ICY News: The mysteriously disappearing drive: Are power outages killing your SSDs?

"SSDs offer enormous benefits over traditional spinning discs. They’re up to an order of magnitude faster in certain operations, weigh less, and consume less power under load. They’ve become increasingly popular with enthusiasts and mainstream customers alike — but a report from the 11th Usenix Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 13), given early this year, suggests most models have a fundamental problem with sudden power loss. While the paper came out in mid-February, I only recently came across it, after a reader asked if I’d look into a rather puzzling recovery program recommended by Crucial for its M4 SSD line."