Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A blog post at Tweaktown details a reader’s unhappy experience with a new PNY Optima drive. This individual bought the drive expecting that it would feature a Silicon Motion controller, only to discover that the drive they purchased had a different firmware version and a different, SandForce-based controller. When Tweaktown inquired as to the situation, PNY sent back the following: “Yes we did ship some Optima SSD’s with SandForce controllers, but only if they meet the minimum advertised performance levels (in most of the benchmark tests, LSI controllers outperform SMI controllers).” Over the past few months, we’ve seen a disturbing trend from first Kingston, and now PNY. Manufacturers are launching SSDs with one hardware specification, and then quietly changing the hardware configuration after reviews have gone out. The impacts have been somewhat different (more on that in a moment) but in both cases, unhappy customers are loudly complaining that they’ve been cheated, tricked into paying for a drive they otherwise wouldn’t have purchased. In few words, Kingston and PNY are trying to trick consumers, do not let them get away with this, boycotts are happening until both companies retract their shady business and release an official apology.