SSD or HDD

[Eric Carlson]

Last year Costco had some very nice laptops around $300 to $400 with SSD's and very nice 1080P IPS screens. I haven't looked this year. I wouldn't recommend a laptop without an SSD, since laptop HDD's are especially slow, and (non-gaming) laptops are desiged for power efficiency, so other things might be slowed down too, compared to a desktop, and an SSD can remove a lot of that slowness. We've also upgraded out main desktop drives to SSD, and it is much nicer.

 

[SC489]

SSD every time and a portable HDD to back up the laptop (e.g. using Macrium Reflect Free)

 

[Vunite]

I'm a bit behind the times. The other half wants a new laptop. She is a very basic user, e-mails, a few pics, skype general browsing, should I be modern and go for an SSD or is it not worth the extra price for an everyday user. Thanks for any help.

Of, ANYTHING that has been put into PCs in recent years, the SSD is the single most important advancement. Yes, make absolutly sure it has one.

 

[Austinian]

Some of us like to buy the cheapest (even if HDD) version of the laptop we want, and immediately upgrade it with aftermarket SSD, memory, etc. for much less money than the manufacturer charges for the same upgrades. That requires an upgradeable model, of course.

That's exactly what I did.
About 2 1/2 years ago, I ordered an Acer 17" laptop equipped with a 1TB HDD and picked up a 250GB M.2 SATA SSD at my local computer parts store.
Unlike my previous HP laptops, Acer doesn't provide service manuals, but I knew from my research that adding an M.2 SSD to the Acer was not very difficult.
I installed the M.2, and cloned the HDD to it (I believe I used Aomei Backupper).
After a successful test run, I then did a Win 10 clean install on the M.2 SSD and formatted the 1TB HDD for use as the laptop storage.

Similar setup here:

My ultracheap-version XPS 15 came with only a 1TB HDD and 8GB memory, but from reviews I knew it had a slot for an M.2 SSD. I installed a Samsung 970 Evo Plus, replaced the HDD with a 2.5" SSD, upgraded the memory to 16GB, and replaced the KIller Wi-Fi card with an Intel. The replaced parts were saved in case of warranty returns.

Then I clean-installed Windows 10 Pro on the 970 Evo, added the relatively few applications I need, and it's been a great travel machine. Sadly, this summer no travel. :-( :-(

I'm on it right now as we have a thunderstorm in progress, and I don't want to risk the hard-to-replace desktop.

 

[bluehighwayman]

I think the HDD is going the way of the floppy drive. Get a laptop with an SSD they are really not that much more expensive today. The bootup speed alone is worth the extra money.

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

Thanks again for everybody who took the trouble to reply it has been very helpful

 

[PHXAZCRAIG]

Sounds like the keyboard on my Dell. It's the last part you get to, and I've put my spare keyboard on the shelf and gotten more used to sticky coffee-enabled keys.

 

[kelpdiver]

I think the HDD is going the way of the floppy drive. Get a laptop with an SSD they are really not that much more expensive today. The bootup speed alone is worth the extra money.

on laptops maybe. But the internet will continue to rely on them for the next couple decades at a minimum.

Same for any folks here doing any video work, or a sizeable amount of photography. It just may move into the NAS or filer device on the network, as 10G becomes (someday ?) the norm.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

I'm a bit behind the times. The other half wants a new laptop. She is a very basic user, e-mails, a few pics, skype general browsing, should I be modern and go for an SSD or is it not worth the extra price for an everyday user. Thanks for any help.

Here's my opinion:

For daily use, SSD. Much faster.

For archival purposes (backing up): use a HDD (for long-time storage, say more than a year).

SSDs have a finite number of write cycles (usually for the average person, say 4-6 years of use under normal use). These would be fine for daily use or to use as a backup drive (get an external SSD) for when traveling. This is what I do. They are not succeptible to damage by magnets and a durable since there aren't any moving parts. I've dropped mine a few times and they still work great.

Hard drives have a finite life too, but it's not a definite number of write cycles like with SSDs. It's more when the motors decide to take a dump. I've had HDDs last in storage for 10+ years (being plugged in once per year at least to exercise the motor and get the lubrication in the bearings moving for a bit).

For everyday use, it's definitely worth the price to go with an SSD. You can get 1TB SSDs now for about $140.

SSDs when not used can retain their data for much longer (at least a year, maybe longer without being powered on). However HDDs don't have this retention issue which is what makes them better for long term storage, but the fact that they have moving parts that need to be used periodically to prevent the motors for seizing makes them last about as long as most SSDs (so I'd say about 4-6 years, and maybe longer if you do what I did and store them properly and use them periodically).

FYI: There are some claims that SSDs will start to lose data after 7 days of not being powered on, and this stems for people misreading a known article online that was published, where the author said that yes they could, once they reached the end of their useful life, they could start to degrade and lose data (useful lives for SSDs are usually anywhere from 3-6 years depending on usage--3 yrs on heavy usage where there is a lot o reading/writing and 6 years probably on average/periodic usage). Don't listen to those who say this will happen with a new drive because it won't. I've had SSDs stored for 1+ years without any data loss. Just letting you know because if you google, you will find this argument. Don't listen to it. SSDs can retain data for a long time (at least a year and most likely more when not powered on--I have tried myself).

Most quality SSDs have at least a 3 or 5 year warranty if that gives you any comfort. And out of the 10 or so SSDs I've had, never had one fail and never had to make a warranty claim, and some are going on 4-5 years now.

In all, I too was behind the times until about 5 years ago when SSD prices started to drop but didn't buy into them until they became main stream. I wasn't convinced of their reliability until I tried one, and to say the least, I would never go back to a HDD for daily use. For large backups I still use HDDs (and then a small SSD for backing up while traveling).

 

[kelpdiver]

SSDs have a finite number of write cycles (usually for the average person, say 4-6 years of use under normal use).

much closer to 40-60 years. For the average user, write exhaustion is irrelevant. Most users write very little. Only DVR use (or security cams) are a common use case with concern.

Hard drives have a finite life too, but it's not a definite number of write cycles like with SSDs. It's more when the motors decide to take a dump. I've had HDDs last in storage for 10+ years (being plugged in once per year at least to exercise the motor and get the lubrication in the bearings moving for a bit).

hard drives, like SSDs, have 5 year service lives. After that, they'll generally continue to function, but should not be relied upon for critical cases. All drives should have backups, regardless of age.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

SSDs have a finite number of write cycles (usually for the average person, say 4-6 years of use under normal use).

much closer to 40-60 years. For the average user, write exhaustion is irrelevant. Most users write very little. Only DVR use (or security cams) are a common use case with concern.

Perhaps but the technology is still too "new" to tell actual (real world) lifespans, and with improving technology, maybe we could get 40-60 years. Either way, it's a very stable media to use and IMO one of the more reliable ones at that.

Hard drives have a finite life too, but it's not a definite number of write cycles like with SSDs. It's more when the motors decide to take a dump. I've had HDDs last in storage for 10+ years (being plugged in once per year at least to exercise the motor and get the lubrication in the bearings moving for a bit).

hard drives, like SSDs, have 5 year service lives. After that, they'll generally continue to function, but should not be relied upon for critical cases. All drives should have backups, regardless of age.

True, but I think this is also an average case... If you have a HDD in storage for 10 years, but run it once every 3 months, it will likely surpass the 5 year marker, but 5 years is probably a safe estimate. I know I tend to replace primary storage SSD about every 5 years just to be safe (even though I have backups of everything on various types of media and in various locations).

But I think for the OP's sake (and for anybody) SSDs have matured to a point where they are reliable enough for daily use, and even the standard consumer drives are more than enough for 90% of the users out there.

 

[Mystery member]

The technology is still too "new" to tell actual (real world) lifespans, and with improving technology, maybe we could get 40-60 years. Either way, it's a very stable media to use and IMO one of the more reliable ones at that.

My HDD turnover in the last few decades has been driven by storage requirements rather than hardware failure. Each refresh of the office computers has been accompanied by at least a ten-fold increase in HDD capacity. We've gone from megabyte to terabyte scale in less than 30 years.

But I think for the OP's sake (and for anybody) SSDs have matured to a point where they are reliable enough for daily use, and even the standard consumer drives are more than enough for 90% of the users out there.

Let's hope so, because the majority of my boot drives are now SSD.

 

[kelpdiver]

SSDs have a finite number of write cycles (usually for the average person, say 4-6 years of use under normal use).

much closer to 40-60 years. For the average user, write exhaustion is irrelevant. Most users write very little. Only DVR use (or security cams) are a common use case with concern.

Perhaps but the technology is still too "new" to tell actual (real world) lifespans, and with improving technology, maybe we could get 40-60 years. Either way, it's a very stable media to use and IMO one of the more reliable ones at that.

No, we know. It's easy to measure write activity (x amplification) by number of days. And there are deliberate torture tests, as well as enterprise use that tell us what the upper bounds are like.

A common user (or even slightly less common like me) only writes the size of the disk a few times per year, and the write cycle count is measures in the 1000s.
And even when it happens, it doesn't blow up. it gradually becomes a read only drive, and the SMART data can count how many blocks have gone into this state, which provides the human readable "percentage remaining" value.

No, the drive will be obsolete (too small, too slow, wrong form factor) long before write exhaustion shows itself, with those two exclusions listed. If one is really worried about it, buy TLC or MLC ("pro") models over the QLC ones.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

The technology is still too "new" to tell actual (real world) lifespans, and with improving technology, maybe we could get 40-60 years. Either way, it's a very stable media to use and IMO one of the more reliable ones at that.

My HDD turnover in the last few decades has been driven by storage requirements rather than hardware failure. Each refresh of the office computers has been accompanied by at least a ten-fold increase in HDD capacity. We've gone from megabyte to terabyte scale in less than 30 years.

For me (personally) I don't buy the extremely large drives, and if I do, I buy two of them (or 4 of them) and put them into a RAID. IMO it's just a lot to ask of a single drive (of course, I have backups too, but to restore that amount of data takes a while). But everyone has their own preferences and needs.

Although for me, 3-4TB is about my limit. I've noticed that once you get above that, you have to sacrifice some speed for storage space apparently (ie. drive speed, spindle speed). Luckily I don't shoot a lot (maybe a few times per month) so I don't go through that much storage space in a year...

But I think for the OP's sake (and for anybody) SSDs have matured to a point where they are reliable enough for daily use, and even the standard consumer drives are more than enough for 90% of the users out there.

Let's hope so, because the majority of my boot drives are now SSD.

All of my systems run SSDs now and I only use HDDs for storage (archiving in the shorter term (1-5 years). And considering SSDs are very robust and can handle things like drops, it's almost a must in portable devices at least.

 

[PHXAZCRAIG]

Recent studies put the normal lifetime of an SSD at something less than 1 years.

Loading…

www.solarwindsmsp.com

"During that study, they found the age of an SSD was the primary determinant of when it stopped working. Researchers working on the study also found SSDs were replaced about 25% less often than HDDs."

A notable paragraph:

"While SSDs may fail with less frequency than HDDs, they do have a higher error rate that can affect the end-user experience. For example, so-called uncorrectable errors are relatively common in SSDs. Research shows that over 20% of SSDs develop uncorrectable errorsover a four-year period, and 30% to 80% develop bad blocks. All of these errors can affect data retention and lead to effective failure."

 

[Ho72]

A notable paragraph:

"While SSDs may fail with less frequency than HDDs, they do have a higher error rate that can affect the end-user experience. For example, so-called uncorrectable errors are relatively common in SSDs. Research shows that over 20% of SSDs develop uncorrectable errorsover a four-year period, and 30% to 80% develop bad blocks. All of these errors can affect data retention and lead to effective failure."

Be also advised that there is, or was, a real issue with power events (e.g. sudden loss of power) turning some brands/models of SSDs into bricks. This may be old news and may well have be fixed by now, but let it be a reminder that however robust/reliable you believe your data drives to be, backups are as important as ever — if not more so.

 

[Robert Zanatta]

That's in a data center - not quite the same as home use. And it goes back 6 years from when the report data was collected, so it includes some older and less reliable technology.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

Recent studies put the normal lifetime of an SSD at something less than 1 years.

https://www.solarwindsmsp.com/blog/ssd-lifespan

"During that study, they found the age of an SSD was the primary determinant of when it stopped working. Researchers working on the study also found SSDs were replaced about 25% less often than HDDs."

A notable paragraph:

"While SSDs may fail with less frequency than HDDs, they do have a higher error rate that can affect the end-user experience. For example, so-called uncorrectable errors are relatively common in SSDs. Research shows that over 20% of SSDs develop uncorrectable errorsover a four-year period, and 30% to 80% develop bad blocks. All of these errors can affect data retention and lead to effective failure."

One thing to keep in mind is that many SSDs have ECC mechanisms built into them so for example, if there is a bad cell, that cell is marked as unusable on the drive, but this is usually seamless to the end user. Whereas with HDDs, that's not always the case. The user (or OS) might find something is corrupt only when they try to go and read it. Bad blocks are normal, and even some out of the box HDDs have bad blocks. This is also why it's important to fully format your HDD in Windows or MacOS because the OS will also identify and mark bad blocks or cells and prevent the OS and software from reading/writing to them.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

SSDs have a finite number of write cycles (usually for the average person, say 4-6 years of use under normal use).

much closer to 40-60 years. For the average user, write exhaustion is irrelevant. Most users write very little. Only DVR use (or security cams) are a common use case with concern.

Perhaps but the technology is still too "new" to tell actual (real world) lifespans, and with improving technology, maybe we could get 40-60 years. Either way, it's a very stable media to use and IMO one of the more reliable ones at that.

No, we know. It's easy to measure write activity (x amplification) by number of days. And there are deliberate torture tests, as well as enterprise use that tell us what the upper bounds are like.

A common user (or even slightly less common like me) only writes the size of the disk a few times per year, and the write cycle count is measures in the 1000s.

And even when it happens, it doesn't blow up. it gradually becomes a read only drive, and the SMART data can count how many blocks have gone into this state, which provides the human readable "percentage remaining" value.

No, the drive will be obsolete (too small, too slow, wrong form factor) long before write exhaustion shows itself, with those two exclusions listed. If one is really worried about it, buy TLC or MLC ("pro") models over the QLC ones.

Pro grade drives are SLC but they are extremely expensive, but they have the most write cycles and are generally the most robust (which is why most server-grade SSDs are generally SLC, at least ones that will exhibit large amounts of writing).

Yes I would never recommend QLC drives. And it's even evident that they are less robust than MLC/TLC because for example Samsung's QLC (QVO drives) are only warranted for 3 years, versus 5 years for their MLC/TLC drives which should give one an indiciation that the QLC, while cheaper, aren't as durable long term.

Basically I always recommend SLC if you can afford it (most can't at least once you get to 500GB and beyond), and then TLC or MLC if you need the space (although many drives these days are MLC, especially the large capacity consumer level SSDs).

HOwever, again, for the OP's case, for a system drive, I think MLC is fine. For backup and archive, I would still recommend a HDD. For a working drive (ie. to store your catalog on) an MLC drive is also probably fine (just make backups, which one should be doing anyway regardless of media). I've been using my Samsung T5 1TB drive for about 3 years now (runs my catalog and RAW files and serves as my "working" drive that I edit photos off of) and no signs of issues. I plan to replace it in another year or so and get a larger drive.

This is also why I usually give my drives about 4-5 years of life before upgrading and migrating to a new drive. Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned as I used to do that with HDDs because of the mechanical components, but i Think even with SSDs and their advanced technology, people should expect only about 5 years of life out of them (possibly more if they're only using them for backup and thus not writing to them constantly, but even so, I wouldn't push it past 7-8 years myself for storage purposes, despite the "calculations" saying they can probably hold data for much longer).

 

[Mystery member]

Pro grade drives are SLC but they are extremely expensive, but they have the most write cycles and are generally the most robust (which is why most server-grade SSDs are generally SLC, at least ones that will exhibit large amounts of writing).

Yes I would never recommend QLC drives. And it's even evident that they are less robust than MLC/TLC because for example Samsung's QLC (QVO drives) are only warranted for 3 years, versus 5 years for their MLC/TLC drives which should give one an indiciation that the QLC, while cheaper, aren't as durable long term.

Basically I always recommend SLC if you can afford it (most can't at least once you get to 500GB and beyond), and then TLC or MLC if you need the space (although many drives these days are MLC, especially the large capacity consumer level SSDs).

Is this still up to date?

SLC/MLC/TLC