A question for SSD experts/owners

[Xrqute]

In all honesty dude your just being abit paranoid.

SSD's arnt new tech anymore. They now have a proven track record on proven tech that's rapidly advancing.

Mech drives have been around since the dark ages and are prone to failure simply due to the amount of moving parts.

SSD's are all plus' s (except for the $:Gigabyte) fast, compact, silent and far more physically resilient then mech drives.

If it really worries you pay that bit more and get the top tier SSD of your chosen brand.

I dare say everyone would back in saying go get a Cosair or Samung drive and you'll never look back.

 

[Agost]

In all honesty dude your just being abit paranoid.

SSD's arnt new tech anymore. They now have a proven track record on proven tech that's rapidly advancing.

Mech drives have been around since the dark ages and are prone to failure simply due to the amount of moving parts.

SSD's are all plus' s (except for the $:Gigabyte) fast, compact, silent and far more physically resilient then mech drives.

If it really worries you pay that bit more and get the top tier SSD of your chosen brand.

I dare say everyone would back in saying go get a Cosair or Samung drive and you'll never look back.

That's actually a problem: die shrinking lowers NAND life. So they improved software but there are physical limitations, that's why I'm cautious about this. Not paranoid, I'm not going to lose anything right now, I'm just gathering information from long time users.

HDDs can usually have failures due to moving parts, while SSDs can have issues with firmware and cell corruptions caused by age. In fact I noticed that if a HDD dies, it usually does very soon or at least give signs of problems. If this two things don't happen it can last very long

I'd like to see M.2 or SATA Express good drives as soon as possible, preferably with data loss protection and vNAND or something like that ( probably Intel will do something close to that, while Samsung hasn't put power loss protection even in the new high tier 850 Pro, which disappoints me a bit )

Remember, it's not a "omg what ssd should i get" thread, it's more like an open discussion about personal experience and knowledge

 

[Fidelitas]

Hi all,

since i have no more money to upgrade my rig this year ( yeah, they "disappeared"... -.- ) I'm speculating about what I could get next year, with a good fat budget.

SSDs are getting bigger and longer lasting, but would you run a SSD only PC? Even for datas you would otherwise put on a HDD, like music and movies? For example could a 256gb OS drive+ 1 TB data/game drive setup be reliable enough even for sensible data like documents and other personal things like photos?

I've heard of many SSDs suddenly dying, and lots of firmware issues...

Do not consider neither cost nor backup storage ( the latter is necessary ): would you feel safe running a normal, everyday use machine with many games, rendering programs, lots of personal data and other stuff on SSDs only? And by "normal" I also mean enabled pagefile, restore points etc

I have a MacBook Pro with a 1tb SSD in it that I have been using for a little over a year now. I don't know much about how long SSD's are suppose to last, but I have not had any problems with it thus far.

To me, 1tb is a lot of space. I download a lot of movies and music, and put a lot of pictures on it from my digital camera, yet I have not even come close to filling it.

I think prioritizing what you store on your computer is a main consideration too. High capacity external drives are becoming very reasonable in price, or at least in my opinion they are. For instance, I often see 3tb drives on sale for less than a $100.00

What do you really need to store on your computer other than your operating system, programs and things that you use frequently? For instance, could you store said things on a 250gb drive? How about a 500gb drive? If you could do it on a 250gb drive, you can get a very nice SSD for about $140.00 At 500gb, there are several good SSD's in the low $300.00 range.

I hope this information helps. But getting back to longevity of drives and their reliability, as I said, I have had a 1tb in a Mac for over a year now and have never experienced any problems with it.

 

[Wraith]

Gotta admit my drives are brilliant, I don't know if I'd go full solid state though, I have no worries about reliability so long as you follow the golden SSD rules, they should last as long if not longer than a mech drive.

Don't defrag it.
Don't let it sleep.
Move your Temp folders to a mech.
Move your virtual memory to a mech.
And make sure Trim is active.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Gotta admit my drives are brilliant, I don't know if I'd go full solid state though, I have no worries about reliability so long as you follow the golden SSD rules, they should last as long if not longer than a mech drive.

Don't defrag it.
Don't let it sleep.
Move your Temp folders to a mech.
Move your virtual memory to a mech.
And make sure Trim is active.

Make sure its in AHCI mode too. They are a lot of ways to get it to perform better. Not as much a problem with newer drives though.

The next big step in SSDs will not come from a new interface or better ssd hardware, it will come NVMe. It will replace AHCI as it is actually designed for digital storage devices and future technologies. Its gonna be a few years till we get it i would assume however. So if you have heard of it and wanted to wait for these drives you are probably better off getting a current drive now.

 

[truesilax]

why cant u defrag it? ssd dont handle writing over things well?

 

[NeverBackDown]

SSDs perform trim and therefore have no need for defrags. Defrag'ing a ssd makes it write to itself and it will overwrite to itself eventually wearing out the nand causing it to perform trim more often if you defrag often enough. Just wears it out faster.

 

[Agost]

Gotta admit my drives are brilliant, I don't know if I'd go full solid state though, I have no worries about reliability so long as you follow the golden SSD rules, they should last as long if not longer than a mech drive.

Don't defrag it.
Don't let it sleep.
Move your Temp folders to a mech.
Move your virtual memory to a mech.
And make sure Trim is active.

You mean no Windows sleep? Why?

That's a feature I use a lot. Do you mean hybernation, maybe?

However, this thread is about not using HDD, so 3rd and 4th point are invalid h34r:

 

[BigDaddyKong]

As long as we have been using them, I am still puzzled why case manufacturers don't put more drive bay adapters in the cases when you buy them.

 

[hmmblah]

SSDs perform trim and therefore have no need for defrags. Defrag'ing a ssd makes it write to itself and it will overwrite to itself eventually wearing out the nand causing it to perform trim more often if you defrag often enough. Just wears it out faster.

Actually it really has nothing to do with trim. Defragging a drive orders the data sequentially so the heads in the drive don't have to seek all over a platter to read data essentially speeding up access times. An SSD doesn't have heads that move around a platter so data doesn't need to be sequential. All defragging does to an SSD is needlessly write data again reducing the lifespan of the flash cells and offering zero performance improvement.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Actually it really has nothing to do with trim. Defragging a drive orders the data sequentially so the heads in the drive don't have to seek all over a platter to read data essentially speeding up access times. An SSD doesn't have heads that move around a platter so data doesn't need to be sequential. All defragging does to an SSD is needlessly write data again reducing the lifespan of the flash cells and offering zero performance improvement.

I meant in a sense that trim is like its own defrag. I know it is different but it performs its own operations to keep it at its best performance. I just didn't word it right i suppose. But yes you are correct!

 

[Agost]

You mean no Windows sleep? Why?

That's a feature I use a lot. Do you mean hybernation, maybe?

However, this thread is about not using HDD, so 3rd and 4th point are invalid h34r:

bump to that question

Moreover, has anyone ever had problems with a SSD after a power loss?

 

[Wraith]

bump to that question

Moreover, has anyone ever had problems with a SSD after a power loss?

With the OS on an SSD, "Hibernate" and "Hybrid Sleep" modes do write to the SSD, the amount depending on how much RAM is in use. Unfortunately it's not possible to move the hibernation file to a different drive. This means that a nontrivial amount of the write lifetime of the SSD is used to go into these modes.

I've not had any issues through power loss, but my PSU crapping out did some damage to it. Thankfully Crucial were awesome and replaced it within 72 hrs.

 

[Agost]

With the OS on an SSD, "Hibernate" and "Hybrid Sleep" modes do write to the SSD, the amount depending on how much RAM is in use. Unfortunately it's not possible to move the hibernation file to a different drive. This means that a nontrivial amount of the write lifetime of the SSD is used to go into these modes.

I've not had any issues through power loss, but my PSU crapping out did some damage to it. Thankfully Crucial were awesome and replaced it within 72 hrs.

I mean normal sleep, the one which saves data on RAM only. It's safe with SSDs, isn't it?

Which Crucial did you have? I knew they had power loss protection...

 

[Wraith]

I had (still have RMA'd) Crucial V4 64GB.

 

[Agost]

I had (still have RMA'd) Crucial V4 64GB.

Well as far as I've read they weren't good drives, look at newegg reviews for example

Moreover they had no power loss protection. I feel a bit safer about this right now, let's see what other users can say about their experience

 

[hmmblah]

Well as far as I've read they weren't good drives, look at newegg reviews for example

Moreover they had no power loss protection. I feel a bit safer about this right now, let's see what other users can say about their experience

Get a _good_ SSD, you'll never look back. As far as power loss protection just get a UPS. One that conditions the power to protect from brownouts as well as surges.

 

[Xrqute]

The other part of good SSD maintenance is every once in a while do a secure erase all of its cells get marked as empty. This may restore it to factory default write performance.I use parted magic to do mine. My R4BE also has a secure erase built into the bios.

 

[shambles1980]

i use a ssd as a cache drive for a 1tb main drive (was the best way for me to get the most speeds out of the apps / games and os i use most) its not bad really much faster than it would be otherwize (i use wd red drives which arent actually nippy)
benifits i have are faster read speeds of common used stuff. the writing is done direct to the mechanicall though (so of power loss issues i dont lose that data)

now i did have an issue the other day after a power loss on boot.
but all i had to do was use the raid menu options on boot to re sync the raid.
apart from that its been solid.
If you crash or shut down like a monkey who learned how to hold down a power button. then boot takes longer as it has to figure out whats needed where and it tells you as its doing it..

SSD's are a lot more reliable now. and if you look at the actuall numbers on the ammount of writes you can do. it would take you a good few years of doing nothing but writing to them to kill one.
i would say that they are at a point where they probably have a better life expectancy than mechanical drives did a few years back.

If i had the money to install 8 1tb ssd's in my system (or 890gb whatever they are) then i would do it.

most ssds now also have little smd caps in them that have enough power so the scratch data dosent get lost. so i wouldnt really worry about losing data due to a power loss any more than i would worry about it with a mechanical drive..

but you always have to think about back ups. and thats never changed. mechanical disk for a back up is just cheaper. and you can always just hook it up make a back up and then put it away nice and safe some where.

p.s

i use a intel ssd as it had the most things i was looking for. (long life, good components, well made, and smd caps to save your data if you shut down like a monkey "i have a 2 n 1/2 year old who likes to turn off my pc")

 

[Agost]

i use a ssd as a cache drive for a 1tb main drive (was the best way for me to get the most speeds out of the apps / games and os i use most) its not bad really much faster than it would be otherwize (i use wd red drives which arent actually nippy)
benifits i have are faster read speeds of common used stuff. the writing is done direct to the mechanicall though (so of power loss issues i dont lose that data)

now i did have an issue the other day after a power loss on boot.
but all i had to do was use the raid menu options on boot to re sync the raid.
apart from that its been solid.
If you crash or shut down like a monkey who learned how to hold down a power button. then boot takes longer as it has to figure out whats needed where and it tells you as its doing it..

SSD's are a lot more reliable now. and if you look at the actuall numbers on the ammount of writes you can do. it would take you a good few years of doing nothing but writing to them to kill one.
i would say that they are at a point where they probably have a better life expectancy than mechanical drives did a few years back.

If i had the money to install 8 1tb ssd's in my system (or 890gb whatever they are) then i would do it.

most ssds now also have little smd caps in them that have enough power so the scratch data dosent get lost. so i wouldnt really worry about losing data due to a power loss any more than i would worry about it with a mechanical drive..

but you always have to think about back ups. and thats never changed. mechanical disk for a back up is just cheaper. and you can always just hook it up make a back up and then put it away nice and safe some where.

p.s

i use a intel ssd as it had the most things i was looking for. (long life, good components, well made, and smd caps to save your data if you shut down like a monkey "i have a 2 n 1/2 year old who likes to turn off my pc")

Yes, Intel SSDs are very interesting because it looks like they're the most reliable ones. Their only problem is price...

Get a _good_ SSD, you'll never look back. As far as power loss protection just get a UPS. One that conditions the power to protect from brownouts as well as surges.

I currently move my pc at least 2 times per year... by car. So I need to use less space possible and UPSs are not the smallest thing ever. Good UPSs usually cost quite a lot...

If the Samsung 850 Pro had power loss protection, it would be my #1 choice.

Thankfully I'm not upgrading until next year, let's see what is going to come in the market.

However if some other users want to share their experience, they're welcome :beerchug:
It's an open thread