Maximum PC

I am looking to buy an SSD for my rig. I see that MaxPC fully recommends the OCZ Vertex2 SSD. However, when I look at the reviews on Newegg.com and Amazon.com, there seem to be a huge number of DOA's and failures after a couple months.

Any ideas about what gives with these things?

one thing alot of people fail to realize when working with an SSD is that they entirely different from your conventional hdd.

you need to flash the firmware on the drives, and you can just outright run into a variety of different issues.

I would have to say that alot of those failures are from people that may not be well versed with SSD's

I am using two ocz Vertex drives in raid 0 on my machine. I ran into a deal about a month ago where my read ad write speeds were horrible. I posted on Ocz's forums and was assisted with my problem before long at all. by the next day I was off to the races with my full 400+ MB/s reads and 300+ MB/s writes. and the new fimware thus far has been working wonderfully.

if you like tinkering with your machine/don't mind reloading windows once or twice a year go with an SSD. I have been using mine for over a year before I ran into this problem a month ago so it isn't all tinkering and they do run quite well I don't think I could ever go back in my home rig.

you just have to be mindful of the differences work by the guides that people post. and do some research.

research is key.
hop on OCZ's forums before you make the buy and check things out. I have been using OCZ's products for years and have been quite satisfied with support.

I understand sometimes things are DOA. between newegg and ocz they have always been very easy to take care and that is what I base things on. I look at how willing they are to help with a problem vs how good they are at avoiding a problem. I just think it is amazing how they are able to mass produce these things.

I wouldn't be afraid of an OCZ SSD.

I couldn't agree more, schmag. I just purchased an OCZ drive from NewEgg nearly two weeks ago, and got around to installing it two days ago. The reviews on this product http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227590 were rife with many detractors, both of the product and the rebates (if offered) by OCZ. While I try not to bash these particular reviewers, it is painfully obvious that they do not do enough research before buying and they do not pay attention to all the details concerning the rebate requirements, either.
Despite the fact that I often will not buy a product based on an offered rebate, I went ahead and purchased this product and treated the rebate as a bonus as I have never had a problem getting a rebate from OCZ in the past. I also took advantage of OCZ's Support Forums, particularly this link: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... post567554 in researching the proper procedures for installing the new SSD in my custom-built computer. As a result, I am a happy camper and the install went flawlessly. I know its only been two days since I installed it, but I am confident that it will serve me for several years to come.

EDIT: One of the primary things to note: All SSDs are sensitive to voltage spikes, so you will need to disconnect the power cord from your PSU and discharge any remaining electricity from the motherboard by pushing the power button on your computer. In the case of a laptop, it is advisable to remove the battery before installing an SSD drive in it. If you have a desktop computer, you might want to check that your PSU has both active PFC and overvoltage protection in order to prevent any voltage spikes that might damage the SSD. You might also want to invest in some sort of line conditioner or surge protector as well. It is recommended that, if you are overclocking your system, you set everything back to the motherboard's stock settings before installing an SSD. Just FYI.