You're probably right, but I thought we were talking about the US judicial system being broken?

An anti-static wrist-strap?

Also, woe to us users who will never be able to open up a context menu!

This is why I believe Australia is not native to our world.

Excuse me? Are you telling me that you recommend that I and everyone else should spend several minutes agonizing over two sticks that would only bring unreliable results? I'm better off just eating grass like I've always done.

Don't care.

One of my favorites. Thanks for bringing that up.

I think the Windows 8 approach reminds me more of a tribe in Africa that praises killing their enemies by first 'fattening them with friendship'. With Windows 8, they will think the gift was an act of good will and will continue to use it under that impression, never realizing that they're slowly dying in the process.

Ugh, my mind reels at the memory of the N64 Memory Pak.

I will cast my chips in with the others on Intel, Samsung and Crucial drives. Samsung especially I've worked with in enterprise and can be some very stable puppies. Of course, every brand has their own bugs, though while OCZ and cheap brands require replacements, more refined brands like the previously listed are only a BIOS and drive firmware update away. Worst case scenario besides replacing the drive itself is that you'll just need to update the BIOS and firmware, tweak some settings in the BIOS (typically setting SATA to AHCI if not already) and then reinstall Windows. After that works like a charm.

Just don't get discouraged by receiving a bad apple or two. Get from a proper brand and you'll have around the same failure rate as your common HDD, which is still present, but not common enough to cause much of an issue.

What's stopping the same company from offering a long warranty with an intentionally nightmarish experience for them to try and honor a replacement/repair request? That alone will do well to stave off the desire for customers to utilize their warranties features, with the mindset of, "I have to go through that to get a replacement? I'm better off just buying another one." Obviously one can try and justify them by saying that they're trying to prevent false positives or abuse of the system, but giving people disincentives is just as profitable an economic practice as any, so I would not put it past them.

People who've suffered through an OCZ or cheap garden-variety SSDs are the reason why I've had to deal with a lot of FUD circulating about SSDs. The contrast in reliability from an OCZ to something like a Samsung is so black and white, which is an unfortunate circumstance for us who have used solid SSDs for even enterprise operations and are trying to cure these individuals of their woes. Often it stems from people who go compulsive shopping for SSDs and purchase the aforementioned because they want a quick and economic entry into SSD technology (testing the waters). Or they opt for something like an OCZ because they are gamers and not PC savvy and just go straight for the big numbers and benchmark results (same people that buy cheap PSUs). Either way it stems from ignorance, and if there wasn't so much disparity in quality between SSD brands there shouldn't be that much of a deal, but there is, so people start throwing the baby out with the bathwater.