Problems With Flash Based Notebooks?

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According to this report, the return rate of new flashed-based laptops is abnormally high (as high as 20%). Apparently the problems range from hardware failure to unsatisfactory performance. It seems kinda odd that the return rate is 10x higher than average, have any of you had a problem?

A large computer manufacturer is getting around 20 percent to 30 percent of the flash-based notebooks it is shipping sent back because of failure rates and performance that simply isn't meeting customer expectations, the firm stated in a report on Monday. Avian gathered this information on a recent swing through Asia.
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I work at a large retail outlet and I would say 90% of the returned computers are due to human fault (software/virus/spyware/p2p programs/no patience... list goes on). or people who shouldnt have had a computers in the first place...

Plus alot of times people make problems up or try to somehow break there unit to avoid restock fees.
 
I have read some newegg reviews complaining of failure, but that is about the extent I have seen. Personally, I am waiting on higher capacity, higher speeds, and much lower prices before I enter this market... but once all the kinks are worked out it will be the future of storage.
 
Does Any7one Knows Whatever Happpened to the MRAM Project..I heard A proposal to incorporate a new form of RAM called Magnetic RAM, I guess I'll look into it.
 
I think is it more of the fact that you pay a fair premium for something that offers minor improvements
 
There is a difference between a 32gb Compact Flash with a SATA adapter and a Samsung 32GB SSD.
 
I don't think that difference is important in this case at all. They are talking about standard hdds vs. ssds
 
I find it funny how just this afternoon me and a few others were talking about SSD and somebody was talking about how they would be a lot faster and a lot more reliable than your average harddrive.

Looks like this would have been a good article to have read before that discussion.

The increased failure rate could be due to them being newer and all the bugs not having been worked out yet. Although I have had multiple USB thumb drives just up and go bad on me, so I myself have never fully trusted flash memory even if there is a difference between what is in a SSD and a normal run of the mill USB flash drive.

As for the preformance. That just sucks. If it slower at video streaming i'd assume that the same holds true for music. Then you have them saying that stuff like Outlook would run slower. So then were does that put gaming? I think it would be neat to see the HardOCP team do a review of SSD vs normal harddrirves in a real world evaluation of gaming, burning, and stuff like that. Just to see where exactly you do see increased preformance and where you see a hit.
 
Exavior said:
I think it would be neat to see the HardOCP team do a review of SSD vs normal harddrirves in a real world evaluation of gaming, burning, and stuff like that. Just to see where exactly you do see increased preformance and where you see a hit.
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I'd like to see that too, but I'm guessing we won't for a while since the impact of the technology is still pretty small and the cost to do a truly comprehensive review would be pretty hefty. But maybe a little teaser with a couple drives or something would be nice.
 
BombermanX said:
I'd like to see that too, but I'm guessing we won't for a while since the impact of the technology is still pretty small and the cost to do a truly comprehensive review would be pretty hefty. But maybe a little teaser with a couple drives or something would be nice.
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Yah, that is what I was thinking too, the cost to do so would be kinda high. At best they could spend about $600 - $700 and get a little 32GB SSD. Who knows though, maybe they have connections that can get them one for free / cheap for testing purposes.
 
FuzzyPoncho said:
I work at a large retail outlet and I would say 90% of the returned computers are due to human fault (software/virus/spyware/p2p programs/no patience... list goes on). or people who shouldnt have had a computers in the first place...

Plus alot of times people make problems up or try to somehow break there unit to avoid restock fees.
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Yes, but the return rate for user error should be the same regardless of the type of harddrive, which means if 90% of the normal 2% of returns are user error (1.8%), then the remaining .2%, along with the new 18% would be either hardware failure or, far more likely, flash drives not nearly living up to their hype.

Lets face it, a faster harddrive is nice, but 99% of the people they're trying to sell them to won't see a difference, yet flash drives are marketed as a night-and-day speed difference. People will buy them, realize it does nothing but shave a combined 45 seconds off load times over a few hours use, and return them.
 
I started putting SSD's in our SATA notebook line and noticed a pretty minimal return on performance. I've used Super Talent SSD's and have not had a lot of luck with performance, I'm not sure if there's a bottleneck within the notebook itself or if the SSD is just lack luster itself.

I did however run into a overheating problem with my SSD's. Nothing a thermal pad couldn't solve though. I'm looking forward to trying out the OCZ line of SSD's to see if that will help with my problems.

For the price, Soild State needs to come way way down in price to compete with disk drives IMO.
 
we had some dell 630s with SSD's in them. and they would lock up at random for a few seconds. in the event viewer there was alot of errors like the device didnt respond in time. intel came out with a patch for their chipset driver that resolved the issue. but its hard to find and tech support had no clue.

i think untill they come out with an interface that is desgined to work directly with the memory the performance will suffer.


ive read a few things about not to defrag them or run scandisk. What about vista? Doesnt it defrag and prefetch stuff 24/7, i know i went back to xp because it would always start doing it when i was trying to encode a movie or play a game online. stopping the services sucks after awhile.
 
We got a Dell Latitude D430 w/ a SSD (32gb). It failed after about 3 hours of use (Never out of the IT Dept). Just stopped detecting the drive. We got a replacement and all has been well but for the price increase and capacity decrease we are sticking to our SATA drives.
 
codegrinder said:
ive read a few things about not to defrag them or run scandisk. What about vista? Doesnt it defrag and prefetch stuff 24/7, i know i went back to xp because it would always start doing it when i was trying to encode a movie or play a game online. stopping the services sucks after awhile.
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Defrag a SSD...?

*cough*

:D
 
Some discussion on a DIY method here:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1285007

There are some problems with SSDs like limited number of writes before failure and not so spectacular tranfer rates that may cause issues. Wear leveling has somewhat reduced the wear problem and transfer rates are slowly climbing, but cost is still a big factor and getting a reasonable size and speed means spending more on the SSD than the rest of the system. I think the Asus EEE has got a pretty good entry level solution, and there are modders out there who add in more flash memory.

Compared with a 1.8" drive, it's probably a fairly comparable solution with benefits in ruggedness, power usage, noise, and random access. 2.5" and 3.5" drives just outclass most flash in terms of transfer rates. I guess it just matters what's more important to you.
 
:QUOTE=Nemesis999;1032234689]Defrag a SSD...?

*cough*

:D[/QUOTE]

:confused: As far as the computer is concered its a magnetic device and it will write to it like one, hence the frag i guess? :confused:
 
codegrinder said:
:QUOTE=Nemesis999;1032234689]Defrag a SSD...?

*cough*

:D
Click to expand...

:confused: As far as the computer is concered its a magnetic device and it will write to it like one, hence the frag i guess? :confused:[/QUOTE]

I realize that, I'm just wondering why anyone would PURPOSELY defrag an SSD. Aside from the fact that defraging would just wear the drive, fragmentation has precisely 0 effect on the read/write speed of SSDs.
 
It would seem to me that a SSD would be just as fragmented as a normal HD.

But as you pointed the the effect of said fragmentation might not have as big of a effect on the SSD.

Although since it is already slower would you really even notice if it was even slower than it normally is? Or would you even care at that point?
 
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