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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ch...ves,37563.html "It’s been years since I was willing to work on any PC that boots from a mechanical hard drive. Once you get used to the snappy response times and speedier gameload times of an SSD, going back to a hard drive feels like computing through a thick layer of molasses." Lynn |
#2
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again" https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ch...ves,37563.html "It¢s been years since I was willing to work on any PC that boots from a mechanical hard drive. Once you get used to the snappy response times and speedier gameload times of an SSD, going back to a hard drive feels like computing through a thick layer of molasses." Ever look at the cost of a 2TB or 4TB SSD? Ouch!!! Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" 2TB SATA3 SSD $509.77 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...71&ignorebbr=1 Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" 4TB SATA3 SSD $1051.00 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...69&ignorebbr=1 Then go look at HDD prices. WDC Black 2TB SATA3 HDD $119.00 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...24&ignorebbr=1 WDC Black 4TB SATA3 HDD $182.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...W6&ignorebbr=1 SSDs cheap? No phucking way even if you do recreational drugs. I only use SSDs for the OS/app partition - and I know that I am paying a HIGH premium for the faster SSDs. HDDs get used for large storage because SSDs are still way too EXPENSIVE! However, not all users can afford the premium priced SSDs for their OS/app partition's drive. There are hybrid SSHDs (SSD+HDD) that are a lot cheaper than SSD-only drives. I doubt most users would notice the difference in overall performance between an SSD and an SSHD. Remember that the vast majority of users only occasionally encounter burst mode and won't notice a difference when using normal applications. If someone were doing video editing, well, they'd need more than one SSD, anyway, and that puts those boxes out of the price range of the average consumer. https://promotions.newegg.com/Seagat...085/index.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DboEUsOwN28 |
#3
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
VanguardLH wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote: "Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again" https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ch...ves,37563.html "It¢s been years since I was willing to work on any PC that boots from a mechanical hard drive. Once you get used to the snappy response times and speedier gameload times of an SSD, going back to a hard drive feels like computing through a thick layer of molasses." Ever look at the cost of a 2TB or 4TB SSD? Ouch!!! Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" 2TB SATA3 SSD $509.77 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...71&ignorebbr=1 Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" 4TB SATA3 SSD $1051.00 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...69&ignorebbr=1 Then go look at HDD prices. WDC Black 2TB SATA3 HDD $119.00 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...24&ignorebbr=1 WDC Black 4TB SATA3 HDD $182.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...W6&ignorebbr=1 SSDs cheap? No phucking way even if you do recreational drugs. I only use SSDs for the OS/app partition - and I know that I am paying a HIGH premium for the faster SSDs. HDDs get used for large storage because SSDs are still way too EXPENSIVE! However, not all users can afford the premium priced SSDs for their OS/app partition's drive. True, not all users can afford their own computers. But I think those that do have and use them can cannot afford to not get an SSD large enough for the core of their system. A couple of years ago, none of the computers sold by Best Buy came with an SSD, but I strongly suspect that situation is different today. |
#4
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On 8/8/2018 9:03 PM, Bill wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: Lynn McGuire wrote: "Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again" https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ch...ves,37563.html "It¢s been years since I was willing to work on any PC that boots from a mechanical hard drive. Once you get used to the snappy response times and speedier gameload times of an SSD, going back to a hard drive feels like computing through a thick layer of molasses." Ever look at the cost of a 2TB or 4TB SSD? Ouch!!! Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" 2TB SATA3 SSD $509.77 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...71&ignorebbr=1 Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" 4TB SATA3 SSD $1051.00 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...69&ignorebbr=1 Then go look at HDD prices. WDC Black 2TB SATA3 HDD $119.00 (current sale price) https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...24&ignorebbr=1 WDC Black 4TB SATA3 HDD $182.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...W6&ignorebbr=1 SSDs cheap? No phucking way even if you do recreational drugs. I only use SSDs for the OS/app partition - and I know that I am paying a HIGH premium for the faster SSDs. HDDs get used for large storage because SSDs are still way too EXPENSIVE! However, not all users can afford the premium priced SSDs for their OS/app partition's drive. True, not all users can afford their own computers. But I think those that do have and use them can cannot afford to not get an SSD large enough for the core of their system. A couple of years ago, none of the computers sold by Best Buy came with an SSD, but I strongly suspect that situation is different today. How's the reliability? I'm still reading that they fail catastrophically without warning. I can live with a crashed hard drive that still has most of its contents intact. Not sure I like the idea of living on the edge. Yes, I do backups. I picked up a NEW Samsung SSD850 EVO 500GB drive last month at an estate sale for $10. Not had the motivation to put it into anything. Already forgot that I have it. I'd still have to run the spinner for bulk storage. I rarely reboot my system and don't play games. I put a smaller one in a laptop. Boots fast, but otherwise, can't tell that it makes much difference. The internet limits the speed of most of what I want to do. If it ain't broke... |
#5
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
mike wrote:
How's the reliability? I'm still reading that they fail catastrophically without warning. I've heard that the reliability of SSDs far exceeds that of the mechanical hard drives (for, in fact, an obvious reason--no moving parts). The "trim" software for my Intel SSD even provides an indication of the drive's reliability (I'm not sure how well that works). I do regular backups too. |
#6
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On 8/8/2018 9:52 PM, Bill wrote:
mike wrote: How's the reliability? I'm still reading that they fail catastrophically without warning. I've heard that the reliability of SSDs far exceeds that of the mechanical hard drives (for, in fact, an obvious reason--no moving parts). The "trim" software for my Intel SSD even provides an indication of the drive's reliability (I'm not sure how well that works). I do regular backups too. This thread got me all excited and I dug out a SSD. Trying to update it from win10 1511 to 1803. Trying to run setup off the 1803 thumb drive does nothing. Maybe that's too far a spread in versions. It does bring up a SSD question about how full you can load it. It appears that you don't want it too full or it spends too much time erasing blocks. What is not clear is whether it is drive or partition dependent. I like to keep my C: small and put the bulk stuff on D:. I've read that it is ok if the TOTAL amount of data is much smaller than the TOTAL drive. I've also read what appears to conflict with that statement. Stated another way...Is the assignment of hardware blocks fixed at the time the partition is formatted? Can I leave my 60GB C: partition? Or should I make it bigger, less full? |
#7
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On Thu, 9 Aug 2018 00:52:41 -0400, Bill wrote:
I've heard that the reliability of SSDs far exceeds that of the mechanical hard drives (for, in fact, an obvious reason--no moving parts). The "trim" software for my Intel SSD even provides an indication of the drive's reliability (I'm not sure how well that works). I do regular backups too. I get a little confused on these new array memory schemes, the 3D stacking of 2- or 3-bit address advantages. Presumably MLC isn't quite as volatile a restructure of technological accountability -- apart from caching advantages, if and when employed and neither to exclude SLC. Generally and apart upper-end drives reflecting that price premium when exclusively employed. And then there's also the whole controller issue, perhaps more recognizable characteristically, enough so for indications of established baseline performance. Crucial and Samsung would seem most of all dominating, although I must say all my SSDs also are theirs. Leaving the residual of the indicative subject to TLC NAND, which is presently going through marketing loops and spins. There's now a new all-time low hitting, every day, a SSD market for TTC. And they can very aggressive in purporting unique merits of both memory and controller structures, hitherto unavailable from a constraints of technological understanding. As if almost a sideshow to the deluge and onus of any cost-to-performance, obvious from both the warranty intention, synonymous to total terabytes rewritten, a drive hypothetically is projected to withstand. A wide field, as it is now, covering not an inconsiderable amount of means available, once seen from a focal objective where industry is marketing an important distinction of SDDs now, and those SDDs which shortly have preceded them. And for these "everyday" sale TLC items, your nickel indeed will stretch far, squeezed, before the buffalo ultimately squats;- and, as is in keeping the plurality of things, there will be a dearth of realworld reviews, among those scant few, too conspicuous to not include, whom invariably express both displeasure at near or immediate failure, upon assuming receipt of their "everyday" TLC SDD, usually with a side-barb towards a faulty warranty mechanism skewed from industrial clout. With actually for a moment's pause, if hardly given to reassess, that neither Samsung, nor Crucial, would realistically ignore the same TLC 3D NAND technology, from a standpoint of applicable popularly they're favored when stepping out and onto the razor-edge's delineating this technological void. Less a matter of end- than deferring to the gloss-reviews from actual hardware sites, I find, where manufacturers traditionally supply subject merchandise for testing purposes, assessment and publicity. |
#8
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
Bill wrote:
mike wrote: How's the reliability? I'm still reading that they fail catastrophically without warning. I've heard that the reliability of SSDs far exceeds that of the mechanical hard drives (for, in fact, an obvious reason--no moving parts). The "trim" software for my Intel SSD even provides an indication of the drive's reliability (I'm not sure how well that works). I do regular backups too. You're the perfect customer for an SSD. You're mixing up reliability and wear life. Reliability consists of two components. Say a solder joint on the PCB fails. It causes the device to stop delivering the intended function. That's part of the reliability number. Let's pretend for the sake of argument, it's an MTBF of 2 million hours. In some cases, just the tiny power converter inside, making VCore for some chip, might dominate the reliability calc (you can't make a power converter better than about 10 million hours or 100 FITS). OK, well, what rate do bugs show up in the SSD firmware ? We don't know. We do know, that early SSDs "bricked" due to firmware. In some cases, the drive even "bricked" during a firmware update (but of course the owner backed up the data, making the situation not quite the same). In a system at work, our reliability expert (a guy with a PhD in the subject), warned that some large products we were selling, it was quite possible the software was dropping the system reliability by a factor of 10. Now the MTBF is down to 200,000 hours. You will find Seagate and WDC unwilling to factor this in. While our reliability expert argued for this, only field data could indicate how sucky our software was. ******* Wear life is different. Both hard drives and SSDs wear. In the case of the SSD, the mechanism is known and predictable. If you know the temperature when the writes were done, you know the temperature of the media over long-term life, you can make a reasonably accurate prediction of wear. (High temperatures anneal defects, but high temperatures might also shorten retention time.) Hard drives are different. The manufacturer won't admit to wear. The manufacturer won't prepare large quantities of drives, and simulate life conditions, and provide curves related to wear. But, third party studies have noted wear characteristics in the failure population curves. Instead of a traditional bathtub curve, drive failures have another shape in the graph. There are tremendous differences between various model numbers for this (things that might be noted by Newegg reviewers if a model is for sale for long enough). ******* Now, let's summarize: What do you have to know as an SSD owner. 1) Consider the history of the technology. You're doing basically what my PhD guy at work was doing, consulting a "field return data" log and noting brickage, brickage caused by bad firmware. For early SSD drives, you wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. Especially the ones with "predictable brickage", where the device fails after being powered for exactly 30 days. Owners who didn't hear about the 30 day brickage, might not have known (in time) that there was a firmware update for it, to be applied in advance. If it bricked and you had no backup (because it was "reliable"), well, "fool you once". Now you're learning. 2) Consider the wear life. The drives are taking fewer and fewer write cycles per flash location, as the technology "advances". The storage cells are getting "mushy". SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC. SLC is great stuff. Maybe 100,000 write cycles and 10 year retention. QLC might be 1,000 write cycles and ?? year retention. A Samsung TLC was showing signs of being "mushy", by requiring significant error correction inside (to the point it was slowing the read rate). Roughly 10% of the storage capacity on the drive, is reserved for ECC code storage, protecting the data from errors. That is a very high ratio, much highe than hard drives in the past. It's quite possible every sector has at least one error in it, corrected by the CPU inside before you get it. And now, they're just starting to ship QLC. 3) Consider the end of life policy. Not all the drive brands have the same policy. Some return an error on each write at end of life (as a cheap way of warning you), causing the SSD to enter "read-only state". That is a reasonable policy, helping to warn and cover people who refuse to make backups. Windows won't run on a read only device, so you'll be smothered in error dialogs. That will get your attention, and make you back up the drive. But Intel just "bricks" the drive, when the *computed* wear value is exceeded. With an Intel brand SSD, you had better be monitoring the "life remaining percentage" *very very carefully* . That's why the promotion in that Toms article above is particularly egregious. The dude is promoting an Intel QLC SSD (yuck!) which has a total-brickage end-of-life policy (double yuck!). What could go wrong ? If you're not paying attention, Beuler, you suddenly lose access to your data. Did you have backups ? No ? "Fool you twice". So, yeah, SSDs have no moving parts, and hay, they're "reliable". A stupid MIL spec calc prepared by the marketing department (not by engineers), says so. The firmware could have bugs. Not quantified in a MIL spec calc. They could have include field data in the MIL spec calc, but they'd be nuts to do so. No one is there to slap their fingers for failing to do this. The history of SSDs would mean dropping the MIL spec calc by a factor of ten. No marketing guy is going to allow that. But if your Sherman Tank is booted off an SSD, you can be damn sure two PhDs got into a spat about what the real reliability is. Between big companies doing business, the MTBF is "negotiated". The customer would say "hay, idiot, include firmware reliability in your calc". The wear life is tangible. There's an indicator in SMART. What is the brickage policy of your brand ? Pay attention! Is an SSD the same as a hard drive ? No, it is not. HTH, Paul |
#9
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
On Thu, 9 Aug 2018, Bill wrote:
mike wrote: How's the reliability? I'm still reading that they fail catastrophically without warning. I've heard that the reliability of SSDs far exceeds that of the mechanical hard drives (for, in fact, an obvious reason--no moving parts). The "trim" software for my Intel SSD even provides an indication of the drive's reliability (I'm not sure how well that works). I do regular backups too. But I've never had a hard drive problem. That goes back to 1993, when I go tmy first hard drive. I've moved on to different hard drives, but that's because of a different computer or wanting more space. But none have failed, not even the ones that had been used when I got them. I'm sure that when I get around to turning on that computer from 2003, which was used at the time, the hard drive will be fine. Though I splurged on a new hard drive, a 160g, about 2006. But it stayed on most of the time till I moved to a different computer in 2012. Hard drives became reliable at some point, and so cheap. And I'm yet to be convinced that an SSD is appreciably faster than a mechanical hard drive. Though it helps that I leave the computer on, so any "slowness" of booting is an iregular thing. Michael |
#10
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"Why I Will Never Buy a Hard Drive Again"
mike wrote:
How's the reliability [of SSDs]? I'm still reading that they fail catastrophically without warning. Most have an estimated lifespan of 10 years, maybe more. For some users, that's a lot longer then they plan on ever owning a particular computer. When I build mine, I plan on a 6-year lifespan. My last build was from a salvaged PC built in 2009 but I replaced a lot of components (to repair the PC and to upgrade it) back in 2013. So it's getting close to my 6-year expected lifespan; however, I'm disappointed with the lack of progress in CPU, the Spectre problems, and will wait another couple years before planning a new build. I added the SSD in 2016, so I should have several more years left before it gots kaboom. Electronics seem to fail quick (in a month) or at about their pregnancy period (9 months). Then they typically last until one month after the warranty expires or, if you're lucky, until the device's MTBF. That applies to HDDs or SSDs. Yes, they do fail catastrophically. They suffer oxide stress at their junctions during writes. All SSDs have a rated maximum number of writes (but getting that info from the manufacturer is very difficult). I can buy HDDs and SSDs with 5-year warranties. Don't plan on either of those lasting much longer than the warranty. Anything longer is gravy. They use wear leveling to increase their lifespan. They have to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling To compensate for when memory blocks go bad (and they will), there are reserve blocks. Iffy blocks get their data moved (mapped) to a reserve block and the iffy block gets marked as bad (so it never gets reused) and any access to it get redirected to the reserve block. As mapping increases, the drive slows down due to all the redirections. The reserve space is limited. Once it is all consumed, the SSD drive catastrophically fails. SSDs will get increasingly slower if the same memory block gets reused. It must be erased (written) before it can be written with data. To overcome this speed crippling, TRIM is used to perform optimization in the background (when the PC is idle). Although the OS usually issues the TRIM command, most SSDs nowadays have their own firmware do the garbage collection during idle periods. An HDD could die tomorrow and the SSD lasts for 10 years. An SSD could die in the new few minutes while an HDD runs for 20 years. Depends on how you use it, how it gets abused (by you, by surges, outages, temp changes, etc), and the quality of the build. Faster with non-moving parts does not guarantee greater longevity. Having non-moving parts only imparts some probability of greater longevity; however, SSDs are self-destructive, so they WILL DIE. Do *not* use SSDs for backups or long-term archival storage unless the device is only used when saving the data and not used to access it (except for restoration). HDDs will fail, too. However, often they indicate pending problems via S.M.A.R.T. data although that is not a guarantee. A drive whose SMART says it is healthy could suddenly die, or get so flaky that they become unreliable. One of the SMART attributes is a pending reallocation count. HDDs also have reserve space to which bad sectors get remapped. When a sector is flagged, the pending count goes up. When it eventually gets remapped, the count goes down. The count should be zero. If the count is not zero and doesn't eventually decrement to zero (i.e., the flagged sector is not getting remapped) then the reserve space has been consumed. The drive does not stopped functioning. There is no catastrophic failure due to lack of reserve space. The pending count keeps going up and the sectors become unreliable that cannot get remapped. There are tools to watch the pending count (SMART monitors) to warn you when this is starting, so you get time to recover or backup as much as possible. When the SSD catastrophically fails, you'll have to rely on your last backup whenever that was (and why backups should be scheduled because humans make unreliable schedulers). A lot of folks think that no moving parts mandates the SSDs will last longer than HDDs. Wrong. An SSD that experiences lots of writes will die sooner which could be much shorter than for an HDD with its moving parts. HDDs will experience gyroscopic effects, have a maximum G force they can withstand, and have a smaller operating temperature range. HDDs are also not sealed, so they are affected by high humidity (water molecules are smaller than the sinter filter in the body of the HDD). SSDs can operate in harsher environments. SSDs do wear out. SSD reliability in the real world: Google's experience https://www.zdnet.com/article/ssd-re...es-experience/ I picked up a NEW Samsung SSD850 EVO 500GB drive last month at an estate sale for $10. Not had the motivation to put it into anything. Already forgot that I have it. I'd still have to run the spinner for bulk storage. I rarely reboot my system and don't play games. I leave mine on 24x7 because I use my home PC at varying times: day, night, early morning, any time. Plus I schedule jobs to run during the early morn, so the computer must be ready (and putting it into Sleep or Hibernate will only last about an hour before a scheduled task wakes up the PC). One of the reasons to use a computer is to have it do the work. I do have power options configured to spin down the HDDs (obviously doesn't apply to the SSD). The monitor also powers down but the CPU and rest of the computer is full on, so it is immediately available for whenever I choose to use it. Users just don't understand about surge current on start or thermal wear from heating and cooling repeatedly. For example, ever hear someone recommend to reseat the cables, memory, or some other component? They only "walk out" of their connections due to thermal expansion and contraction. |
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