Which SSD should I buy?

In short, an Intel branded SSD.

The long story goes a little different than this. Let me tell you that story.

I was an early adopter of SSD technology. Initially I sprung for an OCZ branded SSD, two RMA’s and 3 failed OCZ SSD drives later, I had a very expensive paper weight. Not much of a paperweight to be honest, SSDs weight close to nothing. Even after all the failures I got a taste of what an SSD could do to a computer system, how much a computers responsiveness increased with an SSD inside. The Hard Drive was no longer a bottleneck and I had to have more of this incredible speed.

So I finally replace the failed OCZ drive and purchased one of the Intel branded value series SSDs. This was the first offering of a value series SSD drives from Intel ever. Well guess what, 6 years later and after being in 6 computer systems, the drive is still kicking and alive today. I still have it full time in a computer system. I wish I could say the same about the OCZ drive. OCZ was a company that was on the brink of bankruptcy due to their bad hardware and even worse quality control. I mean even their RAM modules are no longer recommended, and they used to be the enthusiasts choice. They are now owned by Toshiba, and no longer the same company they used to be.

Now I do not but anything but Intel SSD drivers. Also to note that Intel based Solid State Drives are the only ones that pass the power off test. Essentially you cut the power of a computer system abruptly while an SSD drive is busy and hope for the best. Mechanical hard drives have a fault tolerance for this, but apparently SSDs do not. Out of the drives tested with this method, after performing a CRC check on the files only the Intel drives passed. Mind you this is a test is over a year old and SSD technology can evolve rather quickly. But with the recent Samsung EVO SSD issues of data retention and read speed loss, there is only one SSD manufacturer I trust with my data…

Yes Intel SSDs are more expensive, but in today’s world you generally get what you pay for. And how much time and money is a piece of mind worth to you.

Look I’m not saying that all SSDs are bad quality, and not every SSD you buy will be a lemon, well except for the current Samsung EVO 840 drives, however historically speaking Intel has the better quality parts and less rotten apples in their basket than the competition. This is not an advertisement for Intel based SSDs just an observation based on experience.

Update: Full disclosure, historically Intel is not without it’s issues, mind you most of the issues intel SSDs experienced were due to third party SSD sata controllers. Like the Sandforce controller in the 520 (2013) series, or the controller in the 320 (2012) series. Since Intel has created their own SSD sata controllers, and firmware updates to those faulty third party controllers were released fairly quickly. Then there is the problem with the 530 series SSD, it’s dubbed the startup issue, and is only limited to the HP elite books. What happens is when you restart your laptop it will not recognize the drive. But this is an isolated problem to said laptop.