A question for SSD experts/owners

[hmmblah]

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

For the amount we invest in our PCs, a ~$75 UPS is a no-brainer. You don't need anything large, just something that can supply a few minutes of power. The important bit is the line conditioning.

Like a mechanical hard drive, an SSD doesn't need power to hold data. In the consumer space I really don't think power loss protection is something to worry about. You should have a backup of your data anyway.

I have an SSD in all my daily rigs (2 desktops and a MBP). I've had the power cut out before or have had to do a hard shutdown on a blue screen or lockup and I've never lost any data from an SSD.

 

[Agost]

Like a mechanical hard drive, an SSD doesn't need power to hold data. In the consumer space I really don't think power loss protection is something to worry about. You should have a backup of your data anyway.

It's not about losing data ( or at least not only about that ), it's about bricking the SSD like sometimes happens, as far as I've read.

You know, if I'm working on something I need to send to someone the next day, I wouldn't like to reinstall OS and stuff for a power loss. Same thing for every other task

 

[Xrqute]

It's not about losing data ( or at least not only about that ), it's about bricking the SSD like sometimes happens, as far as I've read.

You know, if I'm working on something I need to send to someone the next day, I wouldn't like to reinstall OS and stuff for a power loss. Same thing for every other task

There is an easy solution.

Raid.

 

[hmmblah]

It's not about losing data ( or at least not only about that ), it's about bricking the SSD like sometimes happens, as far as I've read.

You know, if I'm working on something I need to send to someone the next day, I wouldn't like to reinstall OS and stuff for a power loss. Same thing for every other task

SSDs aren't any more prone to bricking than any other part in your PC. Go with a good brand/model from Intel, Crucial, or Samsung and you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Of course any electronic device can die without warning, but as long as you buy good parts the odds of that are greatly reduced. SSDs are very reliable and more resistant to environmental conditions (temperature, drop force, magnetism) than a mechanical drive. Again, don't buy cheap junk.

 

[RadeonHDx]

The Samsung drives do have power loss protection, albeit in the Samsung Magician software.

 

[remember300]

Personally if you want to run it for a while go for larger drives as good ssd management, will manage the cycles so a 125GB should in theory dies 4 times as fast as a 500GB.
My eventual plan is to have 4x 1TB SSDs and a 500GB i've been looking at those new corsair ones with the 4 in a raid config for all my games and general docs, using the 500Gb for all drivers and OS.
But using the mechs from inside my pc to a small external server, main reason i still trust mechs is as long as the diskette in side is not compromised, if the heads die or motor burns out the data can relatively easily be recovered.
Im using a Samsung 840EVO 120Gb performs much much better than the 60Gb and the 120GB OCZ's i had (there were bottom range so this could of been a problem, and i got them cheap from work, well cheapish).

 

[Agost]

There is an easy solution.

Raid.

Is there any easy way to double my money? :asd:

SSDs aren't any more prone to bricking than any other part in your PC. Go with a good brand/model from Intel, Crucial, or Samsung and you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Of course any electronic device can die without warning, but as long as you buy good parts the odds of that are greatly reduced. SSDs are very reliable and more resistant to environmental conditions (temperature, drop force, magnetism) than a mechanical drive. Again, don't buy cheap junk.

The only brands I'm considering are Intel ( the 730, even if I'd like to see a new one next year ), Samsung ( 850 pro, nice vNAND and software ), Crucial ( M550 only, I don't want 16nm MX100 ) and SanDisk. The latter one is using SLC NAND as a second cache after RAM on the Extreme Pro, could it be considered a good way to prevent power loss? ( and it has 10Y warranty like the 850 pro )

The Samsung drives do have power loss protection, albeit in the Samsung Magician software.

How could a software prevent power loss issues? .-.

On their site there's something about power loss and write cache:
"Enabling “Write-Cache” does, however, increase the risk of data loss if the system power fails or the drive is removed suddenly. This is because DRAM is a volatile storage medium that loses its contents in the absence of power, which means that data stored in the DRAM cache may not have a chance to be flushed (saved) to storage (NAND) in the event of sudden power loss."

So you need to disable the RAM cache to prevent power loss problems? Doesn't sound very good

Personally if you want to run it for a while go for larger drives as good ssd management, will manage the cycles so a 125GB should in theory dies 4 times as fast as a 500GB.
My eventual plan is to have 4x 1TB SSDs and a 500GB i've been looking at those new corsair ones with the 4 in a raid config for all my games and general docs, using the 500Gb for all drivers and OS.
But using the mechs from inside my pc to a small external server, main reason i still trust mechs is as long as the diskette in side is not compromised, if the heads die or motor burns out the data can relatively easily be recovered.
Im using a Samsung 840EVO 120Gb performs much much better than the 60Gb and the 120GB OCZ's i had (there were bottom range so this could of been a problem, and i got them cheap from work, well cheapish).

I'd go with 256GB minimum even for OS only. So I can keep years of restore points :asd: ( being serious, dual boot with Linux could be nice )

 

[shambles1980]

i wouldnt use ram as a WRITE cache if possible. it is volatile and any data on ram as a cache will be lost regardless of what your using as a hard disk. "ssd/mechanicall/some fancy liquid hard disk not invented yet"

this would slightly lower the speed of writing data but only in appearance.
the data gets moved to the ram cache and looks like its done but it isnt, it then transfers to the hard disk..
i much prefer having data written directly to the drive as it may appear slower but it isnt really. and with a all SSD system i dont see why you would want to use ram as a write cache any way.
i dissabled this feature instantly even from my RST set up. which means i suffer more because im actually writing to a mechanical hard disk.

with a ssd you dont really suffer that as your using the much faster ssd speeds any way.
using ram as a read cache is entierly different in that instance the data moves from the hard disk to ram (or in my case to ssd) which increased the speeds..

so basically volatile memory = bad for write cache, good for read cache.
and using ram as a write cache dosent really speed up anything even the illusion of faster speed isnt that much..

I think id even just go ahead and use a usb 3.0 pen drive as ready boost rather than use ram as a write cache..

 

[Agost]

i wouldnt use ram as a WRITE cache if possible. it is volatile and any data on ram as a cache will be lost regardless of what your using as a hard disk. "ssd/mechanicall/some fancy liquid hard disk not invented yet"

this would slightly lower the speed of writing data but only in appearance.
the data gets moved to the ram cache and looks like its done but it isnt, it then transfers to the hard disk..
i much prefer having data written directly to the drive as it may appear slower but it isnt really. and with a all SSD system i dont see why you would want to use ram as a write cache any way.
i dissabled this feature instantly even from my RST set up. which means i suffer more because im actually writing to a mechanical hard disk.

with a ssd you dont really suffer that as your using the much faster ssd speeds any way.
using ram as a read cache is entierly different in that instance the data moves from the hard disk to ram (or in my case to ssd) which increased the speeds..

so basically volatile memory = bad for write cache, good for read cache.
and using ram as a write cache dosent really speed up anything even the illusion of faster speed isnt that much..

I think id even just go ahead and use a usb 3.0 pen drive as ready boost rather than use ram as a write cache..

mmmmh, I didn't actually thought about it. So the 850 Pro is getting closer and closer to be the best choice of all h34r:

But what about RAPID? From samsung PDF:
"RAPID was specifically designed to not add any additional risk to user or system data, even in the event of a power-loss. In fact, RAPID strictly adheres to Windows conventions in its treatment of any buffered writes in DRAM -- RAPID obeys all “flush” commands, so any writes buffered by RAPID will make it to the persistent media just like the Windows OS cache or the HDD cache. (Consequently, the data loss risk is identical to that of Windows OS cache or HDD cache)."

 

[shambles1980]

as far as im aware RAPID is a read cache of about 1gb ram
and not a write cache.


edit
actually i just checked up on it to make sure. and it does ALSO act as a write cache.
it has the same inherant loss characteristics as anything els. its not anything to do with the ssd really. its just a ram based cache (you can set that up with a number of software)
it does seem to write it to the hard disk as soon as is possible.. but i would not enable it.
again like any ram cache the issue is with the ram being volatile and nothing to do with the actual hard disk be it mechanical or solid state.

if the data is in your ram and you lose power then that data is gone and it dosent matter what hard disk you have.

 

[Agost]

if the data is in your ram and you lose power then that data is gone and it dosent matter what hard disk you have.

The major concern is not to lose ALL data. Losing only the data in RAM during a power loss is a minor problem compared to losing access to other data on the drive... and looks like RAPID is going to lose only that data in case of power loss ( just like Windows ) fortunately. Correct me if I'm wrong

 

[shambles1980]

yes but thats what happens with any form of ram write cache really.
if you just dont use any write cache you cant lose that data. but thats a bit of a lie too. because if the data wasnt writen to the hard disk yet then its still lost whether it was in ram cache wating to be written. or it was only half written to hard disk.
so teh only way to protect that is a UPS.

loss of all data or substantial data on the hard disk its self is something thats possible on all storage media.
mechanical hard disks can get their read/write heads stuck in stupid positions and not know where they are.
or you could bump it as its reading/writing and cause the head to hit the platter, power surge could wipe out the pcb that controlls everything. lots of stuff can cause a mechanical hard disk to fail including being to hot or to cold. "i hope i dont start a huge debate about correct opperating temps of a mechanical hard disk now lol. but a good temp is 35c"

with ssd you have a set amount of writes you can do to it, we know that and we factor for it and try to limit it by moving files off the ssd "like page file and temp files" to reduce that. but in reality you can spend a long time writing data to assd trying to kill it and probably find its a lot harder than you think. (and in general use you wouldnt be doing any where near that much writing any way)

other issues that can happen is a bad firmware (that was also true on mechanical drives though)
or simply failure of the drive itself due to some electronic reason i wouldnt understand.
But thats just as likely with mechanical.

When SSD's were new. they coped a bit of a bad reputation. then ocz helped out a lot by having huge failure rates.
and now you see people who are dubious of ssd's as a viable storage media..

The harsh truth is though. they are more dependable. you will probably end up with a hard disk that lasts longer. they are less likley to fail catastrophically. and the only real downside(s) are Cost per GB. and that in some instances where a mechanical hard disk failed you were able to recover the data from it.
mostly you wont be able to recover data from a failed ssd (although in reality if you stop writing to it before its write ammount is used up theres no reason why it couldnt last for decades)

just dont do anything stupid with them buy decent ones. and they will last better than a mechanical drive.
and it dosent matter what hard disks you use. you need to back up any way. any thing can happen.