this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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I bought 5 of these less than two years ago, though they were the 500 GB model. Every single one of them has failed - some within 45 days and just outside the return period. The last one, which I honestly forgot was still running and thought I'd replaced, failed this morning.

These SSDs are absolute garbage and their warranty replacements are a joke (read: you're outta luck, Chuck). Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me 6 times, well, shame one me for buying them again, I guess. lol. I had one fail prior to this batch, but assumed it was an oddball.

Pro tip: Never buy Silicon Power (SP) SSDs. I you have any in use, make sure you have backups running daily and that you check those backups every so often.

Seems like the 3v3 regulator is what goes out on these, but I'm not going to bother trying to repair it since I've got backups.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Might even say they ran like A55

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

They're almost not even low key admitting it...

[–] [email protected] 53 points 8 months ago

It says "ASS" right on the drive! That's how you know you'll have problems.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Really weird warranty 45 days, are you sure these are not fake?

I have some of their ssds, and the warranty is 5 years

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Oh, the warranty is 5 years. The Amazon return period was 30 days, and they failed outside of that window.

For their warranty claims, they make you jump through a lot of hoops to even get started on an RMA, plus I had to pay shipping. Ultimately, I figured they'd just send another piece of junk, so I cut my losses and bought Samsungs to replace them.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Please leave a review (for these failed drives) for the future rest of us

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Credit cards can protect you here. Some have warranty policies.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Got a similar problem with ocz drives before they got acquired by Toshiba. Bought three, 100% failure rate just after warranty expiration

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Where did you buy them from? There's been an uptick in counterfeit storage and flash chips getting into new products.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Both batches from Amazon (months apart). I also bought one of that brand a few years ago (2017?) that ultimately failed within 2 years as well.

I said this in another comment, but best I can tell, the actual flash chips seem to be fine and it's the support circuitry (power regulator, SATA controller, etc) that seems to be failing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I'd assume it's got something to do with the system you're using them on, some issue with power or something that better quality drives are able to handle, but not these.

These are cheap, yes, but if everyone ordering these was failing just outside the return period, they'd have far more 1 star ratings.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

https://halestrom.net/darksleep/blog/054_nvme/

Summary: two Silicon Power P34A80's died within a few months of use, the second one was the warranty replacement of the first. In both cases sectors suddenly became permanently unreadable.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yep, I've had two die on me, both within a year of purchase, for no real reason whatsoever. I'm never buying that brand again.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Seems like the 3v3 regulator is what goes out on these

Wow, they've really reached the bone on cost saving with this one to have a fucking voltage regulator be the straw that broke the camel's back.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

I bought a 512 GB one of these 5 1/2 years ago, and it’s been reliable. The exception is when I hit ~10% free space a couple times. The drive immediately suffered from horrendous read times, and locked up my system. Worked fine when I freed up enough space. Nowadays, I only use it for extra Steam library storage, since I don’t trust it, but it hasn’t let me down since

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have a 1tb drive from them, still going strong 6 years in.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You must be the luckiest person alive.

Can you please pick 5 numbers between 1 and 69 and then another number between 1 and 26? I'm going to buy a Powerball ticket with those numbers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Watch this guy win and not even offer you a cut :P

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, if I DM'd you saying I won the lottery and wanted to share it with you, would you even read the whole message before reporting it as spam? 😂

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Given the context of a previous conversation, I would. This is a very elaborate long con OP

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Go big or go home 🤷‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (13 children)

What is a recommended SSD nowadays? I don't really have a criteria other than avoiding the noise - sata works well enough for me.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I've been buying Samsung (both SATA and NVMe), though I'm sure someone will tell me they went to crap too. At least the ones I have are on track to hit the 3 year mark.

For less critical things, I've used PNY pretty successfully (haven't hit 2 years yet, but haven't had any failures either). They're less expensive, and I usually stick to the 120-240 GB ones (basically they're boot drives)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Samsung did have a major problem early last year, but it seems to be limited to a run of products with a specific firmware.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I still have the very first SSD I ever bought, a 120GB Samsung 830 that is well over 10 years old. It is the OS drive in my server and thus running 24/7. No errors yet.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

I have Samsung and crucial ssds across 3 systems and only 1 Samsung has failed after 3 years of almost 24hour uptime across those 3 years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

All my machines use WD nvme/sata, with a laptop running ADATA nvme. The only ssd I've had fail was at the very very bleeding edge of ssd availability ("sale" of ~$100 for 30GB) with a Kingston drive, unknown flash mfg. Oldest (other than the Kingston) is when I installed (family member's box) a Samsung sata drive (830? 840?) that's been a trooper for the last... 11 years? No issues otherwise.

Oh, the original ssd (unknown brand) that came in that laptop, which I immediately cloned to+replaced with the ADATA, I stuck in my nas last year. It lasted less than 6 months, with no prior writes and the only reads being the clone, until the nas. Also I got warnings less than 6h before total failure. It was working as a cache drive. Replaced with WD Red nvme drives (2 vs the 1) and those are working fine. Pissed me off, that laptop msrp at... $2700? I bought at $1400 + nvme and ram. For them to want such a fucking nutty upcharge and then use a no-name nvme that dies with moderate use (plex system mostly, couple users) is bullshit. Not surprising, it's came out of an Acer Predator, but fuck.

E: oh and that little pos decided to die when I was on vacation at a convention, so scrambling to get to a laptop and tell the nas to stop using the failing/failed drive, worried about the data, was a panic detour that I did not need...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Either Samsung or crucial for me. Had a SanDisk that died on me.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Oh, damn I have one of these in one of my systems. I'm going to have to find it now and replace it. :(

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

At least make sure you have good backups and definitely plan for it to fail (if you can't replace it immediately). These seem to be "when" they fail rather than "if". Of the 6 I had fail, only one gave any warning signs; the rest just disappeared from the bus and never came back.

This is the only brand of SSD where I've experienced a 100% failure rate (I rate my drives over 3-5 year spans). Lol, for comparison, I've got a Kingston one from 2014 and an Intel one from 2015; both are still kicking and in daily use.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Better to know and it be an inconvenience than unaware until it dies and is a (potential) nightmare

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Afaik there are actually 4 flash memory manufacturers in the World, when you by an SSD the chips were manufactured by one of these companies:

  • Flash Forward (Owned by or related to: Kioxia, Sandisk, WD, Dell, Seagate, Kingston)
  • Micron (Crucial)
  • Samsung
  • SK Hynix

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solid-state_drive_manufacturers

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Best I can tell, the actual flash memory chips are fine. It's the support circuitry around them that seems to be failing.

That said, the data could probably be recovered if I was so inclined and wanted to spend time/money on it. I have backups, so I'm content never buying or looking at one of these pieces of junk ever again haha

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I almost bought an SP NVMe SSD yesterday for a client who insisted on saving every penny possible but went with another cheap brand because I saw a lot of reports of failures with the NVMe ones as well. Now I'm hoping the other cheap option that was available won't suffer the same fate.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've been using that bad boy for about 3 years continuously in my server and 1 year in my desktop. Surprised it hasn't died on me yet, lol.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Go buy a lottery ticket and use the winnings to replace it, lol. Because you are lucky (based on my experience with that brand).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

What's wild is I have had a 1TB one of these running for like 4 or 5 years now without issues, and I've had 2 nice Samsung's (a 970 and 980) die in that time frame. I've basically come to the conclusion that modern consumer storage can't be trusted or relied on in general. Robust back-up solutions of anything I'm worried about losing, preferably to a cloud service (or 2)...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
NVMe Non-Volatile Memory Express interface for mass storage
SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
SSD Solid State Drive mass storage

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.

[Thread #547 for this sub, first seen 26th Feb 2024, 17:25] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

I've had good luck with the two inland nvmes I got from microcenter if you're trying to save a buck. Samsung 970s have been good too, I've got 8 of them running at work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Fck these things, they are slow and I've also had 1 fail, causing me to reinstall my whole home lab...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Since we are talking about cheap ssds, what do you guys think of netac?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Hmm. I have a few of these. I'll have to check if anything important and not backed up is on them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Oh shit, same! I had to upgrade some oscilloscopes, and thought I'd get these. Dead, instead of a year, all 5x.

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