SSD's do great benchmarks ... but they don't erase the number 1 bottleneck .. the user. There are to variables here:
a) Is the user capable of noticing ?
b) Will they notice ?
We put a SSD and SSHD in every build .... haven't bought a HD in 8 years. Over that time have had 3 SSD failures (all 5+ years ago) and 0 SSHD failures.
Now certainly, if you run a benchmark, you can notice and time it, you can discern a difference.
a) You can run synthetic benchmaks ... but the relative question is, over the next 3 or 4 years, how often in the course of a year does this occur under your normal activity. Its like having a watch that will still run fine at 200 meters of water depth. That's kinda cool but since I will be dead, i don't really need to concern myself with it.
b) Windows Startup is a reasonable test ... or is it ? Do you hit the start button and stare at the screen while booting ? Or do you multi-tak ... check phone messages, grab cawfee, straighten your desk, put on your headphones. We measured difference in start up times between SSD and SSHD at 0.9 seconds ... can you measure it ? YES ... will anyone's productivity be improved by it ? NO
c) Software Installation ... Ok I start installing Libre office ... It takes 2 minutes on SSD and 3 minutes on a HD ... can you notice ? yes if you stare at the screen.... will you notice ? Not me, Im waiting a youtube video or reading the college football scores.
d) Demanding applications ... here is one place where the SSD can have a real advantage ... working with large files and doing significant editing will result in observable productivity increases on the scratch drive. However, once done and saving that file to archival storage ?... who cares, Im doing something else.
e) Game Level Loading - Usually that's the 1st thing folks do ... stare at the screen and yell in triumph they level loaded 5 seconds faster. Can ya notice ? Sure ... will ya notice ... Not me, I'm old... I had my legs crossed the last 20 minutes waiting for the next level ... I need to gooooo. My kids ... its time to do get a snack, text their friend, take a bio or go out to the garage and do "whatever they do out there"
But what it comes down to is .... again, we put a SSD and SSHD in every build. SSD might get OS... OS and Programs ... or a 2nd SSD just for games. The SSD gets a partition which is a mirror of the SSD ... the 2nd partition is everything else. When we, unbeknownst to the user disable the SSD ... have gone 6 weeks w/ no one to the wiser.
That being said ... we still put at least 1 SSD and 1 SSHD .... are we affected in any positive way by the additional expense ? I doubt it, it's speed advantage is lost cause I either can't keep up or Im multiasking doing something else. I just like knowing it's there, I guess. If I was doing production rendering, animation or video editing , I'd be all in.
As for reliability... quoting backblaze data doesn't say it all ... it says here's a bunch of irrelevant data showing this is what happens when when a low budget operation installs storage devices in direct conflict with manufacturers recommendations. There was a lawsuit when this data was 1st published.
a) Server drives are intended to be used in data canters with strict storage requirements ... including climate control and stable structurally sound racks on solid concrete foundations. Server drives are designed for that environment and are optimized for that usage. Backblaze was found to be storing the drives in cases, on tables and literally holding them in place with rubberbands. Rather than purchase storage drives for server usage, Backblaze was purchasing consumer drives in large quantities as it was cheaper to keep replacing them after the died prematurely in their rickety storage scenario.
b) Consumer drives are designed for a different environent. They have to be able to handle when the guy delivering the office xerox paper bumps into your desk with his hand truck ... they have to be designed so that when ya dog that was sleeping under your desk hears the door bell ring jumps up and bumps ya desk, the HD arm doesn't crash the platter. So consumer drives are designed with a feature called head parking whereby the arm is "docked" when not reading or writing. Server drives have no need for this feature ... unless of course it's rubberband type server farm.
c) Now consumer drives are not a very intense usage so they are not designed for excessive "parking cycles" and are typically raged fro 250 - 500k cycles. With the extreme I / O associated with server usage they can see 90k cycles in a month. It's the very feature that makes consumer drives suitable for consumer usage that makes them unsuitable for server operation. What backblaze does is akin to putting snow toires on a vehgicle used in Florida where it never snows and then complaining about poor gas mileage.
In short ... if ya want data on consumer drives in a consumer environment, look at a data set that includes that:
Overall failure rates for two consecutive month periods:
- Seagate 0,72% (0,69%)
- Toshiba 0,80% (1,15%)
- Western 1,04% (1,03%)
- HGST 1,13% (0,60%)
Specific Model Failure rates (Data not shown when sales were inadequate to provide reliable sample size)
2 TB :
- 2,39% Toshiba DT01ACA200
- 1,25% WD Red Pro WD2001FFSX
- 1,10% WD Blue WD20EZRZ
- 0,82% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14
- 0,81% WD Red WD20EFRX
- 0,77% Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD ST2000VN0001
- 0,74% WD Purple WD20PURX
- 0,72% WD Green WD20EZRX
- 0,56% Seagate NAS HDD ST2000VN000
- 0,45% WD Black WD2003FZEX
- 0,43% Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001
- 0,41% Seagate SpinPoint M9T ST2000LM003
- 0,36% WD Re WD2000FYYZ
- 0,00% Seagate Surveillance HDD ST2000VX000
- 0,00% WD SE WD2000F9YZ
- 0,00% Seagate Enterprise Capacity ST2000NM0033
- 0,00% Toshiba E300
- 0,00% Toshiba P300
3 TB :
- 3,04% WD Black WD3003FZEX
- 2,89% Toshiba DT01ACA300
- 2,29% Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD ST3000VN0001
- 2,23% WD Red Pro WD3001FFSX
- 2,18% WD Green WD30EZRX
- 1,52% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001
- 1,41% Seagate NAS HDD ST3000VN000
- 0,96% Western Red WD30EFRX
- 0,75% Seagate Surveillance HDD ST3000VX000
4 TB :
- 2,37% WD Purple WD40PURX
- 2,02% WD Red WD40EFRX
- 1,89% Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001
- 1,53% Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000
- 1,04% Seagate NAS HDD ST4000VN000
- 1,02% WD Blue WD40EZRZ
- 0,95% WD Green WD40EZRX
- 0,90% WD RE WD4000FYYZ
- 0,56% Toshiba MD04ACA40
- 0,40% Seagate Constellation ES ST4000NM0033
- 0,39% Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000
- 0,37% Toshiba X300
- 0,21% Hitachi Deskstar NAS
- 0,00% WD Black WD4003FZEX
5 / 6 TB :
- 3,42% Toshiba Toshiba X300 5 To
- 3,37% WD Red WD60EFRX
- 2,67% WD Green WD60EZRX
- 1,43% WD Red WD50EFRX
- 0,87% Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD ST6000VN0001
- 0,74% Seagate Desktop HDD ST6000DM001
- 0,00% Seagate NAS HDD ST6000VN0021