Looking for a new SSD and suggestions for long term storage.

[Vishera]

Okay, so the SSD is real straightforward, I've got a budget of $150 and am going with SATA (I don't read/write large files on a regular basis, so NVME isn't a necessity for me). I want a 1TB capacity and there's so many options here that I honestly don't know what to choose. If anyone has a personal favorite brand they'd like to point me too, that'd be great.

As for the long term storage, I don't know whether I should get another SSD/multiple SSDs in RAID, or one huge mechanical hard drive. I know the NAND in SSDs has a limited lifespan, and have also heard that mechanical drives can often have the platters transferred to a new enclosure if the unit fails, because it's most often the controller and/or motor that failed. At least long enough to get the data off. I don't really see any options like this for SSDs, so I'm leaning towards a 3 or 4TB hard drive for backups and less speed sensitive items, but I'm not sure if maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. Which is the better solution?

 

[Zerileous]

Really most will do but Samsung is regarded as the best. Their 860 EVO meets your budget and specs.

For what you're regarding as long term storage, is this a backup drive for the main SSD, or a drive to contain additional files, or both? How important are the files? If you're worried about transferring platters to recover data, you should be using both onsite and offsite backups. At this point the main advantage of a platter is the volume for price. You're really not going to wear out an SSD, especially not for long term or deep storage. Maybe in 15 years.

 

[Vishera]

It'd be for both backup and storing additional infrequently accessed files like family photos, videos, and so on. It's not the most sensitive data in the world, I just brought up platter transfers as a part of listing the pros and cons I've heard for both mediums.

 

[trents]

SSDs fail most often because the controller burns out or the firmware isn't doing a good job of cooperating with TRIM to distribute wear. And when they fail there is usually no warning.

For a man on a budget, the cost of transferring platters to another HD unit would likely be cost prohibitive. I'm guessing that is something that would need to be done in a dust-free environment in a professional commercial setting for a cost of thousands of dollars. It's not a good idea to use the second drive for storage and for backups unless you also back it up. Keep it simple. Just get a large spinner hard drive and check it now and then for signs of failure with CrystalDiskInfo. Backup your most critical files to the cloud with Google Drive/Backup and Sync which gives you 15 gb of free storage.

 

[dejo]

I have zero faith left in platter drives. Have had so many fail in the past several years. I would guess that I have had over 60 ssd's and had one fail that was early on in its life.
If I were looking for value for ssd storage, I would look towards a Phison E12 controller and buy what I could afford. And if I could use an m.2- that is the way I would go as well

 

[trents]

I have been using SSDs for several years now, both in my personal computers and in customer builds. I have had a couple three of them fail. I would have to say that by far, the number one component failure in my customer base is platter drives. Sometimes they only have a few thousand power up hours on them before they fail but I see many more failures once they reach about 25k power up hours. Most of the time, however, platter drives will show signs of dysfunction for some period of time before they get to the point where they won't boot. The trick is to take notice of that. A lot of people just reinstall Windows not realizing that the reason system files are getting corrupted in the first place is because the drive is failing. If you can catch them before total failure you can usually pull the data off them even when they won't boot.

Having said all that there is still the issue that in the larger capacities, SSDs are still relatively expensive and the largest size available is what, 2TB?

 

[Vishera]

I have been using SSDs for several years now, both in my personal computers and in customer builds. I have had a couple three of them fail. I would have to say that by far, the number one component failure in my customer base is platter drives. Sometimes they only have a few thousand power up hours on them before they fail but I see many more failures once they reach about 25k power up hours. Most of the time, however, platter drives will show signs of dysfunction for some period of time before they get to the point where they won't boot. The trick is to take notice of that. A lot of people just reinstall Windows not realizing that the reason system files are getting corrupted in the first place is because the drive is failing. If you can catch them before total failure you can usually pull the data off them even when they won't boot.

Having said all that there is still the issue that in the larger capacities, SSDs are still relatively expensive and the largest size available is what, 2TB?

I could negate this by unplugging the power when I don't need it though, couldn't I? Sure, opening and shutting a case over and over is tedious, but for a $60 4TB HDD and the peace of mind of having my stuff backed up, I don't think that's too tedious. I think I'll stick with a platter drive for backups for right now. Maybe when 2TB SSDs are $100 or cheaper, I'll use them for backups.

 

[trents]

Easier than plugging and unplugging it all time would be to install a hot swap bay in your computer but . . . personally, I would not worry about unplugging it. I would just monitor it with something like CrystalDiskInfo to check for parameters getting out of spec. It may be just as hard on the drive to be power it on and off many times as it is to just leave it run. In fact, one of the parameters that CrystalDiskInfo checks is power on cycles. You can configure CrystalDiskInfo to load in Windows startup whenever the computer is turned on. That will ensure you are checking the disk health on a regular basis.

 

[Vishera]

Easier than plugging and unplugging it all time would be to install a hot swap bay in your computer but . . . personally, I would not worry about unplugging it. I would just monitor it with something like CrystalDiskInfo to check for parameters getting out of spec. It may be just as hard on the drive to be power it on and off many times as it is to just leave it run. In fact, one of the parameters that CrystalDiskInfo checks is power on cycles. You can configure CrystalDiskInfo to load in Windows startup whenever the computer is turned on. That will ensure you are checking the disk health on a regular basis.

Fair point. I could also spend a few bucks a month on expanded cloud storage, but for some reason the thought of a drive failing is preferable to my stuff being exposed by the rare chance my account is hacked. I'll be sure to keep an eye on it and at the first sign of trouble, I can always buy a month of OneDrive or whatever to move things over to until a new HDD can be purchased. Platter drives are probably gonna fade out of the market except for in enterprise applications eventually anyways (and I know a number of companies that still use tape storage due to the longevity), and at that point I'll be forced to switch.

 

[HankB]

I'll confirm confidence in Samsung. I recently had an 850 EVO fail. After hours of use it would stop responding until it was power cycled. There was no indication of a problem in SMART stats and it passed both long and short SMART self tests. Nevertheless, Samsung replaced it with a refurbished 860 EVO with 12 hours of power on time and less than 1TB written. Aside from getting an SSD that is not likely to fail, it's good to know the company will stand behind it should that happen.

The only other problem I've encountered with SSDs was a bad block on a Crucial M4. It was already out of warranty so support was not an issue. I thought that the drive firmware should have remapped it and it did not do that automatically and I fault Crucial for that. I was able to force it to remap by overwriting the drive and use it today on a Raspberry Pi (for non-critical storage.) I would consider a Crucial drive as well.

There are probably other manufacturers that are as good but these are the ones I have the most experience with. One thing I would look for is a 5 year warranty (which is provided by the 860 EVO.)

NB: Typed this in yesterday, forgot to hit the post button.