Are SSD's actually reliable?

[TheProfosist]

Yes, just yes.

[Glenwing]

I'm unsure whether I should buy an ssd as I always hear about limited reads and writes they can perform before they die. I've never heard this about standard hard drives and somehow I've never had a hard drive die on me. I'm still using a 20gb maxtor hard drive as a boot from, I can't even remember when. I have a 1tb Wd blue hard drive for games and pretty much everything though. If I buy an SSD and use it as a boot drive, will it last me? And would it be worth it on sata two?

 

"I'm planning on buying a Samsung 840 EVO 120gb ssd and want to use it as a boot drive. Will it last as long as my normal hard drive  and be worth using on sata II?"

 

The limited writes is only a theoretical problem, it's practically impossible to reach the actual limit.

 

I use an SSD on SATA I and it is still much snappier than HDDs, in fact it doesn't feel much worse than my other SSD on SATA III.  The sequential throughput, which is what improves with each SATA revision, is only a part of the speed benefit that SSDs give.  The improvements in random reads and writes are what give it the high responsiveness compared to an HDD, since it can access anything electronically and react instantly, instead of having to seek back and forth to physically locate and retrieve the data.  You get this benefit no matter what SATA revision you're on, and it benefits a lot more than just loading times.

[yummyxyz]

slightly off topic, so I'm considering going with two SSDs in RAID 0 and ditching HDD completely. I believe linus mentioned that RAID 0 has a higher chance of failure, but in real life how likely is it to fail?

[Grave]

For mobile use, they're superior to an HDD in every way aside from price, which is a problem with memory in general anyway.

For desktop/static movement, it's still superior because of the performance it has over an HDD.

Side-by-side for a decade, they'd last about the same amount of time (supposedly, anyway) but I think most SSDs can withstand heavier data transfer/constant reads than an HDD overall. If you were to run both a 1TB HDD and a 1TB SSD constantly reading and writing data to the max on both, I think the HDD would fry itself quickly, within 1-2 years easily. SSD I'd give the benefit of doubt that it would die in under 3-5 years.

SSD seems a lot better in my opinion in every way, but it does have a price and it's far less expendable than HDDs, especially when considering a large capacity NAS or a home server/storage bank. HDDs aren't dumb to buy just yet.

[Constantine]

I am not ignorant of the fact that little things will load up quicker but seriously when it comes to games generally the only benefit is loading cg movies quicker.  Big freaking deal.  Sorry but I would rather have a hard drive and oh hey what is the GB per dollar ratio for SSDs? 

 

Not necessarily, you can get quite a boost if the game in question relies on a lot of high quality textures and/or if their environment rendering is pretty un-optimized in general.

[TheProfosist]

slightly off topic, so I'm considering going with two SSDs in RAID 0 and ditching HDD completely. I believe linus mentioned that RAID 0 has a higher chance of failure, but in real life how likely is it to fail?

its twice as likely to fail as a single SSD because the data is spread across two drives and iis not redundant at all.

[IdeaStormer]

Depends on the drive and use case.

 

If you put a consumer SSD into an enterprise storage machine and run your storage off of that, it'll probably be dead within weeks. On the other hand if you put an enterprise SSD into a consumer gaming PC, it'll last for decades. Similarly with hard drives, a WD Blue or Seagate Barracuda in a rack with spinning disks and fans creating vibrations will die pretty quickly. Using a WD RE or a Constellation in your gaming PC will probably outlast its warranty by several years. Appropriately matching the drive you purchase to your needs will ensure your drive lasts close to your warranty.

 

With that said, SSDs are far less likely to die from being dropped or shipped improperly, and generally don't suffer quick deaths as a result of a manufacturing defect like hard drives can.

 

At least one sensible post. Have to admit I've seen less drive failures (of the spinning disk variety) for the plethora of system types I support, but at the same time have seen failure of both SSD's and HD's. A person with one drive does not make for a true sample size for quality, or only owning it for less than a year.

 

SSD failure modes are till in their infancy, don't believe me try pulling the power cord during a critical write, I double dog dare you's!

[IdeaStormer]

its twice as likely to fail as a single SSD because the data is spread across two drives and iis not redundant at all.

 

Show us your data on this. With a per-meditaded thanks.

[TheProfosist]

Show us your data on this. With a per-meditaded thanks.

Huh? RAID 0 with two drives is twice as likely to fail than just a single drive. That is just how it works. Since you have two drives being added together with no redundancy you now can have either of the drives fail and you loose all your data.

[Glenwing]

slightly off topic, so I'm considering going with two SSDs in RAID 0 and ditching HDD completely. I believe linus mentioned that RAID 0 has a higher chance of failure, but in real life how likely is it to fail?

 

There is not much real benefit from RAID 0 SSDs

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-10.html

[brob]

I'm unsure whether I should buy an ssd as I always hear about limited reads and writes they can perform before they die. I've never heard this about standard hard drives and somehow I've never had a hard drive die on me. I'm still using a 20gb maxtor hard drive as a boot from, I can't even remember when. I have a 1tb Wd blue hard drive for games and pretty much everything though. If I buy an SSD and use it as a boot drive, will it last me? And would it be worth it on sata two?

 

"I'm planning on buying a Samsung 840 EVO 120gb ssd and want to use it as a boot drive. Will it last as long as my normal hard drive  and be worth using on sata II?"

 

http://techreport.com/review/25889/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-500tb-update

 

No I haven't used an SSD and I gave valid reasons throughout my posts as to why I and some others have not jumped on board with these.  There just really is no point in me getting one at this time and for many reasons I can't recommend others getting them in certain situations ... many situations honestly.

 

Don't you find it curious that those who give ssd a serious try end up becoming committed proponents?

 

 

slightly off topic, so I'm considering going with two SSDs in RAID 0 and ditching HDD completely. I believe linus mentioned that RAID 0 has a higher chance of failure, but in real life how likely is it to fail?

 

All RAID arrays are not only open to unit failure, they can also be broken because of logical issues. (Things like a BIOS being flashed and the SATA mode not being reset to RAID before the system tries to boot.) The problem with RAID 0 is that unlike other levels is offers no protection from unit failure and suffers complete loss of data should the array break.

 

Besides, except in situation where large serial writes and reads occur ssd in RAID 0 can perform worse than a single large drive, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-13.html.

[IdeaStormer]

[-ism]

SSD's are quite possibly the greatest thing ever. Everything will feel INCREDIBLY more responsive. 

 

Also they are tiny and shockproof so...

[IdeaStormer]

 

 

 

Web site went down during my reply :angry:

[TheProfosist]

There is not much real benefit from RAID 0 SSDs

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-benchmark,3485-10.html

You mean no real world noticeable benefit right?

you quoted nothing and said nothing?

[IdeaStormer]

you quoted nothing and said nothing?

 

 

Psst...

 

 

Web site went down during my reply :angry:

[TheProfosist]

Psst...

Didnt see that, must not have refreshed before replying. So, what were you going to say.

[Glenwing]

You mean no real world noticeable benefit right?

 

Yes

[Matacks]

Yea. SSDs are reliable. Its fine to raid 0 them because its very unlikely you'll have one fail. There are benefits to raid 0 too. Just look at some benchmarks. But really one indisputable benefit is getting a single large drive.. which is nice because it saves you the time of having to mess around with drive designations.

If you do decide to raid 0 ssds try to get the highest capacity that you can. Two 120 gb is not really worth it.

Sent from my SPH-L300 using Tapatalk

[TheProfosist]

Yes

Just thought id clarify that.

[Dopey]

I have a recycled 120gb Samsung 840 Evo SSD I recycled from my recently sold gaming rig, and I'm planning on putting that into my new laptop.

I personally always used HDD's, but after using an SSD as a boot drive/main applications, I feel it is a NECESSITY in computers at this current time. The speeds are a must, and once you go back to a HDD you'll miss the speeds without a doubt.

They are more reliable than a HDD, the read/write worries shouldn't be there because you won't have it long enough where you can't actually use it anymore (unless you plan on keeping it for the next 20 years or something).

 

One thing you must know: Do NOT defragment SSD's.

[Akolyte]

Put it this way, its more reliable than a normal spinning hard drive.  So if your worried about that, theres nothing to worry about.  Infact theres something to be happy about. 

[DeViLzzz]

Put it this way, its more reliable than a normal spinning hard drive.  So if your worried about that, theres nothing to worry about.  Infact theres something to be happy about. 

Nothing to worry about.  Less capacity, also when you write to the drive you are killing it and price per gigabyte is worse than hard drives.

[TheProfosist]

Nothing to worry about.  Less capacity, also when you write to the drive you are killing it and price per gigabyte is worse than hard drives.

You make it sound horrible LOL.

heads up the instant you turn on a mechanical drive all of it mechanical parts are getting worn.

[brob]

Nothing to worry about.  Less capacity, also when you write to the drive you are killing it and price per gigabyte is worse than hard drives.

 

As opposed to slowly killing a hard drive just by having it powered up.