Buying SSDs From Strangers

[DefinitelyNotTom]

I normally would not buy pc parts from strangers or ebay etc etc..., but the more I think about it if you're buying it sealed, why not do so for ssds? If the ssd has issues right off, ebay will make them take it back. If it has issues later on, would you seriously send your ssd in for a warranty claim? That is a security threat because who knows who will be looking at it and have access to your information or company files. So I think the warranties become moot on them and that I might as well save the $40+.

Another pc part that seems to me to be ok to buy on there and even USED would be good RAM. With G.Skill you get a lifetime warranty, so I'd assume they wouldn't care where you bought it.

Basically I "may" be able to get a 1tb 970 evo plus for under $100 brand new from an individual or get one for about $140 from an authorized dealer. I could probably get a regular 970 evo for around $60. This is if a particular deal works.

 

[Ralston18]

Not a technical question. Moving post to Opinions and Experiences.

 

[King_V]

If it has issues later on, would you seriously send your ssd in for a warranty claim? That is a security threat because who knows who will be looking at it and have access to your information or company files.

Yes. Yes I would. Do you really think an SSD manufacturer is going to put all the extra effort in to trying to read a defective drive, and take the risk of a major lawsuit and possibly complete loss of business from any large companies, government organizations, etc., just to take a peek at your data and possibly use it for nefarious purposes?

"Hmm, I could try to rob this one company or its clients by pouring the time and effort into drive recovery, but then nobody will ever trust my drives again and I'll go out of business . . OMG TOTALLY WORTH IT!!"

 

[USAFRet]

Warranty return for a broken SSD? Absolutely.
I did, 960GB Sandisk.

SanDisk even honored the 3 year warranty, even though the drive was 33 days past the 3 year point. They knew it, I knew it, they gave me a new one anyway.

Buy a used drive? No.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Not a technical question. Moving post to Opinions and Experiences.

It actually is a technical question, except I just forgot to get to it... I was also wondering about the failure rate of SSDs and also if I am overlooking any drawbacks to buying from unauthorized dealers. I wonder if ebay would not take one back, for example, if you buy it new and it doesn't work, since the seller would have had no way to know, or if they'd still force them to take it back because it would be viewed as their risk when selling sealed items.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Yes. Yes I would. Do you really think an SSD manufacturer is going to put all the extra effort in to trying to read a defective drive, and take the risk of a major lawsuit and possibly complete loss of business from any large companies, government organizations, etc., just to take a peek at your data and possibly use it for nefarious purposes?

"Hmm, I could try to rob this one company or its clients by pouring the time and effort into drive recovery, but then nobody will ever trust my drives again and I'll go out of business . . OMG TOTALLY WORTH IT!!"

Have you not seen how dumb some criminals are in their choices?

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Warranty return for a broken SSD? Absolutely.
I did, 960GB Sandisk.

SanDisk even honored the 3 year warranty, even though the drive was 33 days past the 3 year point. They knew it, I knew it, they gave me a new one anyway.

Buy a used drive? No.

I wouldn't buy a used one either. Never was considering that. regardless of where you buy it, sealed is not used. Only for warranty purposes would some consider it such.

Comes down to how much savings, though, as far as my original question, because at some point the savings are worth the risk if it's sealed.

I would not buy even a sealed mobo, psu, cpu, etc... on there, though. But what's funny is people insisted I should do that. shrugs

 

[Ralston18]

SSD failure rates:

Google "ssd failure rates". Many links to be found.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

SSD failure rates:

Google "ssd failure rates". Many links to be found.

then why have the forums? Anything asked here could be googled.

Another thing on my original question... you can buy extended warranties for basically anything on ebay and so it would still come out cheaper. I'd probably just not buy one, though.

 

[USAFRet]

I wouldn't buy a used one either. Never was considering that. regardless of where you buy it, sealed is not used.

You would think that 'sealed' is 'New and Unused' Thats what it is supposed to be.
However...

[SOLVED] - Files on brand new portable HDD

Amazon.IN and Flipkart here are sending used/returned products repeatedly and I wanted to test if my brand-new portable harddisk is used. So I ran my licensed data recovery tool from Minitool and found these folders and files (weighing 53 GB) in the brand-new external harddisk (of 1 TB). Could...

forums.tomshardware.com

Personally, I don't use fleabay as a storefront. Only for those items that cannot be had elsewhere.
A rear window latch for a 1997 F-150.
A Sony or Canon 8mm camcorder.
Stuff that is no longer in production.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

You would think that 'sealed' is 'New and Unused' Thats what it is supposed to be.
However...

[SOLVED] - Files on brand new portable HDD

Amazon.IN and Flipkart here are sending used/returned products repeatedly and I wanted to test if my brand-new portable harddisk is used. So I ran my licensed data recovery tool from Minitool and found these folders and files (weighing 53 GB) in the brand-new external harddisk (of 1 TB). Could...

forums.tomshardware.com

Personally, I don't use fleabay as a storefront. Only for those items that cannot be had elsewhere.
A rear window latch for a 1997 F-150.
A Sony or Canon 8mm camcorder.
Stuff that is no longer in production.

well even if that is a legit worry, it still doesn't rule out ebay because I can get it from Newegg on ebay so you know you're getting legit sealed then. But then I am out an extra $40. It's highly unlikely you're going to get a fake sealed item there though if you buy from someone with 100% positive reviews. one person getting it doesn't mean it's common.

 

[Ralston18]

Apologies - missed a link:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html

 

[USAFRet]

From the official Newegg account via ebay is one thing.
From some random company through ebay...I'll pass.

To each his own.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Apologies - missed a link:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html

thanks, but that sure has some odd statements in it, such as reliability increasing with less devices used. Having less devices may mean less chances that some data gets lost, but it also means if a loss DOES happen, you'd lose every bit of the data. Also important data should be backed p anyway, ie more than 1 device.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

From the official Newegg account via ebay is one thing.
From some random company through ebay...I'll pass.

To each his own.

what about from a random ebay user with 0 feedback?

jk I wouldn't be THAT crazy. I even had one 100% feedback person try to rip me off on there, but he was dumb so I at least prevented that, but then had to use the product myself in the process...

 

[Ralston18]

Always trade-offs and there are always going to be statistical questions with respect to methodology and measurements.

Manufacturers often complain about the way any given testing is conducted.

About all that can be done is to read (google again) for more information, balance it all out as objectively as possible, and then make the applicable decision. Goes for any given product. Or even some service for that matter.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Cool. now I was talking on the phone and forgot all about getting the $100 off deal so missed it. I was going to just get it through Newegg on there for $120. Now I have to wait until I can get a different deal because I am not going to pay over $150 plus tax. At this rate who knows when I will build.

Also, someone used the g.skill neo kit that is NOT Samsung and says it's working fine, so I am about tempted to sell my b die kit that isn't on the qvl and get the faster non-b-die wherer I don't have to manually do timings.

 

[King_V]

Have you not seen how dumb some criminals are in their choices?

Individual, small-time criminals, sure.

Samsung, Crucial, Intel, Micron, Patriot, etc.? What planet are you living on that you think they'd have any interest in stealing data in order to engage in fraud? Your assertion on that point makes no logical sense whatsoever.

There are valid reasons to buy used parts. "The warranty is useless because the drive manufacturer will steal your data" is not even close to being such a reason.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Individual, small-time criminals, sure.

Samsung, Crucial, Intel, Micron, Patriot, etc.? What planet are you living on that you think they'd have any interest in stealing data in order to engage in fraud? Your assertion on that point makes no logical sense whatsoever.

There are valid reasons to buy used parts. "The warranty is useless because the drive manufacturer will steal your data" is not even close to being such a reason.

I guess your answer is no, you don't because yes there is fraud everywhere and I love how you act like those companies are just all rich ceos. lol. Like because a company is a known one it means their employees are all well paid ones who wouldn't be involved in anything bad. Of course fraud never happens at well known companies, right? lol.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

Can someone tell me the performance difference between the following RAM, since nobody will ever answer me in the freakin RAM forum?

3200 15-15-15, 3600 16-16-16, 3600 16-19-19

How much will those 19s hurt that kit's speed? Obviously the middle kit is the fastest, but how much difference between the second and third I can't get anyone to answer. One person on another site claimed the third kit would be slower than the first, but I highly doubt that.

 

[King_V]

I guess your answer is no, you don't because yes there is fraud everywhere and I love how you act like those companies are just all rich ceos. lol. Like because a company is a known one it means their employees are all well paid ones who wouldn't be involved in anything bad. Of course fraud never happens at well known companies, right? lol.

Can you document such instances?

How many cases of what you're so afraid of have actually happened, out of how many total warranty claims made to these companies?

Otherwise, you're just making unsubstantiated claims.

 

[popatim]

Yes. Yes I would. Do you really think an SSD manufacturer is going to put all the extra effort in to trying to read a defective drive,

I completely believe a tech would but only on slower days when they have time. These types of techs usually get an hourly rate plus a per unit rate so they work thru these as fast as they can to make the most $$. On slower days, we had time to 'play' - so we did.

Anyways. Always assume the worst. Just like hardware, assume it can fail tomorrow and plan for it. In the case of your data, if you don't want someone else peeking at it, then you best encrypt it and have a minimum of two other copies of it on other devices. Also, backup your key at least twice more. If you lose then that your backups are worthless.

 

[King_V]

I completely believe a tech would but only on slower days when they have time. These types of techs usually get an hourly rate plus a per unit rate so they work thru these as fast as they can to make the most $$. On slower days, we had time to 'play' - so we did.

And, how many credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and so forth, did you retain? How much did you steal as a result of that?

 

[popatim]

Can someone tell me the performance difference between the following RAM, since nobody will ever answer me in the freakin RAM forum?

3200 15-15-15, 3600 16-16-16, 3600 16-19-19

How much will those 19s hurt that kit's speed? Obviously the middle kit is the fastest, but how much difference between the second and third I can't get anyone to answer. One person on another site claimed the third kit would be slower than the first, but I highly doubt that.

If just going by CL then a quick comparison is CL/Speed = micro-seconds
Cas Latency (CL) is how long, in clock cycles, the ram takes to have the requested memory data available.
The clock is the memory's speed. We can leave off the Megahertz when we do the division and know our result will be in microseconds

3600 - CL15 is the fastest = .00417 (15/3600=0.004166666)
3200-14 is right on it's heels = .00489
3600-19 is the slowest. = .00528

Will you notice this outside of a benchmark. Probably not unless you perform some long memory intensive work.

 

[DefinitelyNotTom]

If just going by CL then a quick comparison is CL/Speed = micro-seconds
Cas Latency (CL) is how long, in clock cycles, the ram takes to have the requested memory data available.
The clock is the memory's speed. We can leave off the Megahertz when we do the division and know our result will be in microseconds

3600 - CL15 is the fastest = .00417 (15/3600=0.004166666)
3200-14 is right on it's heels = .00489
3600-19 is the slowest. = .00528

Will you notice this outside of a benchmark. Probably not unless you perform some long memory intensive work.

Thanks. What someone at g.skill told me though is that the 3600 speed alone is a difference, due to greater bandwidth. I guess the main thing I am trying to decide is if 3600 16-19-19 would be faster than 3200 15-15-15. Notice the speed and the first timing both say the 3600 would still be better, but who now show much those couple 19s will offset gains.

Also if I keep the 3200 cl15 kit I'll have to manually mess with timings or I guess it would MAYBE run at 3200 cl16 on its own. (someone mentioned that gear down mode for amd forces it to be even numbers).

Since my 3200 kit is Samsung b die, though, I am really curious if it would run well at 3600 cl16 anyway. I can't decide whether to open it and try it or buy one of the other kits,. Or I could buy a cl14 3200 kit guaranteed for my mobo, but it's $220.

edit: also I was justr eading where someone said frequency always trumps the latency cycles as he ahs never seen a case of a higher or lower latency making a lower frequency RAM have as much bandwidth as the higher one. My situation just comes down to whether or not MY kit could be OCed to be the same as the 3600 kit anyway.

I just kind of hate the idea of using 3200 when that is the official supported speed of ryzen 3. It makes it feel like I am using the lowest end anyone will use with it.