Corsair Force Series 3, $180 AR

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Demon10000

Supreme [H]ardness
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Not sure if you guys saw this deal in the Newegg deals -- it's a solid deal.

Corsair Force Series 3 CSSD-F120GB3-BK 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$234.99 - $25.00 promo code "HARDOCPX6X1A" = $209.99 with free shipping
Promo Expires on 6/7/11
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But then a $30 rebate was added bringing the total to $180 AR making it a great deal!

$234 - $25 instant (with code above) - $30 rebate card = $180

There appear to be some problems with the Drive, but Corsiar has already acknowledged them and promised an update to fix them. Seems like they might have just rushed their hardware before the firmware was ready. I fell comfortable that they'll take care of the people who are having problems. Here is the Corsair Link to follow for updates.
 
Where does this sit in the current gen lineup? Does it beat the Vertex 3's, M4's, or the older C300's?

Reviews?
 
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I wouldnt touch this until that issue is fixed. Sandforce drives are the only drives i've ever experienced that have caused BSOD's. We don't know if it's a hardware or firmware issue yet.
 
DO NOT BUY THESE. The user reviews are horrible. I have 2 in the mail and I'm going to refuse delivery for both from UPS.
 
Damn, that sucks. I was going to pick up one of these. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Outside of BSoD whats so bad about these? I'm using a gen 2 version and its fine. Unless it had Vertex 3 like failures with reliability after repeated read/writes? Seems to be pretty nice with the speed up. I don't have Sata slots for one, but puts the $160 i payed for my gen f120g to shame with the comparable speeds.
 
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Westernesse said:
Outside of BSoD whats so bad about these? I'm using a gen 2 version and its fine. Unless it had Vertex 3 like failures with reliability after repeated read/writes? Seems to be pretty nice with the speed up. I don't have Sata slots for one, but puts the $160 i payed for my gen f120g to shame with the comparable speeds.
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Did you actually mean the newest Vertex 3's or did you mean the older Vertex 2's had that issue and just made a mistake with what gen it was you were referring to?
Just curious.
 
I said this in another thread, wait on buying these. Corsair needs better QA in their SSD department.
It's a shame their name is on these types of SSDs. I hope they reconsider using SF controller.

The could partner up with Crucial instead, if possible.

These SSDs may use Asynchronous NAND, another reason why they are so cheap. This type of NAND doesn't handle compressed data well.
The Vertex 3 uses Synchronous NAND.
http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews...sata-6gbps-ssd-review-preliminary-benchmarks/
 
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Ya, there is the ansync NAND, but that's not too big of an issue for $180. Any SSD is going to offer killer speeds, but I'm not seeing a lot of compelling reasons to upgrade from a gen 2 to a gen 3 SSD for most any brand. Once you have a decent SSD, biggest reason to upgrade is size, although speed might be more of a factor if they were closer to $1/gb.

Corsair is releasing a Force GT which will use ONFI synchronous NAND (not async NAND) at some point.

J32P said:
Did you actually mean the newest Vertex 3's or did you mean the older Vertex 2's had that issue and just made a mistake with what gen it was you were referring to?
Just curious.
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Er, ya I'll edit it, but vertex 2 that are use 25 nm instead of 32 nm was where I believe the problem was.
 
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ToastyBread said:
Am I the only one not seeing a rebate listed, even if/when it is back in stock?
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It's out of stock now, but the rebate option isn't there. If someone needs it, PM me your email address and I'll send you a copy of the PDF.
 
I purchased one corsair SSD last year because it was a great deal. Then I read the reviews. Then I read the reviews on other corsair SSD's. Then I read the corsair forums in depth and saw how they were basically ignoring or overlooking hundreds of serious problems. Then my SSD started causing bsod's and general file corruption as well as not being detected. There seems to be a big stink in the corsair SSD department.
 
I bought this drive last week. Arrive 2 days ago. Been running fine in my 2011 Macbook Pro. SATA 3 reading and writing at 500 mb.

I also just called Newegg and got $25 credited to my account. SWEEET
 
These corsair drives suck man.. Not their strong suit SSD's.. They are actually made by Patriot but they come with shitty firmware.. Stay away..
 
It's actually running great in my MBP. I have no problems AT ALL. Running great with great battery life.
 
Here's the latest from the Corsair thread on these -- looks like they're making progress that many vendors are going to be able to benefit from:

OK, we have a tiny bit of GOOD news. Yesterday, someone in engineering took a couple of systems over to SandForce and met with their engineers. We recreated the issue and gave the machines to SandForce and now, they have seen the issue.

I cannot place any timeframe on how progress will go from this point. Identifying an issue is a long way from resolving it but it's obviously a critical first step.

The information in this thread could prove to be VERY beneficial to SF as they dig into this. I'm going to compile it later today and send it to the same guys at SF. Please encourage anyone having issues with our drives to post here and monitor this thread. We'll keep you updated as much as possible.

Again, thank you for your patience and thanks for choosing Corsair!
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Jimmmy said:
These corsair drives suck man.. Not their strong suit SSD's.. They are actually made by Patriot but they come with shitty firmware.. Stay away..
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Patriot? That's their problem right there.
I knew these were going to have issues before they were even released. It's bad when customers can predict potential issues.

Change vendors and they'll be fine. Micron Technology.
 
Jimmmy said:
These corsair drives suck man.. Not their strong suit SSD's.. They are actually made by Patriot but they come with shitty firmware.. Stay away..
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How do you know they are made by Patriot? Patriot doesn't produce memory, they source out, so I don't understand why Corsair would bother going through them....
 
Demon10000 said:
Here's the latest from the Corsair thread on these -- looks like they're making progress that many vendors are going to be able to benefit from:
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Good to know. Thanks for the heads up. What a shame, Corsair's quality has always been top notch. Guess they didn't do their homework this time around.
 
They're taking care of it, though. It hasn't been out long and they've already identified the problem and given sample machines to Sand Force. I would expect a fix early/mid next week.

I know we all want our stuff to arrive and work right off the bat - it doesn't always work that way all the time though. This type of issue is usually denied by the manufacturer for quite some time. Corsair isn't being like that, though. It slipped through their QA (shame on them), but they seem to be taking care of it. If it doesn't get fixed by a firmware update, my guess is they upgrade everyone to something better down the line.
 
Demon10000 said:
They're taking care of it, though. It hasn't been out long and they've already identified the problem and given sample machines to Sand Force. I would expect a fix early/mid next week.

I know we all want our stuff to arrive and work right off the bat - it doesn't always work that way all the time though. This type of issue is usually denied by the manufacturer for quite some time. Corsair isn't being like that, though. It slipped through their QA (shame on them), but they seem to be taking care of it. If it doesn't get fixed by a firmware update, my guess is they upgrade everyone to something better down the line.
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At the same time, given the wide-range of systems that are showing issues with the Force 3 drives, it seems like some fairly basic QA would have caught it (scratch that - should have caught it). It's affecting way too many systems to have simply have been "isolated".

While I'll always give props to Corsair for their customer service (all of my experiences have been great), this is still a pretty giant screw-up on their end.
 
Demon10000 said:
They're taking care of it, though. It hasn't been out long and they've already identified the problem and given sample machines to Sand Force. I would expect a fix early/mid next week.

I know we all want our stuff to arrive and work right off the bat - it doesn't always work that way all the time though. This type of issue is usually denied by the manufacturer for quite some time. Corsair isn't being like that, though. It slipped through their QA (shame on them), but they seem to be taking care of it. If it doesn't get fixed by a firmware update, my guess is they upgrade everyone to something better down the line.
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Well, I just refused delivery of my second Force 3. It's easy to say they are taking care of it, but when you put your money on the line you expect the damn things to work. Plus, I ordered both of my drives at 234 bucks and the priced dropped SIGNIFICANTLY overnight so that leaves a bad taste in my mouth too.

Once I get my 2 RMA credits, I'll be ordering an Intel SSD. If I can wait that long, that is. I might just order the Intel SSDs anyway.
 
ToastyBread said:
Just as an update to anyone who bought this:

It looks like Corsair has stopped all shipments, as the drives cannot be fixed with a firmware update alone. So if you have one and were hoping for a firmware update, it looks like you'll be sending it in:

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=95825
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This was expected.
Corsair needs to find another controller for their SSDs, or whatever the issue is to deliver great SSD products.
 
WorldExclusive said:
This was expected.
Corsair needs to find another controller for their SSDs, or whatever the issue is to deliver great SSD products.
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They are using the same controller as just about everyone.. Sandforce 2xxx series. (so same as OCZ Vertex 3 etc) That isn't the issue. Something else is.
 
Lazn_Work said:
They are using the same controller as just about everyone.. Sandforce 2xxx series. (so same as OCZ Vertex 3 etc) That isn't the issue. Something else is.
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OCZ is having problems with their Vertex 2/3 drives as well. They're playing dumb in the support forums...the only answer is "you made the drive die" or "Its RMA time".

I'm extremely pissed off at OCZ right now. At least Corsair has the balls to admit that there's something going on with the drives. OCZ is deleting posts if anything negative gets posted, other than "my drive died."

Sandforce needs to resolve this ASAP, as well as the Vertex 2 (and Agility 2 as far as I know) from not being recognized in the BIOS. I'm switching over to Intel drives for the bulk of my custom-builds. I have too good of a reputation to risk by having my customers be beta-testers for hardware.
 
Yeah, when I first saw this deal, i was about to go with it, but as the post count on Corsair's forums continued to increase with issues, decided to wait.

Now I'm just waiting for a Intel 510 series 120GB to go on sale.
 
OCZ has had quality control issues for a while (been there myself with numerous failed Vertex and Agility drives). Seems like Corsair's problems are similar to OCZ's, potentially pointing at SandForce as the problem. Before this OCZ used Indilinx and there were issues then as well, so IDK who the real problem is.

But regardless, until these brands (SandForce, OCZ, Corsair, etc) show some long term reliability I'm sticking with Intel. If I ever feel like risking my data again on SSDs that is :).
 
Just a heads up for those that managed to pick one of these up. Corsair recalled them the other day. They're approving RMAs almost instantly on them.

Over the past several days, we have analyzed issues associated with the stability of our recently released 120GB Force Series 3 SSD. Our review has identified that a significant percentage of these drive do not perform to specifications. The solution will require changes to both the SSD firmware and the hardware components of the SSD itself.

We have stopped shipments of the affected drive, Corsair part number CSSD-F120GB3-BK, effective immediately and have implemented the following remediation plan:

(1) ALL users should cease using the CSSD-F120GB3-BK drive immediately, even if you have not experienced issues of stability.

(2) Users may then either RETURN the drive to Corsair, at Corsair's expense, to be exchanged with a replacement drive that does meet specifications OR

(3) Return the drive to their place of purchase.

Corsair is committed to product quality and we want to assure our customers that this remediation plan will be implemented at no cost to you.
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They've also indicated that they will honor the rebate that seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
 
At least they're doing RMAs for all the customers unlike certain other manufacturers that have SANDFORCE problems *cough OCZ, OWC* cough.
 
I haven't read a whole lot about this outside some sites (here, etc.). Has SandForce piped up at all over this? Sounds like some bad juju for them, if their chips are indeed the issue.
 
Check the link in the first thread -- it's to the corsair forum. They were pretty honest with what they did (or so it seems!).

They started getting complaints from their users and began collecting data. Then they analyzed it and found patterns -- at the same time they had their engineers testing different configurations. They identified the issue and brough a couple machines directly to SandForce. A couple days later they announced that they've found the problem and are issue a recall becuase the resolution requires a hardware and software fix.

So to me, it does look like SandForce has admitted to having a problem and they are working towards a resolution. Probably lots of drive recalls in the future!
 
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