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IamGimli (banned)
join:2004-02-28
Canada

IamGimli (banned) to Gone

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to Gone

Re: Hard Drive Deals

said by Gone:

People at OCZ even to this day themselves cringe over what they used to do when they were in the RAM business. It wasn't exactly their best hour, but they were *far* from the worst offender, either.

The thing is, you can't salvage customers after pulling such stunts.

I know I'll never again buy an OCZ product, or any product that may come from a company that rises from OCZ ashes.

I experienced something similar with graphics cards from Sapphire, who were using coolers that didn't meet the minimum cooling specs of the generic ATI chipset they were using and I'll never again buy anything from them ever again either.

Those two experiences, within about 6 months, actually taught me a very valuable lesson which I had never had a use for before (and I've been doing IT personally and professionally for over 20 years): that extra 10-15% you pay for the better brands pays for itself in the long run.

EUS
Kill cancer
Premium Member
join:2002-09-10
canada

EUS

Premium Member

Sometimes spending more also gets you nowhere.
My two BFG GPUs with lifetime warranties attest to that fact.
EUS

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to IamGimli
Dble post.
zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Victoria, BC

zod5000 to IamGimli

Member

to IamGimli
said by IamGimli:

The thing is, you can't salvage customers after pulling such stunts.

I know I'll never again buy an OCZ product, or any product that may come from a company that rises from OCZ ashes.

I experienced something similar with graphics cards from Sapphire, who were using coolers that didn't meet the minimum cooling specs of the generic ATI chipset they were using and I'll never again buy anything from them ever again either.

Those two experiences, within about 6 months, actually taught me a very valuable lesson which I had never had a use for before (and I've been doing IT personally and professionally for over 20 years): that extra 10-15% you pay for the better brands pays for itself in the long run.

Crap. I think my computer is going to implode. It has both an OCZ SSD and a Sapphire Video card.. lol. The Video Card is 1.5 years old now, but the SSD is only 10 months old.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

I have two OCZ Agility 3s in service right now, one in my subnotebook (it's not a netbook damnit! haha) and another in my sister's computer. So long as you've got the latest firmware you'll be fine.

My own rig has an Intel 520 as a Windows/boot drive and a Mushkin SSD for Intel SRT on my profile/game drive. The Intel drive obviously won't have any issues, but I haven't had any with the Mushkin either.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

Not sure if anyone brought up the high rate of failure for OCZ, as trended on behardware.com, this was all the news in the summer
quote:
- Crucial 0.82% (as against 0.8%)
- Intel 1.73% (as against 0.1%)
- Corsair 2.93% (as against 2.9%)
- OCZ 7.03% (as against 4.2%)

quote:
The first question is of course where the stats come from. They’re taken from a large French etailer, whose database we have had direct access to. We were therefore able to extract the stats we wanted directly from source
So, take it with a grain of salt - »www.behardware.com/artic ··· s-6.html
IamGimli (banned)
join:2004-02-28
Canada

IamGimli (banned) to EUS

Member

to EUS
said by EUS:

Sometimes spending more also gets you nowhere.
My two BFG GPUs with lifetime warranties attest to that fact.

As far as I know BFG were never a discount brand. They're not the most expensive but sit well into the middle of the pack price-wise.

They do make great products, I've had a couple of graphics card made by them and they were rock-solid as well.

I've had similar stability from ASUS (except for one MB that shipped with a corrupted BIOS, but that was easily fixed once I was able to figure it out), MSI, Corsair, Intel, Enermax and wouldn't hesitate one minute to pay the extra 10-20$ (if that) for those.
said by zod5000:

Crap. I think my computer is going to implode. It has both an OCZ SSD and a Sapphire Video card.. lol. The Video Card is 1.5 years old now, but the SSD is only 10 months old.



Keep in mind just because one brand is known not to be very reliable doesn't mean you'll necessarily have problems with them. That's particularly true if you don't over-tax those components capabilities.

I have no doubt that Sapphire graphics card I had with the under-spec cooler would've been fine in 90% of home computers which rarely ever really need much graphics horsepower. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brought it to it's knees though, and most memory chips burned up within a week. Same on the RMA unit.

EUS
Kill cancer
Premium Member
join:2002-09-10
canada

EUS

Premium Member

said by IamGimli:

said by EUS:

Sometimes spending more also gets you nowhere.
My two BFG GPUs with lifetime warranties attest to that fact.

As far as I know BFG were never a discount brand. They're not the most expensive but sit well into the middle of the pack price-wise.

They do make great products, I've had a couple of graphics card made by them and they were rock-solid as well.

I wasn't calling BFG a discount brand, I was simply stating that paying a premium sometimes does not work out either, as the company can exit the marketplace for whatever reason.
IamGimli (banned)
join:2004-02-28
Canada

IamGimli (banned)

Member

Ah ok, I misunderstood what you meant

Even though they went belly-up, their products still work though lol

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone to urbanriot

Premium Member

to urbanriot
OCZ has had numerous major issues with firmware on the 3-series Sandforce drives of which I have no doubt bumped up those numbers. A model-specific breakdown of their RMAs would be interesting to see, as it would probably confirm this.

But, like I said, I have two Agility 3s in service and have had no issues at all.

Last Parade
join:2002-10-07
Port Colborne, ON

Last Parade

Member

I have had a Vertex 2 120GB in this laptop, formerly in another laptop with no issues. It has had some vigorous I/O along the way and nothing. I've kept the firmware updated when I get the chance to zero the drive out though.

Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium Member
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS

Anav to urbanriot

Premium Member

to urbanriot
said by urbanriot:

Not sure if anyone brought up the high rate of failure for OCZ, as trended on behardware.com, this was all the news in the summer

quote:
- Crucial 0.82% (as against 0.8%)
- Intel 1.73% (as against 0.1%)
- Corsair 2.93% (as against 2.9%)
- OCZ 7.03% (as against 4.2%)
- PLEXTOR 0.6%

added one to your list...

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

When I hear the name Plextor, the only thing that comes to mind are CD burners that cost four times as much as the same thing from someone else.

donoreo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
North York, ON

donoreo

Premium Member

said by Gone:

When I hear the name Plextor, the only thing that comes to mind are CD burners that cost four times as much as the same thing from someone else.

Oh yes. At one time, they were the drives to get, but they never dropped their prices when the rest of the market did and the premium was not worth it.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot to Gone

Premium Member

to Gone
said by Gone:

When I hear the name Plextor, the only thing that comes to mind are CD burners that cost four times as much as the same thing from someone else.

What donoreo said. Back in the day the Plextor's had functions you couldn't find in other drives. At one point it seems they simply gave up...

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

They were something special back before CD-ROM drives were commodity items, and had some decent burners back in the early days of those products. They quickly became irrelevant though, especially since they still demanded a hefty price premium for their name despite being absolutely nothing fancy in terms of product.

To this day, I just can't shake that image of Plextor. I kind of even feel the same way toward their SSDs, too.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

Oh, no, they were the cream of the crop well into the DVD-RW days too. They were one of the first with SATA DVD-RW drives and right out the gate the error correction tests were great coupled with extremely low error rates on scratched discs. They'd also put out firmware updates for better media compatibility, continually, more than anyone else.

Your average person wouldn't appreciate the difference but for people that were archiving music, scratched discs, overburning (at the time a newer concept), and navigating around copy protections, it was the best you could get.

I believe it was around 2004 that the company took a nosedive and stopped producing anything of merit.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

Plextor were never bad drives, they just weren't anywhere near as good as they premiums demanded made them out to be, including in the DVD-R era. I was using Pioneer drives back in those days that worked just as well for all those things you mentioned the "average person" wouldn't care about that cost half as much, including regular firmware updates for new media and all sorts of other stuff.

The problem back in those days was that there was also a lot of shit and some companies even would provide one model that was fantastic and then replace it with an updated model that was shit. Plextor, at least, had some consistency among their products.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

I had a plextor CDRW, I believe it was a 16x but at that time they came down in price... I started with a cheap 2x IDE mitsumi or something, boy that was a piece of crap. I quickly spent some real money on a Yamaha 6x SCSI, and that lasted me for many years, until I just wanted something faster... By then the IDE drives buffer underrun protection was pretty well developed and SCSI wasn't really needed.

My first DVD-R was a Pioneer 4x, and I had several models during the next 5-6 years, until I finally ditched IDE all together and everything was SATA since. I think what I have is a LG burner now and i dont really know its specs lol, because it cost like $30.

EUS
Kill cancer
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join:2002-09-10
canada

EUS to Gone

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My first cd writer was a Plextor, a present from the wifey.
Looking back, (like all computer tech), I can't believe how expensive and slow it was. 2 or 4x write cannot remember.
At the time it was fantastic, didn't get one coaster burning anything either.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

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said by Gone:

Plextor were never bad drives, they just weren't anywhere near as good as they premiums demanded made them out to be, including in the DVD-R era.

They were definitely as good as the premiums demanded for the people that utilized the premium reasons for buying them. They weren't necessary for you, thus too high for what you need.

I wouldn't have spent $89 on a drive when there were $35 alternatives if the money wasn't worth it.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by urbanriot:

They were definitely as good as the premiums demanded for the people that utilized the premium reasons for buying them. They weren't necessary for you, thus too high for what you need.

I wouldn't have spent $89 on a drive when there were $35 alternatives if the money wasn't worth it.

Um, back in the days I'm talking about, no DVD burners were $35, not even the piece of shit drives I alluded to. We're talking 2003-2005ish. $89 was a cheap drive back then.

And I stand behind my statements about Plextor and the fact that I don't believe that any of the "features" of those drives was any better than a well-researched lower cost alternative, particularly since I actually did of disc copying in those days and knew what I was dealing with chewed up discs and farting around with bitsetting, overburning and all sorts of other fun things that most people never knew about. My choice, as was the choice of many other people in the know, was Pioneer. I can't remember if it was the DVR-103 or 104, but it was one of them and I'm going back ten years or so to remember the exact model. If you found a way to justify the higher cost of a Plextor drive back in the early 2000s, good for you. I still think you paid too much money and nothing you or anyone else can say to me will convince me of anything different.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

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Early plextors were Fibe, and yes pioneer was the standard for dvd-rw, till they started focusing on br devices and outsourced the dvd units.

Hivolt my first plextors had caddies!!

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by elwoodblues:

pioneer was the standard for dvd-rw, till they started focusing on br devices and outsourced the dvd units.

Bingo. Pioneer DVD burners haven't been anything special for the last few years, but at this point DVD burners are commodity devices that are all pretty much the same thing anyway.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot to elwoodblues

Premium Member

to elwoodblues
Even their in-house BD-R drives have been disappointing, my Pioneer BD-R drive doesn't have a stellar history with Verbatim branded discs and the parity errors are much higher than with my LG's.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

My first DVD burner was a Pioneer DVR-105 4x that only burnt DVR-R & DVD-RW media. I paid $199.00 for it at Futureshop on sale. I still have it installed in one of my Win 7 computers and do use it occasionally. The computer also has an ASUS sata DVD burner and a LG usb burner installed...