My 2+ Year History with Multiple SSD's in Multiple computers...

I’m an end user who is not afraid of pushing the envelope…

Here is a history of my SSD use in the past 2+ Years…

I have 7 SSD’s in use from 3 companies in use in a Dell XPS 702x laptop, and older Supermicro Server (both W7-64):

Samsung 840 (R/W Slows down over time… Samsung updated firmware in other version 840’s but not plain vanilla version. Support didn’t help). No firmware update ever occurred, so I can’t mention if software worked or not. Due to speed slowdown, SSD was Removed from active service–relegated to shirt pocket external USB3/2 chassis, where speed slowdown will not be seen as easily.

SanDisk Ultra II I have 4 of these, and am considering 2 more in Supermicro, and one more in XPS Laptop. Dashboard Software only firmware updates correctly on AHCI controllers. NON-AHCI SATA firmware update fails with Error 18, though Surprisingly their Dashboard software sees, reads, and updates their SSD’s inside AHCI Raids, and firmware update Will Work in AHCI Raids, though Sandisk support is totally un-aware it will do that successfully… I Have used support once, to get 2 identical version hardware SSDs after some bitching by me (Some models have multiple hardware versions-No way to be sure until box is opened)… No failures, No slowdowns… Even with these issues, This is my preferred SSD MFG at this point in time…

Crucial… I have 2 MX300’s in an external raid. Crucial Storage Manager Executive Sees the Sandisk Ultra II boot drive by name, but not their own Drives in the raid… Manager says no raid support “yet”, but 2 months later (Version: 3.38.102016.07), no software update, nor can I find update path in their Manager software to do so. At this point in time, I still cannot determine firmware version in MX300’s because Crucial software can’t ‘see’ their own Crucial drives… Other than to ask about seeing drives in Raid (They didn’t know about “No Raid YET” comment in their own software), No other contacts with support nor problems in use… Speed remains high over time. EDIT… Sent Support Question regarding Update path for Crucial Storage Manager Executive software, and the "No Raid Support “YET” " reference in their own software…

So, as you can tell… No SSD MFG is perfect… And Support Staff from multiple companies that don’t know the specifics of what works and doesn’t work in their own products… and with that you’ll get some real interesting Support answers!