OCZ Challenge update: 4th ARC 100 drive dies at 424TB

We hope by now that many of you have been following the ‘Kill x5 SSD Challenge' issued to us by OCZ – this started way back on December 10th last year. Today, the fourth drive has kicked the bucket with only one still ticking away.

The warranty data transfer figure for the OCZ ARC 100 is 22TB and all of the drives have lasted much longer than this – the first failure actually didn't happen until 322TB, the second drive died at 352TB, the third 384TB. One drive is still going strong, so the project isn't quite over yet. If you want to view all the videos, follow the links below on this page.

Read original ‘challenge' editorial on 10th December, HERE.
Read 17th December 2014 ‘challenge' update, HERE.
Read 27th December 2014 22TB mark update, HERE.
Read 10th January 2015 100TB mark update, HERE.
Read 23rd January 2015 200TB mark update, HERE.
Read 3rd February 2015 300TB mark update, HERE.
Read 9th February 2015 322TB 1st failure, HERE.
Read 18th February 352TB 2nd failure HERE.
Read 24th February 384TB 3rd Failure HERE.
Interview with OCZ on ‘The Past, The Present and The Future', HERE.

With 4 drives now dead, we're all wondering when the last will shuffle off this mortal coil. OCZ are wondering the same thing and are actually opening this up to a competition with KitGuru – with the chance to win an ARC 100 240GB drive.

OCZ are hoping that this test will go some way to repair their reputation which suffered in previous years after well known problems with the Sandforce 2281 controller. OCZ no longer use this controller and have introduced a new ‘ShieldPlus Warranty System’ to reassure customers.

The ‘ShieldPlus Warranty system’ eliminates the requirement for ‘proof of purchase’ … if a drive fails. A brand new SSD is shipped to the OCZ customer of the same capacity, in advance. When the replacement is received by the customer they can then send their old faulty drive back with a prepaid envelope. Yes it all does seem too good to be true, but we can’t find any catch.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

KitGuru says: Stay tuned as we get close to the (final) end.

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