SSHD

[Hugh54321]

 I'm wondering if SSHD are suitable as a backup drive, or if I should just get a normal 7.2k rpm drive.

[W-L]

3 minutes ago, Hugh54321 said:

 I'm wondering if SSHD are suitable as a backup drive, or if I should just get a normal 7.2k rpm drive.

I'd stick with a regular drive unless you are accessing this backup very often and of the same programs/files there wouldn't be much of a gain in terms of performance since the SSHD learns from continuous use and caching in the faster flash portion. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Whatever gets you more storage space.

 

If it's performance you're looking for, the 7200 RPM drive, as it's unlikely given the use case that you'll get any use out of the SSHD.

[vanished]

Suitable?  I mean, I guess?  It'll work, but it doesn't make much sense.  The idea behind SSHDs is that they learn what you access most often and keep that in the 8 GB (usually) SSD portion while the rest acts just like a regular HDD.  Due to the poor algorithms and small SSD space, they generally have a minimal if any benefit even in ideal conditions, but as a backup drive it would likely provide zero benefit due to the nature of how they're used.  The 7200 RPM option would make a lot more sense if you have to choose between them at the same price.  Realistically though you probably just want reliability and cost/GB to be optimized and forget the rest.  Paying more for speed isn't really worth it for something that you'll fill up once and then do only small changes to from then on, recovering from it (hopefully) rarely if at all.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Another vote for getting the regular HDD. SSHDs were a good compromise back when SSDs were far more expensive than they are now but, now, they aren't really worth the money. Also, a 5400 rpm SSHD will be slower than a 7200 rpm HDD.

[aisle9]

7 hours ago, Hugh54321 said:

 I'm wondering if SSHD are suitable as a backup drive, or if I should just get a normal 7.2k rpm drive.

If the SSHD is the same price as an identically sized hard drive with identical rotation speed in identical condition (both new), sure. If it's going to cost you any more or the SSHD is used/refurb and the HDD is new, no.

 

SSHDs were designed as a cheaper hybrid option with a small amount of NAND flash that would pick up the most commonly accessed files and add them to that NAND "mini-SSD". The idea was that the most commonly accessed files would be the OS boot files, and the drive's algorithm would grab those almost by default. Keep in mind that at the time, SSDs were much, much more expensive than they are now. Even the cheapest 1TB options were going for $250+, and a hybrid SSHD of the same size would cost $90-100.

 

In practice, SSHDs are unreliable. In my experience, they don't really improve boot times at all, even after months of use as a primary OS drive. This suggests to me that the algorithm isn't so great, at least on the Seagates I used most often. Given that you can now get a 3-4TB HDD and a 120GB SSD for the same price that a 1TB SSHD used to run, or a 1TB SSD for the same price if you don't need all that storage on a HDD, there's absolutely no point in buying one unless you're getting it for $40 or less new. They fall into the broad category of "good idea at the time that didn't work out".