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Hard Drive Question

dxmnkd316

dxmnkd316

Lucia Apologist
SSD or HDD?

Money isn't an issue. Size isn't an issue (64 GB is PLENTY). Are there any cons to having a solid state drive? Is there anything I should look for? Anything I should avoid? Any recommended models/brands?

I intend to use it as an external drive for transferring files. All I read are absolute horror stories about externals. They are much more expensive and seem to have a much, much worse MTBF than their internal counterparts. Obviously some of that can be attributed to morons treating them like they are indestructible rather than the fragile, complex pieces of equipment they are.

That said, fire away.
 
Re: Hard Drive Question

I can't think of any negatives to getting an SSD. Quieter, no moving parts so less heat, if they were to break you would most likely still get your data off it (as it wouldn't be a disk crash).

I have an internal 256GB SSD for my desktop pc as its main drive for just those reasons. Was reasonably priced.
 
Re: Hard Drive Question

I know early SSDs had issues with wearing out after a large number of read/write operations. Based on preliminary interweb research, this has been reduced over the years. Anyone have any knowledge about the write longevity of current drives?
 
Re: Hard Drive Question

I have a 512GB SSD drive in my work laptop and I love it. My computer boots in a couple seconds and applications open almost instantly.

as for reliability vs internal drives -- most external drives are just internal drives stuck in an enclosure. The actual drive is the same. Get a high-quality drive - I have read that SSD failure rates can vary quite a bit from one vendor to another. Manufacturors save the best chips for themselves and sell the rest on the open market, so buying a drive built by the same company that made the chips is best (I have a Samsung drive, since that is what Apple ships. I have heard good things about Intel SSD drives. Soe external drive vendors won't tell you which brand drive they use, but you can always buy the drive yourself and get an empty enclosure) SSD drives are more tolerant to bumps since they don't have any moving parts (bumping or dropping a spinning disk is bad, although laptop drives usually have some anti-impact features), however SSD disk failures are usually catastrophic (controller or other electronic failure with no warning).

You are not going to get full performance over USB. USB can't push data to a traditional hard drive at full speed, so it definitely won't push data full speed to your external SSD. USB 2 is about ~480 megabits per second, including control data. SATA II is about 3 gigabits per second. You will get really good seek times though (no drive head to move). You could get a drive that has both USB and eSATA ports, so you could get full performance out of the drive if you connected it to a computer with eSATA. If you don't need to transfer huge files I would just get a big memory stick though (if you could manage with a couple 32GB memory sticks it would be cheaper than a 64GB SSD drive in an external enclosure)
 
Re: Hard Drive Question

dxmnkd316 said:
I know early SSDs had issues with wearing out after a large number of read/write operations. Based on preliminary interweb research, this has been reduced over the years. Anyone have any knowledge about the write longevity of current drives?
Click to expand...

the blocks can only be rewritten so many times before they basically become read only. The drives move data around automatically so they wear evenly. The failure mode would mean the drive basically becomes read only so it does not result in a loss of data. With a modern drive the write endurance would be far longer than you would ever use the drive (although within the drives useful lifetime a small number of blocks could get stuck read only, the drive should be smart enough to handle that).
 
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Re: Hard Drive Question

Thanks!

I'm not too concerned about performance over USB since even USB 2.0 would be more than sufficient at 480 Mbps. I'm almost certain to get an Intel SSD because I have (knock on wood) never had an Intel product fail on me and they've always had great support. I was zeroing in on an Intel drive for a week or two now but wanted to get some additional opinions beyond those on Newegg.

I am mostly getting the drive because if it does fail catastrophically, it won't cost two arms, a leg, my left nut, a bag of gold, and a dodo egg to recover the data. I could invest in a RAID array but that's hardly portable. When I finally setup my own server here at home I'll invest in RAID but not yet. And I don't want to hear "Don't store important documents on a portable". That's not the point.

Can you still recover data if the controller craps out?
 
Re: Hard Drive Question

dxmnkd316 said:
Can you still recover data if the controller craps out?
Click to expand...

It is supposedly very complex. It certainly won't be cheap if the data ends up being recoverable.

I would not keep the only copy of something important on a SSD drive (or any hard disk drive for that matter). One of the problems to recovering files is that the data is transparently remapped by the controller so blocks are written to evenly, and the controller has a remapping table. This is transparent to the filesystem, so really the only thing that knows how things are stored is your crapped out controller. If you lose that remapping table, it becomes very difficult. Some companies have developed recovery techniques, but often they are controller specific. They basically take out all of the flash chips from the drive, read the contents, and then try to reconstruct a file system. Do not encrypt the drive.

I have heard of these guys before: http://www.recovermyflashdrive.com/ssd-solid-state-drive-data-recovery, but if you do have a problem your controller manufacturer might have a recommendation for a company known to recover data from their controllers.

I would just use a service like www.backblaze.com and not worry about recovering the drive.
 
Re: Hard Drive Question

*sigh*

I just want a reliable external hard drive... is that really too much to ask?
 
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