What do you trust more: mechanical or solid-state storage?

[NTDaws]

SSDs are slowly taking over the PC storage industry. They've become the default in slim mobile systems and are increasingly working their way into desktops. For some folks, they've replaced portable hard drives, too.

The shifting tide is largely driven by the fact that modern solid-state drives have vastly superior performance to their mechanical counterparts. Speed is only one part of the storage equation, though. Reliability is arguably more important for devices tasked with storing precious data. Which brings us to our new poll.

 

Although our endurance experiment showed that modern SSDs can withstand hundreds of terabytes of writes, NAND wear isn't the only thing that causes them to fail. Firmware flaws and other factors can also compromise one's data. Mechanical drives are perhaps more mature on that front, but their underlying technology is inherently more fragile—especially when faced with physical shock.

The poll is deliberately limited to two options, but feel free to clarify your choice in the comments below. Now, go vote, and let us know which form of storage you trust more.

[79wjd]

SSDs are less likely to fail, but HDDs are less likely to fail catastrophically (i.e. an HDD will usually give you warning whereas an SSD will just stop working out of nowhere)...so I'd rather use single HDD for archival purposes (unless of course a RAID 6 SSD array is an option).

[TheBestUserName]

I have one hosed SSD. 

And I've had 2 or 3 HDDs die in my entire computer-using life (I'm 37).  

 

For durability/longevity, I have no preference.  

[crysilis]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

SSDs are less likely to fail, but HDDs are less likely to fail catastrophically (i.e. an HDD will usually give you warning whereas an SSD will just stop working out of nowhere)...so I'd rather use single HDD for archival purposes (unless of course a RAID 6 SSD array is an option).

this is why i dont use raid

[79wjd]

Just now, crysilis said:

this is why i dont use raid

Ummm why? There isn't a downside to RAID other than cost. A single HDD is much cheaper than an SSD RAID 6 array. 

[Legolessed]

ssd even though i cant afford them  

[themctipers]

i still have a wd green from 2009 that works..

it has almost been powered on all the time.

[Mark77]

Never lost a SSD.  Lots many HDDs.  Having said that, the newer stuff with TLC, and soon, QLC makes me nervous.  I probably will be RAID-1'ing my SSDs with HDDs for quite a while until I trust an all-SSD solution for data that actually matters. 

[DrM]

because of the way nand works, ssd cells slowly lose electricity, thus information, over time if they are not powered. because of that, hdd and tape drives are better for archival storage. however, if its constantly on, then ssds are more reliable because they are simpler with no moving parts that could fail

[Godlygamer23]

Both have proven to be reliable forms of storage for me. That being said, a few years ago I did destroy a hard drive by hitting my laptop fairly hard, and I imagine the SSD wouldn't have been affected if it was in place of the hard drive.

 

Objectively speaking, SSDs are more reliable, but hard drives may provide a better indicator of imminent death than an SSD would due to having moving parts. That being said, SSDs are solid-state and have a much lesser chance of failing provided it's actually a good SSD.

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

I probably will be RAID-1'ing my SSDs with HDDs ..... 

Ummmm how do you plan on doing that without trashing your SSD's speeds? 

[Godlygamer23]

4 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

I probably will be RAID-1'ing my SSDs with HDDs for quite a while until I trust an all-SSD solution for data that actually matters. 

For speed, that's a fairly dumb idea. The bottleneck would be your hard drives, which would make SSDs almost pointless at that point.

[Mark77]

Quote

Ummmm how do you plan on doing that without trashing your SSD's speeds? 

 

Only writes would be damaged.  Writes tend to be a mere fraction of reads.  And writes tend to be much faster anyways because, given a disk that isn't all fragmented, they can be done sequentially.  And even write cached if you have a UPS. 

 

Reads would be directed to the SSD nearly 100% of the time, so you'd get the full SSD performance. 

[Mark77]

Quote

For speed, that's a fairly dumb idea. The bottleneck would be your hard drives, which would make SSDs almost pointless at that point.

 

Only writes would revert to the speed of the HDD.  Reads would use the full SSD performance in such a mirror.

[Sauron]

An ssd doesn't run the risk to shatter if you shake or drop it. I think hdds are still quite reliable for most uses but they are a lot more vulnerable to user error.

[Legolessed]

usb flash drive raid  

[zMeul]

9 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Ummm why? There isn't a downside to RAID other than cost. A single HDD is much cheaper than an SSD RAID 6 array. 

overhead

writing to the RAID matrix is done almost at no cost; the latency pops it's ugly head when it's time to reconstruct the data from the multiple matrices in the array for reading

[TopDollar]

Different tools for different jobs

[Godlygamer23]

1 minute ago, Mark77 said:

Only writes would revert to the speed of the HDD.  Reads would use the full SSD performance in such a mirror.

My server might be a bit funny, especially with FreeNAS being used, but both of my hard drives show read activity when accessing them. I'll provide a screenshot below. Additionally, the first two hard drives(the top one is cut off) are in a RAIDZ1 configuration which might affect things, but the last two hard drives are in a "plain Jane" mirror configuration.

 

With the last two hard drives, I'm streaming a video from the server.

Spoiler

 

[79wjd]

Just now, zMeul said:

overhead

writing to the RAID matrix is done almost at no cost; the latency pops it's ugly head when it's time to reconstruct the data from the multiple matrices in the array for reading

A RAID 6 SSD array (with a decent controller) shouldn't be worse than a single HDD. 

[typographie]

I don't really believe SSDs are any less reliable than HDDs in a measurable or meaningful way. I've had relatively good luck with HDDs, too. However, any data you have that's really important should be saved with at least one backup somewhere else. I wouldn't trust any storage media with something like that by itself.

[Mark77]

Quote

My server might be a bit funny, especially with FreeNAS being used, but both of my hard drives show read activity when accessing them. I'll provide a screenshot below. Additionally, the first two hard drives(the top one is cut off) are in a RAIDZ1 configuration which might affect things, but the last two hard drives are in a "plain Jane" mirror configuration.

 

In Linux md RAID, you can set the writemostly flag to basically tell the RAID subsystem to only write to a given disk (or disks) in a mirror-set (I would set this flag for the HDD in the HDD/SSD mirror!).  Otherwise, it attempts to load-balance between the drives to provide for maximum performance.

 

Some RAID implementations may even do this automatically, sense which drive is completing commands most quickly, and direct new read commands to that drive instead of the slower one.   Some may even send commands to multiple devices, and use the result which returns the most quickly.  In which case, the SSD, again, would be getting all the work.

 

Not sure what the equivalent is under FreeNAS / FreeBSD.  But it works as advertised under Linux.

[BlargKing]

Its sort of an odd thing. I would trust an SSD more than an HDD for longevity up to 10 years or so. I do a lot of video and photo work, plus complete system erase and reinstalls 2-3 times a year, so my SSD has a lot of data moving through it. So after 5-10 years I probably wouldn't rely on it anymore because of NAND wear, which I feel is more consistent than the wear a HDD takes. If I wanted a time capsule where I could write data to a drive, chuck it a drawer for a 20 years, and then pull the data off, I would trust an SSD as the NAND can usually hold the data that long, where as a HDD is likely to seize up.

 

Honestly though, well build HDD's endure just as well as SSDs in many cases. I have 4 WD Black drives in my machine that have been going every day for the last 3 years. I trust them so much that I have the 4 set to be a RAID 0 array (I do a weekly backup of course, it would be foolish otherwise). But so far they're happy and I feel like they'll last a very long time. I feel like HDDs have the potential to live longer than SSD's because their causes of wear aren't as consistent. For example, I have a 22 year old Toshiba laptop with its original 350 MB hard drive that boots up every time no problem.

[nobelharvards]

I would trust multiple redundant backups on multiple physical locations over any single SSD or HDD.

 

No matter how extensive a warranty is, it does not bring back things that are valuable to you, but not to anyone else.

 

E.g. Wedding photos, graduation photos, etc.

[GSTARR]

SSD's are still not as reliable as HDD's

It's a simple as that