"Paul" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:
Paul nospam needed.com wrote:
John Doe wrote:

Anything can just go without warning. An experienced computer
user always has backups of important data. Some of us use very
efficient methods for backing up and restoring stuff. Hardware
is rarely an issue. Any reasonable hardware should not be an
issue.
What, exactly, makes an SSD any more prone to quitting without warning
than any other device that includes electronic
circuitry like a conventional hard drive? Any credible
citations showing that sort of failure on high quality SSDs?
Both SSDs and hard drives, have firmware. Without any cites at
all, that represents an "exposure" in terms of product quality.

What is your point?

Since both SSD and Hard Drives are firmware/CPU based,
they are both untrustworthy.

And you cannot really estimate when they'll fall over or why.

You can actually with some faults that show
evidence of a problem in the SMART stats.

For example, some bugs are related to how many times the device has been
power cycled.

Those arent bugs.

Some users will see an early failure (because they power cycle the PC a
lot). Others will see the device last a long time (since they don't power
off).

Those arent bugs.

Companies will not always admit why their product failed.

Doesn't matter what they admit, with plenty
of failures the reason for them is obvious.

In the case of Seagate, occasionally a company engineer
will make an unofficial statement about why some failures
are occurring. Due to the prototype nature of the SSD
market, the early SSD failures involved a lot of ass covering,
as no maker attempting to capture mindshare, would want
to admit why their product is failing. So you can't always
get a nice neatly laid out report as to what to expect
from SSDs.

So my point is, no matter what the track record is to date,
the same fault modes can exist on SSDs, as on hard drives.

But the technology is so different that you
don't often see the same fault modes.

Both have rudimentary firmware,

It's a hell of a lot better than rudimentary.

with no attempt to automatically recover from bad situations.

The whole point of remapped sectors with hard drives and spare
cells with SSDs is to recover automatically from bad situations.

Firmware flaws would have no representation in SMART. So it's not like you
can be warned there is a bug in the firmware.

Sure, but that is only a minor cause of HDD and SSD failure now.

And the device is most likely to "disappear", when you first
turn it on in the morning. When the SSD "internally boots".

If a brand new SSD comes out today, I could pick one up
assuming the SSD market is mature and every SSD maker
knows what they're doing. Only to lose all my data a
month later. And then reports come out that it is a
firmware issue. Whether it happens regularly, is not the
issue. It's the possibility that it can happen that counts.
And the track record of firmware issues on hard drives,
should attest to how often these mistakes make it into
the field.

(Repairing a bricked Seagate ST3500320AS using a TTL serial cable...
An example of a model with a firmware problem.)

http://www.overclock.net/t/457286/se...-fix-with-pics

(Firmware update if you catch it before it bricks)

http://knowledge.seagate.com/article...S/FAQ/207951en