SSD/M.2 Less reliable than HDD?

[splowing]

i'm planning on building a budget Ryzen APU build, and for storage i wanted to go for a 500GB SSD or M.2, but my friend told me to avoid that because they have less life expectancy than an HDD (it has to do with the rewrite cycle) and now i'm not sure whether to go with a fewer capacity SSD/M.2 + HDD or stick with the 500gb one and buy an HDD later on.
I remember watching a Linu's vid about an M.2 drive and he said it could handle terra bytes of storage but i'm not sure i couldn't find that video again. is M.2 better than an SSD?
thanks for helping.

[Fasauceome]

An SSD can last a super long time, the usual advice is not to fill it up all the way (but it'll last 8+ years even if you do). An old hard drive will be too slow and clunky, don't use it as a main drive.

[Sakkura]

SSDs have no mechanical parts that can wear out, unlike HDDs. The memory cells do have a limited write endurance though.

 

Overall SSDs tend to last longer than HDDs, but it depends on the usage.

 

M.2 is just a particular form factor for SSDs.

[SkyHound0202]

M.2 is a form factor for many things, that includes SSD.

Anyway, if by " life expectancy" you mean write endurance, then SSD is no where near HDD since the NAND flash inside SSD has a finite number of write cycle and will eventually wear out.

But fear not, it usually take more than a petabyte (1024 TB) before an SSD fails.

[Bouzoo]

In general, HDDs get less write errors than SSD, but in the long run. If you plan to use SSD for 2-3 years, SSDs have proven to be more reliable, but as the time goes they have higher failure rates than HDD. But you will probably never encounter errors or notice them for that matter.

Now SSD reliability depends from model to model. Pretty much all SSDs from reputable brands will last you longer than you need, i.e. you will replace them before they die. For instance, friend bought some cheap Corsair ssd  3 years ago with 20 TB life expectancy, and it's hell to use since he actually used his 20 TB. I have used 15TB on my Samsung 850 EVO in the last 1.5 years and it has expectancy of 75 TB. PROs have 150 TB (even though a test showed it dying after 9.1 PB). I will probably never use them since 75 TB is a lot by pretty much every metric and I have never encountered a single error that I mentioned. Tests have shown for some SSDS to exceed those numbers by a lot. 

Don't beat yourself with it, just get whatever suits your cost and needs. 

[Enderman]

An M.2 SSD is still an SSD.

Any kind of SSD these days is more reliable than an HDD.

[hojnikb]

M.2 can theoretically be at a disadvantage, since they usually don't have any form of cooling (sata ssds are usually cooled via enclousure). This can be fixed with some directed airflow