# SSD vs HDD Failure



## Recon-UK (Aug 3, 2016)

To this day an SSD is faster yes, but definitely not really less likely to fail, well AFAIK?
They have a limit on how many times you can write data to them and they have not advanced enough to deliver storage options (1TB) at a low cost, not saying our deals are bad though, SSD's have dropped significantly in cost.

HDD's and SSD's are not really better than each other in any way. Your thoughts?


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## Deeveo (Aug 3, 2016)

SSDs are a lot better as boot drives, for which you can easily make due with a decent 250gb drive. This is especially true for laptops which generally have slower speed hdds, even older laptops can feel almost like new after switching to a ssd. I wouldn't even consider not having a ssd as a boot drive. For data storage though ssds are still too expensive for regular users atleast.


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## Silas Woodruff (Aug 3, 2016)

I don't know about you, but I don't fear my ssd dying anytime soon http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead


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## verycharbroiled (Aug 3, 2016)

to me ssds are more reliable in that temperatures and shocks effect them less when operating.

for unpowered long term storage of large amounts of data spinners still work better but for OS drives and notebooks ssds rule. 6 or 7 rigs here all with ssds for boot/os. even temporary and mining builds using *nix and such go on ssds just to save me the time.

everything should be backed up anyway so reliability takes second place to speed and durability in my builds


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## Deleted member 110753 (Aug 3, 2016)

Today, the best is the couple "SSD + HDD", I mean SSD for OS and apps and HDD for data and temp files.

In this case, you don't need to buy an expensive SSD and you get the advantages of both...

Even on my laptop, I replaced the HDD by a SSD, and put the old HDD into a caddy (instead of the CD-ROM drive)...


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## EarthDog (Aug 3, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> To this day an SSD is faster yes, but definitely not really less likely to fail, well AFAIK?
> They have a limit on how many times you can write data to them and they have not advanced enough to deliver storage options (1TB) at a low cost, not saying our deals are bad though, SSD's have dropped significantly in cost.
> 
> HDD's and SSD's are not really better than each other in any way. Your thoughts?


Take a look around the web. This has been covered ad nauseum.


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## little cat (Aug 3, 2016)

Just grab one with a good reputation and enjoy it !
Samsung EVO 850  250+GB
Crucial MX100 256+GB ,BX100 250+GB


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## peche (Aug 3, 2016)

in my humble opinion, 
SSD are for booting OS, no more than that...
HDD are for storage, also installing games and sh*t.... i dont even game on SSD.... 

also, im using now days a ^)GB Kingston SSDNow V300 as portable drive on a kingston enclosure... pretty interesting, since that kit its pretty cheap, also pretty much faster compared to a standard usb portable drive..

Regards,


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## dont whant to set it"' (Aug 3, 2016)

@vercharbroiled, funny as you mention ssds and shock,the phisicalone I presume ,in the same sentence;hope attached picture uploaded sucsesfuly as that ssd might dissagrea if it could.


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## Tomgang (Aug 3, 2016)

SSD are much more reliable today than years back. I have an old Crucial M4 64 GB with over 8600 hours of run time and a Samsung Evo 250 GB but that drive is only 2 years old where the crucial is from 2011-2012 and still going strong.

SSD is for when speed counts: OS, games, video converting and other heavy working stuff
HDD are much slower than SSD but offers much more space for the same money som they are good for backup, large files and other things like that.

I will say since SSD are getting better and have no moving part. SSD have less reasons to fail before time than a HDD, but there are off cause a few SSD that fails and remember SSD are still a new invention compared to a harddrive and have years to come for fine tunning them

My self i cant wait for that time then i can replace all HDD with SSD and no longer are forced to use slow hardrives for file store cause they are so slow then you are used to SSD speed.


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## peche (Aug 3, 2016)

Tomgang said:


> I have an old Crucial M4 64 GB with over 8600 hours of run time and a Samsung Evo 250 GB but that drive is only 2 years old where the crucial is from 2011-2012 and still going strong.


i do own an 64GB m4 too... mine says it has 99% of life remaining ... got it 2 weeks after they launched at market...


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## Tomgang (Aug 3, 2016)

peche said:


> i do own an 64GB m4 too... mine says it has 99% of life remaining ... got it 2 weeks after they launched at market...



Mine is down to 88 % of life remaining.


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## peche (Aug 3, 2016)

Tomgang said:


> Mine is down to 88 % of life remaining.


so 10 years more at least!


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## Tomgang (Aug 3, 2016)

peche said:


> so 10 years more at least!



If it holds up for the exspected life time yes and long before that it will have been replaced since i soner or later will need a complete new pc long before the 10 year pass.


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## Ikaruga (Aug 3, 2016)

I avoid HDDs in all the systems I build. If more storage is needed, then NAS.


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## AlienIsGOD (Aug 3, 2016)

little cat said:


> Just grab one with a good reputation and enjoy it !
> Samsung EVO 850  250+GB
> Crucial MX100 256+GB ,BX100 250+GB


he wasn't even asking to about purchasing......


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## RejZoR (Aug 3, 2016)

SSD's have this nasty habit of just dying out of the blue. Where HDD's very rarely do that. They usually start behaving funny. SSD's can too, but they usually go from alive to dead a lot faster.


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## Jetster (Aug 3, 2016)

Even though SSDs can have catastrophic failures rather than slow death. The failure rate of an SSD is far below any HDD. Most SSD falure rates are below .50% were HDD are 2 to5 % some as high as 12%

I use an SSD for Boot and games, another for a temp drive for video editing. Then a HDD for storing data



Ikaruga said:


> I avoid HDDs in all the systems I build. If more storage is needed, then NAS.



I take it your NAS has platter drives?


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## verycharbroiled (Aug 4, 2016)

dont whant to set it"' said:


> @vercharbroiled, funny as you mention ssds and shock,the phisicalone I presume ,in the same sentence;hope attached picture uploaded sucsesfuly as that ssd might dissagrea if it could.



heh. knocked it off a preheater or bumped it while working on it with a hot air rework station?


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## Ikaruga (Aug 4, 2016)

Jetster said:


> I take it your NAS has platter drives?



Yes but those are usually have some kind of raid setup for redundancy, and since the hard drives are not in the PC, you also move away a big chunk of space/noise from the desktop.


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## RejZoR (Aug 4, 2016)

Jetster said:


> Even though SSDs can have catastrophic failures rather than slow death. The failure rate of an SSD is far below any HDD. Most SSD falure rates are below .50% were HDD are 2 to5 % some as high as 12%
> 
> I use an SSD for Boot and games, another for a temp drive for video editing. Then a HDD for storing data
> 
> ...



Sure, but I'd almost rather have 5% failure rate with slow obvious death approaching than 0.5% with instantaneous death. Some SSD's go down slowly, but most I've heard were "working now, next moment totally non functional".


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## Jetster (Aug 4, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Sure, but I'd almost rather have 5% failure rate with slow obvious death approaching than 0.5% with instantaneous death. Some SSD's go down slowly, but most I've heard were "working now, next moment totally non functional".


I can understand that. I actually have never had a SSD fail on me so maybe I trust them a little much



Ikaruga said:


> Yes but those are usually have some kind of raid setup for redundancy, and since the hard drives are not in the PC, you also move away a big chunk of space/noise from the desktop.



I wish I had a NAS I have an HTPC with 10Tb in it. Its a little packed with drives and get a little warm.  Good NAS is expensive


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## RejZoR (Aug 4, 2016)

Neither have I, then again I always had quality stuff. Intel M25-X, Crucial M4 and Samsung 850 Pro. All 3 historically and statistically one of most reliable SSD drives ever made.


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## Beastie (Aug 4, 2016)

Depends on usage.

For day to day use SSD (such as OS disc) is apparently more reliable. I've only ever had (my current) one and it still seems to be working perfectly after 3 or 4 yrs mostly 24/7 usage.

However I'm quite happy using HDDs for file storage. I have one 4TB drive in my system and another exact copy offboard 4TB that I back up occasionally via USB. I personally prefer this set up rather than RAID, but RAID can give you the same redundancy without having to manually back up..
2x4TB HDDs is a lot cheaper than 4TB of SSDs.

Any ways, if you don't back up your important data then you can expect to lose it all eventually , sods law will catch us out.


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## P4-630 (Aug 4, 2016)

I bought a 512GB Samsung 850 Pro for my desktop because of it's 10 year warranty.
1 100GB partition for OS and the rest for games.
With that I have a 2.5" Hitachi 750GB 7200rpm HDD for storage.


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## peche (Aug 4, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Neither have I, then again I always had quality stuff. Intel M25-X, Crucial M4 and Samsung 850 Pro. All 3 historically and statistically one of most reliable SSD drives ever made.


some still expensive.....



RejZoR said:


> Sure, but I'd almost rather have 5% failure rate with slow obvious death approaching than 0.5% with instantaneous death. Some SSD's go down slowly, but most I've heard were "working now, next moment totally non functional".


one on my Office just died, he torned slower the first day... mostly at boot, then i decided to back up all the data, i was about to format de computer since it was a pretty old installation, formated and the system stood slow... 2 days later the SSD died... never boooted again ...[old intel cheap SSD]

'

Regards,


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## eidairaman1 (Aug 4, 2016)

SSDs are os drives, hdds are storage, look at my specs.


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## alucasa (Aug 4, 2016)

So far, personally I've had only one HDD failure for past 15 years.
SSD, I've started to use them when 64gb one became affordable. I think I've been using them for around 7 years.
So far, I've had one SSD failure (Kingston cheapo SSD which I purchased 4 at that time.)

So, it's 1 : 1 for me.

Now, machines I built for others, I've had plenty of failures, most HDD because clients didn't want to pay more for SSD.


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## pigulici (Aug 4, 2016)

From what I see around me, hdd have higher failure rate, but also the ssd are not so common like hdd, I try to use only quality hardware, now I have 2TB 850 Pro, for all, games, work, so on, but I have a backup of data(internal and external)...


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## Schmuckley (Aug 4, 2016)

Recon-UK said:


> To this day an SSD is faster yes, but definitely not really less likely to fail, well AFAIK?
> They have a limit on how many times you can write data to them and they have not advanced enough to deliver storage options (1TB) at a low cost, not saying our deals are bad though, SSD's have dropped significantly in cost.
> 
> HDD's and SSD's are not really better than each other in any way. Your thoughts?


I agree.Use an ssd for OS and non-critical things.
For things one doesn't want to lose an HDD is better.
I felt the sting of a 512-gb SSD dying with no warning.


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## EarthDog (Aug 5, 2016)

"For those that doesn't want to lose" taking BACKUPS are better. Perhaps it wouldn't sting as much had you properly protected yourself from ANY failure. Like G.I Joe said, "knowing is half the battle".


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## INSTG8R (Aug 5, 2016)

I have 2 Evo 500GB in RAID 0 blindingly fast but yeah I wonder about how it will effect their life span.


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## EarthDog (Aug 5, 2016)

Why would it effect their life span?


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## INSTG8R (Aug 5, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Why would it effect their life span?


I dunno I figure RAID 0 gives them a pretty good thrashing. But that said I have 2TB RAID 0 array with WD Blacks that have been going for years. I guess I'm just being paranoid...


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## newtekie1 (Aug 5, 2016)

RejZoR said:


> Sure, but I'd almost rather have 5% failure rate with slow obvious death approaching than 0.5% with instantaneous death. Some SSD's go down slowly, but most I've heard were "working now, next moment totally non functional".



I've had plenty of HDDs that were working now and non-functional the next moment.


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## EarthDog (Aug 5, 2016)

INSTG8R said:


> I dunno I figure RAID 0 gives them a pretty good thrashing. But that said I have 2TB RAID 0 array with WD Blacks that have been going for years. I guess I'm just being paranoid...


Its really no more thrashing than a single drive.


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## INSTG8R (Aug 5, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Its really no more thrashing than a single drive.


 Good to know. Actually @EarthDog I have  question you would probably know the answer to. I was led to believe defragging an Array was a bad thng? I I you're not supposed to defrag SSDs but my other array of spinnies?


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## EarthDog (Aug 5, 2016)

I don't see why you wouldn't defrag a RAID array on a HDD...


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## INSTG8R (Aug 5, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> I don't see why you wouldn't defrag a RAID array on a HDD...


That was my thoughts too thanks for confirmation. In my mind RAID 0 is already "fragged" in that the drives are "splitting the data"?between them so putting it "in order " would be "worse" No?


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## Jetster (Aug 5, 2016)

My guess would be that Windows only sees the logical drive. Not the stripped array. So it shouldn't hurt anything


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## EarthDog (Aug 5, 2016)

It puts the blocks in order. Its not like it will write it all to one drive. It will do unto the other in defrag as it is doing in normal operations.


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## Frick (Aug 5, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> "For those that doesn't want to lose" taking BACKUPS are better. Perhaps it wouldn't sting as much had you properly protected yourself from ANY failure. Like G.I Joe said, "knowing is half the battle".



So much this. I honestly don't even understand the question, and there's no such thing as a single drive good for critical storage.


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## Hockster (Aug 7, 2016)

I just pulled these out of my server, they're still purring along just fine, I just needed larger drives in it.




 

When Hitachi bought the HDD business from IBM, they had some of the fastest and most reliable drives going.


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## EarthDog (Aug 7, 2016)

I recall a saying... Hitachi Deathstars.


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## Hockster (Aug 7, 2016)

That was when IBM still owned the division, they're last batch completely turned the corner though. Probably knew they were being sold off lol.

But ya, the 75GXP was nominated as one of the worst products ever, and deservedly so.

Edit: I had a couple of these running for almost 12 years on an Asus A7V 133. It ran Windows 2000 Server for over a decade.
http://www.cnet.com/products/ibm-deskstar-20gxp-hard-drive-20-5-gb-ata-66/


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## sno.lcn (Aug 7, 2016)

I use SSDs for everything, even in production machines at work: VM servers, SQL servers, all of it.  RAID 10 gives me all the performance I can handle, and peace of mind, and everything is backed up to spinning storage.  Not having to wait on large database queries make the cost justifiable.  I've had one SSD die ever, and that was six years ago, and turned out to be a firmware problem.


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## D007 (Aug 7, 2016)

peche said:


> in my humble opinion,
> SSD are for booting OS, no more than that...
> HDD are for storage, also installing games and sh*t.... i dont even game on SSD....
> 
> ...



I couldn't see it differently..lol.. To me an SSD is for programs you need to respond fast..
OS, Games, programs like Autocad or video editing software.. Store end data to HDD's.. Programs to the SSD.
In games it makes a world of difference on load times. Seen that first hand.

As for reliability.. I've seen some HD's that fail faster than some SSD's.. I'm not worried about it at all. They are much more resilient than they are given credit for..


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## Jetster (Aug 7, 2016)

I think one way to look at it is if they were the same price per Gb would you run only SSDs? Why yes I would


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## nexus_a (Aug 7, 2016)

Silas Woodruff said:


> I don't know about you, but I don't fear my ssd dying anytime soon http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead


http://www.zdnet.com/article/ssd-reliability-in-the-real-world-googles-experience/

The most important conclusion from this article: SSD *age*, not usage, affects reliability. 
30-80 percent of SSDs develop at least one bad block and 2-7 percent develop at least one bad chip in the first four years of deployment.

Also UBER Rate (number of data errors/number of bits read) on SSD is higher than HDD. So BACKUP!


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## Ubersonic (Aug 26, 2016)

Having used IBM/PC compatibles since 1988 I have had... three HDD failures that I recall, all of which were drives used in my main workstation which is on 24/7.  I have also had three SSDs brick on me (two Crucial one Corsair).

Considering I have been working with HDDs almost triple the amount of time I have been working with SSDs and I use HDDs more those figures do worry me slightly but it is a tiny sample, and regardless I don't keep anything worth losing on any un-raided drive, backups FTW.


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## slozomby (Aug 27, 2016)

It drive failure rates or High IO apps are truly a concern then the solution is simple.

get a decent raid controller. most newer ones will use the ssd as a cached storage device,  caching the most frequently accessed bits from your spinning raid array. so you get the quick boots/app loads from the ssd and a huge data set with the "safety" of a r5 stripe behind it. if the ssd bricks you just lose the caching portion and your machine is still running.


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## EarthDog (Aug 27, 2016)

How can you raid drives and use an ssd as cache?


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## slozomby (Aug 28, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> How can you raid drives and use an ssd as cache?



I'm doing it with a dell perc h710p ( dell server controller). which is a rebranded LSI 9266-8i. with the current LSI firmware it gives the option to use the SSD as a cache bank for the raid set. LSI is now owned by avago.  the option is called cachecade if you wanna do some more reading.

so a request to the hd hits the 1g ram cache on raid controller then the ssd to see if it has the bits then the disks if the other 2 don't have the data.

this requires a proper raid controller. not the onboard sata raid that most Motherboards have. its not the cheapest option. but its damn fast for high iop applications.

I picked the dell 710p used off ebay, because there are a ton of them floating around due to servers being decommissioned, and it supports sas/sata 6gb, and it was $200 instead of $500 new. ( mine showed up with a dead battery so I had to spend $10 replacing that). you'll need a pcie - 4x slot available and 1 or 2 sff8087 to sata cables ( 4 sata per cable) ($10 per cable or so).

the biggest drawback of the setup (outside of the extra cost) is reboots take an extra 15 sec while the controller makes sure the raid set is intact.


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## EarthDog (Aug 28, 2016)

Sounds convoluted and a waste of an SSD. Id rather not have the complexity and additional failure points of RAID card and additional drives.. that money can be put towards another SSD and put it in R0 for speed or whatever... 

To each their own.


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## slozomby (Aug 28, 2016)

EarthDog said:


> Sounds convoluted and a waste of an SSD. Id rather not have the complexity and additional failure points of RAID card and additional drives.. that money can be put towards another SSD and put it in R0 for speed or whatever...
> 
> To each their own.



yup. most folks wont need the added complexity. but if data integrity or having a huge high iop space is necessary then the extra complexity isn't an issue (read as sql server or avid or multiple virtual machines).   as for raid card failures. I'm sure they happen, I just haven't ever ran across one.

as for the cost portion. to do 12tb with ssd would cost $3,600 . to do it with ssd cached spinning disks costs ~$800. sure the whole portion of the 12tb isn't ssd speed. but the parts I access all the time are which is what I care about.


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## EarthDog (Aug 28, 2016)

Yes, depends on size.. most people aren't doing what you are doing with such capacity. 

 So while it's sound advice, it's a little off base for 99% of users here.


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