OCZ May Be On Its Last Legs 292
itwbennett writes "OCZ, one of the first commercial solid-state drive (SSD) makers has been blaming a shortage of NAND for its woes for some time now, but things have taken a precipitous turn for the worse: 'For its second fiscal quarter ended August 31, 2013, revenue was $33.5 million, a huge drop compared to revenue of $55.3 million for the first quarter of 2013 and revenue of $88.6 million for the second quarter of 2012. The net loss for this quarter was massive, $26 million, a doubling of the $13.1 million loss in the same quarter last year.' The company has burned through cash, its stock collapsed, and now so have sales. Meanwhile, other SSD makers are doing well. So what is happening here?"
Easy. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy. (Score:5, Informative)
You suspect correctly, the last stats I saw said:
OCZ: 6%
Industry average: 2%
Samsung: 0.5%
Intel: 0.3%
Re:Tiniest violin (Score:4, Informative)
True story:
I bought a 240 GB Vertex 3 back in 2011 at a considerable expense... I put it in my laptop and immediately, my laptop would crash (BSOD) every 20 minutes, continuously. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SandForce#Issues
I attempted to contact OCZ but their phone support directed me to an online forum. There, they said it was a known problem with laptops' powersaving mode, and to flash it. I said, ok, where's the flashing program for windows? The tech said (via a post) that there was no flashing utility for windows. I would have to use Linux. I said that I couldn't just wipe my hard drive and install linux, and the guy laughed at me and told me to buy another hard drive.
So I did. I went to a competitor, left a horrible review of my experience on Amazon, and never used OCZ again. http://www.amazon.com/review/R1GYKQFNH227GT/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Re:Easy. (Score:5, Informative)
2011: http://www.behardware.com/articles/843-7/components-returns-rates-5.html [behardware.com]
Early 2012: http://www.behardware.com/articles/862-7/components-returns-rates-6.html [behardware.com]
Late 2012: http://www.behardware.com/articles/881-7/components-returns-rates-7.html [behardware.com]
Sorry, I have no 2013 figures.
Re:Tiniest violin (Score:5, Informative)
They also replaced the 34nm Vertex 2 drives with 25nm drives [tomshardware.com], lowering speed and space without changing the model number. They are scum.
Re:Tiniest violin (Score:5, Informative)
The tech said (via a post) that there was no flashing utility for windows. I would have to use Linux. I said that I couldn't just wipe my hard drive and install linux, and the guy laughed at me and told me to buy another hard drive.
Intel did the right thing and deployed their SSD upgrade software [intel.com] as a bootable CD. In my opinion, this is currently the best way to distribute any kind of PC firmware. You can burn the disc from inside any operating system, and when you boot from that medium, you get a nice clean environment to update the device without a full-blown OS interfering with the process.
Good riddance (Score:5, Informative)
I had terrible experiences with their drives and tech support. In one instance, to solve a Windows blue screen problem, their support told us to update the firmware on the drive, which bricked it. They then refused to return/repair the drive because "firmware updates void your warranty." In another case, we needed a quick replacement on a failed drive so we requested advance replacement. They immediately charged our card MSRP (double the actual retail price), but then it took them over 30 days to actually ship the replacement.
capital constraints, not supply (Score:5, Informative)
The quote in the article blames capital constraints, and difficulty acquiring, not a shortage. They are likely buying cheaper supply with higher failure rates, creating a death spiral.
If that is not the case, the author should kick himself in the balls repeatedly for using unrelated quotes to support a point, as I can't be arsed to dig past that stupidity.
Non story, failing company cuts corners and fails faster.
Re:Tiniest violin (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of SSDs support SATA Aggessive Link Power Management (ie. SATA powersaving), but has stability issues when it is enabled. To fix this under Linux -
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Power_Management_Guide/ALPM.html [redhat.com]
I have no idea how to disable this under Windows, but having turned off ALPM, all of my Sandforce SSDs have been rock solid. Even my Crucial M500 has problems with ALPM on max, I had to turn it down to medium to prevent it from crashing regularly and taking the filesystem with it.
Re:Tiniest violin (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Full of BS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Easy. (Score:4, Informative)
Here's early 2013: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/893-7/ssd.html [hardware.fr]
Re:Full of BS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Full of BS (Score:5, Informative)
I've never had experience with their SSD drives. I have, however, had experience with their RAM and power supplies, and after those experiences I avoided their SSDs like the plague...
Ditto with my local computer store, the failure rate was so high they dropped them completely. I don't think they'll even let you special order them now.
Re:Full of BS (Score:1, Informative)
Everyones SSD stuttered back then, save for Intels. Search for Marvel SSD controller stuttering and you'll find almost every brand! The early controllers were garbage..
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Avoid all brands with "4 GAMERZZZ!!11" marketin (Score:4, Informative)
I'd not put corsair in the same bucket as the other two. Their RAM, for instance, will not spontaneously combust. The other two... yeah, you don't have to look very far to see that they have the build quality of white branded parts.
It's a problem when you look for, say, mechanical keyboards. Even companies that used to make good stuff, like das, now have cut costs so that you are going to get more life out of a random membrane keyboard.
Re:Full of BS (Score:4, Informative)
I used a handful of OCZ vertex 2's (back then it was like $3 per GB) in a couple of servers (in enterprise setting) for almost three years. Still running.
I also own four vertex 4's in a RAID 10 setup, all four drive still running after a year.
Either there is a incredible bad luck streak, or there is some abuse going on. The first and only SSD failure I have come across is a 120GB Intel X25-m.
Re:Full of BS (Score:3, Informative)