Best Large capacity SSD for Long Term storage

While I enjoy my 2 & 3TB external Western Digital hard drives that I've had for about 2 years now, I'm looking at getting one or more large SSD's to backup the more important data.

I'm curious as to what is everyone's personal experience with the larger capacity (360GB and higher) SSD's.

I'm tempted to stick with Corsair since, save for the Sandforce debacle, they've been great. But, since the largest drive I've bought weighs in at only 120GB, I'm a bit unsure if they're the right choice once one gets into the larger sizes.

Any input would be appreciated.

Pure reliability, I don't think anything beats Intel drives, but they're pricey.

I would also be interested to hearing what everyone thinks.I've been thinking of a 256g SSD.

Why use an ssd for backup?

The cost per gig is expensive, and the price for data recovery of a broken nand is more expensive than a mechanical drive. And if it is being used for backup the main features of an ssd go unused (faster speeds and access times). Better off using the money to create a RAID5 with some 2-3tb drives

Janus67 said:

Why use an ssd for backup?

The cost per gig is expensive, and the price for data recovery of a broken nand is more expensive than a mechanical drive. And if it is being used for backup the main features of an ssd go unused (faster speeds and access times). Better off using the money to create a RAID5 with some 2-3tb drives

Click to expand...

Perhaps I should clarify. When I say backup, I mean data that I access on a regular basis (such as music, Truecrypt volumes, ROMs, etc). I guess you could call it "Active backup" or something. Therefore, the SSD's advantages are not completely unused.

I have my 3TB and 2TB externals containing most of the same data, with the 3TB hosting some data that I have backed up on DVD/Blu-Ray.

I decided not to buy anymore mechanical storage drives after I bought my 2TB drive.

To me, creating a RAID5 with several mechanical hard drives is just asking for trouble.

I haven't heard of anyone having an SSD fail on them. I've lost count of the amount of mechanical hard drives I've had die on me over the course of the last decade+.

I understand where you are coming from, but it's SSD only for me from now on.

I've seen countless ssd fail stories actually...

I think what you want is a big all purpose fast drive, so an ssd should be up to the task.
I've seen some good 256gb ones for dirt cheap lately. Agility 4's, Crucial m4's...
Keep an eye open and check buy.com, newegg and tigerdirect on a daily basis.

Recently picked up a mushkin chronos 240gb that has been rock solid. It was cheap too.

I don't think ssd's have been around long enough/affordable enough for most people to determine their reliability in the long run. Certainly though one would think without any moving parts it would last longer.

The reason some fail though is because electrical issues damaging the drive. Assuming you don't have an electrical failure though ssd does sort of have a set life expectancy. It is determined by how much u write to the drive and how large the drive is. so theoretically a 240gb drive should last twice as long as a 120gb drive, assuming you are writing/rewriting the same amount of information to it, instead of just storing it for reading it back later.

The drives are composed of many cells which are written on. But each cell can only be written on so many times before it gets worn out and dies. The cells get evenly worn by writing on each individual cell once before starting over from the beginning, looking for empty cells that you deleted information from. Eventually when cells start to die the amount of space the drive has will decrease. You will notice this slowly over time. I consider it more of the drive being worn rather than a failure.

Not sure you were looking for that information but I thought I would share what little I have read on the subject. And since my knowledge is limited please correct me im wrong. That being said I am all for ssd. I own a 240gb corsair force gt for a OS drive/some games. It takes all of 20 seconds from completely off to browsing the web or opening a game. I think their reliability is very promising. If only they were more affordable in comparison to hdd (about 10x more per gb). That's why their mainly used for an OS drive and not mass storage. It's just not financially practical for them to be used that way yet. But if you have the money then by all means go for it.

I was aware of the tech behind SSD's before, but it never hurts to mention it.

I have a good UPS (APC 1500) that I've been using for years. In fact, I have a separate UPS for my cable modem, router, ethernet hub. The storms in Montana can be quite powerful and it isn't unusual to lose power at least once or twice during the wintertime.

The heart of my question, revolves around brands that are most reliable when one starts to go into the larger storage sizes.

I'm probably just going to wait until the holidays so the prices will be lower. Under $1/GB is encouraging though.

For reliability I understand it is pretty much Intel>Samsung>Everyone Else

Janus67 said:

For reliability I understand it is pretty much Intel>Samsung>Everyone Else

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I would expand that to Intel>Samsung>Crucial>Everyone Else.

oops yeah, forgot about crucial.

Yeah got a load of laptops in my company running Cruical's and as far as I know non have had issues unless its a 512GB drive, then again don't think anyone has been too great with 512GB SSD's yet... always seems to be some issue.

I'd vote for Crucial's or Intel's myself as I've have/had both of them and they are both great drives IMO.

i think the best way for you to back up is to install a secondary hard drive in your computer, set windows to back up your stuff to it, and there you have it. problem solved.

also, keep in mind that SSDs were made for PERFORMANCE not BACKUP.

now even though there are also server versions dosent mean they just sit as back ups. they too are also actively reading and writing 24/7/365 while the HDD just backs up the SSD. at least thats from what i think.

Well its more of a question of data retention. Harddrives last longer for data retention as we know of currently than SSD's.

Another vote for Intel and Samsung WRT SSD reliability.

However, I would not consider a "full time" 24/7 SSD more reliable in the long-term versus a mechanical HD that is used for "offline" backup (sync'd and put on a shelf, etc). You still have system issues to contend with (PSU failures, corruption due to OC'ing, accidental deletion, etc) and the SSD Controller is also a single-point of failure (and as mentioned, SSD Data Recovery is costly).

That said - I personally haven't had an Intel SSD fail in the 3+ years I've been running them (since the X25 and X18 G1's I bought in mid 2009). Regardless - as long as you have a solid back-up regimen in place, you'll be fine with whatever you choose...

someinterwebguy said:

Perhaps I should clarify. When I say backup, I mean data that I access on a regular basis (such as music, Truecrypt volumes, ROMs, etc). I guess you could call it "Active backup" or something. Therefore, the SSD's advantages are not completely unused.

I have my 3TB and 2TB externals containing most of the same data, with the 3TB hosting some data that I have backed up on DVD/Blu-Ray.

I decided not to buy anymore mechanical storage drives after I bought my 2TB drive.

To me, creating a RAID5 with several mechanical hard drives is just asking for trouble.

I haven't heard of anyone having an SSD fail on them. I've lost count of the amount of mechanical hard drives I've had die on me over the course of the last decade+.

I understand where you are coming from, but it's SSD only for me from now on.

Click to expand...

And running ntfs or anything non ZFS is also asking for trouble, yet people still don't seem to understand there are more possibilities than just mechanical (for lack of a better word) failure.

ivanlabrie said:

I've seen countless ssd fail stories actually...

I think what you want is a big all purpose fast drive, so an ssd should be up to the task.
I've seen some good 256gb ones for dirt cheap lately. Agility 4's, Crucial m4's...
Keep an eye open and check buy.com, newegg and tigerdirect on a daily basis.

Click to expand...

techbargains.com

someinterwebguy said:

I was aware of the tech behind SSD's before, but it never hurts to mention it.

I have a good UPS (APC 1500) that I've been using for years. In fact, I have a separate UPS for my cable modem, router, ethernet hub. The storms in Montana can be quite powerful and it isn't unusual to lose power at least once or twice during the wintertime.

The heart of my question, revolves around brands that are most reliable when one starts to go into the larger storage sizes.

I'm probably just going to wait until the holidays so the prices will be lower. Under $1/GB is encouraging though.

Click to expand...

If you've had it that long, time to change the battery I'd say.

(G{in}[AK)TION] said:

i think the best way for you to back up is to install a secondary hard drive in your computer, set windows to back up your stuff to it, and there you have it. problem solved.

also, keep in mind that SSDs were made for PERFORMANCE not BACKUP.

now even though there are also server versions dosent mean they just sit as back ups. they too are also actively reading and writing 24/7/365 while the HDD just backs up the SSD. at least thats from what i think.

Click to expand...

And if your PSU goes all data is lost. So another drive is not much more helpful

deathman20 said:

Well its more of a question of data retention. Harddrives last longer for data retention as we know of currently than SSD's.

Click to expand...

Best answer. QFT

cw823 said:

And if your PSU goes all data is lost. So another drive is not much more helpful

Click to expand...

that dosent even make sense! your data on the SSD is still there when you replace the power supply!!

if it goes out, just replace the PSU, and then re run the back up!

What about a revodrive? Hi capacities, ssd speed. Are they not so reliable?

What about just using cloud storage? It's significantly cheaper and more reliable. Now granted you're gonna be limited by your internet connection, but it's the safest and cheapest option.