Vertex 4 vanishes

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 12:38

O'dear,

After being an advocate of OCZ SSD's over the years (going against the tide here I know). But finally my OS drive (a Vertex 4 128GB) has packed up.

Went to shut system down last night and it froze, forced a re-boot after a while and got: BOOTMGR is missing ... (whoops).

Check in the BIOS and it is not even detected. Check the LED on the side of the drive (should be either green, or red) and it was not even illuminated. Looks FUBAR to me.

Tried OCZ's recommended action (remove all power, remove CMOS battery etc. etc.) and leave over night, still dead and not detected.

I had rather hoped that with the later Vertex 4 drives that OCZ had got over their reliability issues ... but looks like not (could just be unlucky I suppose).

System been totally stable for the best part of two years now and no recent hardware / software changes. (the I52500K still seems a strong processor to me).

Bought from OCZ, so I've just raised an RMA.

Luckily I do full drive image back ups via Acronis True Image, so was able to recover the drive back to an old Velociraptor (and all data stored on other drives / Cloud, so not much lost... other than a couple of hours work). Almost forgotten how painfully slow even faster mech HD's like this are compared to an SSD!

Regardless of the outcome of my RMA (hopefully should not be an issue). I'm tempted to get another drive for my Boot/OS drive. My boot/OS partition is only around 60GB, so wondering about: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-167-SA&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=1427

or is it worth it going for the 256GB version as it has faster writes!? Not sure if it would make that much difference , or not!? or is the PRO version worth the extra money???

PS. Looks like my next post is going to be on the Acronis forum, as the rescue disk did not seem able to see / recognise my external USB3 drive where my back ups were (great eh! ... makes backing up pretty meaningless!!!). Luckily I had a clone of the boot drive from a while back and was about to use this to initiate the recovery from within the Windows environment. Not sure what I would have done if I did not have this!!!

Andybtsn · 21 Jan 2014 at 12:39

Funnily enough my Vertex 2 went last week, exact same symptoms as yours.

Considering they don't sell this model anymore I'm hoping for 4 this time around, still, I don't have much confidence in their products.

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 12:45

Andybtsn said:
Funnily enough my Vertex 2 went last week, exact same symptoms as yours.

Considering they don't sell this model anymore I'm hoping for 4 this time around, still, I don't have much confidence in their products.

Know what you mean... only one failure I know, but when it happens to you, it rather knocks your trust in a make/manufacturer!

Andybtsn · 21 Jan 2014 at 12:52

mikeo said:
Know what you mean... only one failure I know, but when it happens to you, it rather knocks your trust in a make/manufacturer!

I understand things go wrong, I just keep hearing bad stuff about their products

Plus it was in a PC that has been used sparingly in the past year.

Ragnahex · 21 Jan 2014 at 13:14

Weirdly my vertex does bootmgr missing but I switch sata port on mobo it works for months so I just keep cycling ports

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 13:18

Ragnahex said:
Weirdly my vertex does bootmgr missing but I switch sata port on mobo it works for months so I just keep cycling ports

Which Vertex drive? and is the LED illuminated (either green, or red) when it has it's little whoopsie?

Showboat · 21 Jan 2014 at 13:23

Had the same issue, and got an RMA, think they gave me a reconditioned agility 3 instead. But even it still fails occasionally

Have to turn it off and leave it for 5mins and turn in on and reset the boot order to get it to start working...

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 13:32

Showboat said:
Had the same issue, and got an RMA, think they gave me a reconditioned agility 3 instead. But even it still fails occasionally

Have to turn it off and leave it for 5mins and turn in on and reset the boot order to get it to start working...

Don't think I would be too happy with either a Vertex 3 or a re-con unit as a replacement considering the premium price that I paid when I bought the Vertex 4 :eek:

Showboat · 21 Jan 2014 at 14:28

mikeo said:
Don't think I would be too happy with either a Vertex 3 or a re-con unit as a replacement considering the premium price that I paid when I bought the Vertex 4

Mine was one of the old cheapy ones OCUK were flogging off when they got a huge batch of them for a knockdown price, think i paid £40!

Dervious · 21 Jan 2014 at 14:43

Vertex vanishes ?

Maybe it's time for a Samsung to appear !

I`ve got a "spare" Vertex 2 60gb (one of the ones OCUK were selling off cheap, £30) that I sometimes use for Windows installs on machines equipped with mechanical drives. I wouldn't dare leave it in a system !

Ragnahex · 21 Jan 2014 at 14:52

Mine is a vertex 4 not sure about leds I never checked to be honest I just did my usual problem solving of switching cables. Probably a different problem all together.

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 15:02

Dervious said:
...
Maybe it's time for a Samsung to appear !
..

Indeed....

Think I'll go for the Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO even though I don't need the space. Bound to be re-building totally at some point later in the year and the bigger the better I suppose. I can always use any RMA replacement in my old laptop.

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 15:38

Just ordered the Sammy 840 EVO 250GB ....

Hopefully get it all sorted out tomorrow.

To give an indication of the speed difference between a half decent SSD and a reasonably nippy mech HD (150GB Velociraptor). Avast quick scan with the OS on the Vertex 4 (& 2 other SSD's in my system) used to take around 1minute 30 seconds. With the Velociraptor back in its place, it now takes over 12 minutes! God knows how long a full scan would take (don't think I shall try it!).

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 17:36

Just got the following in response to the WEB note that I raised with ocUK

"thank you for your webnote

you would need to contact OCZ directly in regards to the RMA claim. "

Not overly happy with this response :eek:

Question... is this normal???

Bane · 21 Jan 2014 at 19:32

You mention system has been stable for 2 years, but how long have you owned the Vertex 4?

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 20:50

Bane said:
You mention system has been stable for 2 years, but how long have you owned the Vertex 4?

Since 9 July 2012. So around 18 months.

So on reflection, as it's past the initial 12 months... I suppose the extended warranty resides with the manufacturer. So ocUk's response was in fact correct

TBC as they say.

I've now raised an RMA with OCZ direct and also posted a query on their user forum (which I've been a member of for a while now). And they agree that it sounds dead and that I've pretty much covered all the angles to breath some life back into it. The only suggestion (though not hopeful myself) is to try hot plugging the drive and seeing if this kick starts it.

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 21:38

Tried OCZ's hot plug suggestion and drive still appears dead.

So I'll await their response to my RMA request.

That's life I suppose...

R.O.S.S.I · 21 Jan 2014 at 21:38

Eeeek Ive got a Vertex 4, hope it doesnt go pop! :eek:

mikeo · 21 Jan 2014 at 21:47

And I've got another one! and an earlier Vertex 2!!

Just luck of the draw....

Though I had sort of hoped that the later Vertex 4 drives would be the turning point reliability wise for OCZ. Time will tell

bulldog147 · 22 Jan 2014 at 00:06

I got vertex 4 and I had checked SSDLifePro and shocked to see lifespan left is now down to 87% from 100%. Scary! I only had it for 14 months now. Will never purchase from ocz ever again.