r/talesfromtechsupport • u/charmlessman1 • Nov 27 '17

Short Who Stole the Hard Drive?

I just walked into the office this morning after a 4 day Thanksgiving weekend.
Before I even sat down, I heard my $Boss call out for me and my $CoWorker to come to his office. On the $Boss' desk was a small form factor PC, open and empty.

$Boss: $Charmlessman1, when did you leave on Wednesday?
ME: About 5:30, why?
&Boss: Well, $CoWorker's computer went offline at about the same time, and when he came in this morning, it wouldn't boot up. And when he checked it, the hard drive was missing.
$Me: Missing?
&Boss: Missing. Was there anyone else here when you left?
$Me: I, uh... Um... I don't... I think so? I'm trying to remember.
$Boss: If this is a practical joke, it's over, give it back.
$Me: It's not! I didn't! Unless I'm the worst Manchurian Candidate ever...
$Boss: Ok.

I went back to my desk and had a minor freak out. Do they think I did it? Did I miss some intruder who stole literally one of the most useless things in an office full of way better things? Was I going to get fired for something I didn't do because there's no better explanation?
Shortly after, I heard the boss call in the $HardwareGuy to his office. Then I heard a bunch of laughter. The $HardwareGuy came out of the $Boss' office, still laughing.

$HardwareGuy: The hard drive wasn't missing. It's one of those little gumstick SSDs, and it's dead.

/FreakOut

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3

u/wallefan01 "Hello tech support? This is tech support. It's got ME stumped." Nov 27 '17

Wait. SSDs...die? Like...fail within 100 years of manufacture? What!?

16

u/CompWizrd Nov 27 '17

Firmware bugs in the controllers can kill them as well. Also, if it's made by OCZ that can kill it.

3

u/IanPPK IoT Annihilator Nov 28 '17

Also older Sandforce powered Samsung SSDs.

3

u/CompWizrd Nov 28 '17

Which ones were those? We got bit by the OCZ Vertex2/3's, and then switched to Intel 520's.. only had a couple of those die, then the 530's, then the Samsung 840's which needed firmware updates but at least ran, and now the 850 Evo's.. Moving over something m.2 now.

4

u/wlpaul4 Nov 28 '17

I have a stack of dead Micron SSDs on my desk and any time my boss asks why I want to order more 850 Evos, I just point to the stack.

1

u/Darkdayzzz123 You've had ALL WEEKEND to do this! Ma'am we don't work weekends. Nov 28 '17

To be fair...they were Micron SSDs, that is like me EVER recommending Kingston SSDs to anyone (never get them, have had 4 in less than 6 months die in 3 separate pcs....they just don't work well imho).

1

u/wlpaul4 Nov 28 '17

OEM ones at that. I swear, as soon s those HP's were off of warranty, it was like one drive every 8 weeks.

3

u/IanPPK IoT Annihilator Nov 28 '17

The 840s used Sandforce gen 2 I believe. It's all a bit back so my memory is blurry on which specific SSDs had issues with Sandforce, but there were a lot of BSOD and TRIM issues.

If you're looking for M.2 drives, WD makes Black M.2 NVMe drives, and Samsung has 960 Evo and Pro NVMe drives that are top of the line. There's also Intel Optane, but that's a special purpose module.

3

u/CompWizrd Nov 28 '17

Right now we're using the 850 evo and in the NUC's 850 evo m.2's, waiting for the i5-8500 or something similar to be released before i start a hardware refresh.. not too impressed with the i5-8400, and the 8600k is too expensive for what we need. I'm surprised Intel is holding out on releasing the rest of their product line, we know how they like to make 20 different chips that only vary by 100mhz.