buy TLC flash, either.

I am pleased that Microsoft has a list called "hardware junkies" :). I'd definitely be on it if I were there. Nice to know they agree with the rest of us that Samsung is the way to go nowadays, too.

On Newegg, OCZ SSDs would consistently have a larger number of 1-star reviews than other drives. Whereas Intel and Samsung drives would consistently have a smaller number of 1-star reviews.

This was one situation where you actually got what you paid for. Yeah, you do pay more for Intel and Samsung -- but that pays for the QA engineers. If you bought OCZ, then you got to be your own QA engineer.

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#54

Post by dpark »

acchow wrote: post #49
aray wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plural of anecdote is not data. (Just a note to keep in mind when seeing all these personal testimonies)

> "The plural of anecdote is not data" -unknown source. FTFY. I read this about a year ago and have been unable to find the source. Does anyone know where this is from?

In an era of high-quality search, you could plug this into the search engine of your choice and get a better answer than you're likely to find on the HN comments.

e.g.

http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural-anec...

http://freakonomics.com/2010/04/29/quotes-uncovered-whats-th...

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#55

Post by JohnBooty »

programminggeek wrote: post #3

The one thing that will kill a hardware company much faster than a software company is managing supply chain and inventory costs. I don't know the full backstory of OCZ other than seeing how the SSD segment of the storage industry has gone and the prices have obviously gone a lot lower and are more competitive. Depending on how OCZ managed their production, it would be very easy to be left holding the bag on millions…

In addition to OCZ's reliability issues, it must have been tough to compete on price with companies like Samsung and Intel that fab their own flash memory.

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#56

Post by tanzam75 »

vacri wrote: post #24
fletchowns wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are notorious for pushing out low quality products. You really should be a more informed consumer before you buy stuff, it's not like it takes a long time to research this kind of stuff.

At the consumer level, it is quite difficult to research a lot of this kind of thing. There is so much contradictory information out there on almost every product, and trying to ferret out the right information can be a gruelling task. Go to a few review sites, have the reviews say "OCZ looks fast and good", go away with a good impression. You have to look elsewhere - on forums and the like, all of which are highly v…

Well, Newegg at least makes it possible to distinguish an OCZ from an Intel/Samsung. When an OCZ drive has 3-stars and 30% of them are 1-star reviews, then you know something is wrong, compared to the Intel drive that has 4.5-stars with only 5% being 1-star.

It's in the finer gradations that it gets murky. Is a 4.5-star drive really better than a 4-star drive?

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#57

Post by dpark »

austinz wrote: post #40

I have OCZ drives in a couple of my machines, all of which are at least a year old. I'd heard bad things about OCZ, but I didn't realize their reputation was that shot. I'm wondering if I should replace my drives, or if the bathtub curve is in full effect here and I've dodged a bullet... With regards to other brands, I spent some time at the startup where I used to work putting together manufacturing PCs meant for pr…

> I'm wondering if I should replace my drives, or if the bathtub curve is in full effect here\

You should back them up, but you should do that regardless of the drive manufacturer. Replacing working drives won't likely gain you anything except a lighter wallet. As you mentioned, you're "in the bathtub" now, and a newer drive is probably more likely to fail. Maintain good backups and replace the drives if/when they fail.

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#58

Post by JohnBooty »

bhauer wrote: post #41

I have avoided them since I started buying SSDs because I associate their brand with Sandforce controllers, and I associate Sandforce controllers with drive failure. Whether these associations are informed by and backed by data or not, they are among the points that steered me into the arms of Intel and Samsung for my SSD needs.

  I associate their brand with Sandforce controllers, and I
  associate Sandforce controllers with drive failure.

  Whether these associations are informed by and backed 
  by data or not, they are among the points that steered me 
  into the arms of Intel and Samsung
Intel has been using Sandforce controllers for a while, starting with the 520 early in 2012. I believe all their products since then have used Sandforce controllers - 330 and 335 definitely do. Source: http://www.storagereview.com/intel_ssd_520_review http://www.anandtech.com/show/6388/intel-ssd-335-240gb-revie... etc

All other things being equal (quality of NAND, workload, etc) the NAND on Sandforce drives will last longer because of their write compression. Of course, most drives will be replaced or retired before that point anyway.

I think Sandforce had a bit of a bad rap for a while because they were the go-to controller for brands like OCZ who competed on price. Their actual silicon is great. In the hands of a manufacturer like Intel (or even OWC - not to be confused with OCZ) who puts quality and stability first, Sandforce controllers really shine.

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#59

Post by tanzam75 »

bhauer wrote: post #41

I have avoided them since I started buying SSDs because I associate their brand with Sandforce controllers, and I associate Sandforce controllers with drive failure. Whether these associations are informed by and backed by data or not, they are among the points that steered me into the arms of Intel and Samsung for my SSD needs.

Intel's consumer SSDs use Sandforce controllers.

However, Intel seems to have a more thorough QA team than the other companies. They made a lot of changes to the SF-2281 firmware before they accepted it for their drives. And then after it shipped, they discovered an AES-256 bug that every other manufacturer missed for over a year.

Re: Once-great SSD manufacturer OCZ filing for bankruptcy

#60

Post by JohnBooty »

Mithaldu wrote: post #6

> Once-great They were never great. They lied to their customers by selling hardware under the same name as previously produced hardware with cheaper components and lesser specs. They built hardware that was simply off-spec, an example being drives where the connectors were an entire millimeter shifted, such that when installed in certain machines the connectors literally could not make contact with the corresponding…

Probably the best thing you can say about OCZ is that they played a huge role in establishing the consumer SSD market.

Their original Vertex series had its rough edges but was a real breakthrough - they were the first to really push a "modern" SSD controller in the form of the Indilinx Barefoot. At the time, most other SSD drives on the market used horrible JMicron flash controllers that were more suitable for your camera's memory card; they were not really designed to cope with the traffic a desktop operating system would throw at them.

Back in the Vertex/Vertex2 days they really were the ones to beat for the most part. But then Intel came along with their incredibly stable SSDs and frankly, OCZ's drives started to seem like toys.

Part of OCZ's problem is that, starting with the Vertex 2 era, dozens of other companies used Sandforce controllers just like OCZ did. At that point OCZ obviously tried to compete on price and we can see what it did to their quality. To their credit, they made a really commendable last stab at relevance when they bought Indilinx so they could have their own custom controller and (maybe?) stop competing on price. Those drives got some great reviews although I don't know if they were reliable or what.

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