1y ago

HDD or SSD?

Hello, everybody. I've been looking for a new storage solution. I know, that HDDs are reliable and SSDs are for fast access, but I've been an HDD user ever since. I have an SSD, but I only have the OS on it. Likewise, I want to do some basic File operations, as writing documents or copy files. It would also be great if I could use it as a Backup kind of sorts device. It would be great if I could move my data from my old WD-Elements external HDD, quickly, to an intern HDD without any fuss. I just need a Storage medium that's cheap and good. Do you have any recommendations? Thanks in advance!

29 comments

SSDs are way more reliable than spinning disks, especially in a laptop that gets banged around. HDDs win in only one category: capacity per price.
- SSDs are way more reliable than spinning disks
  That's true, with one caveat: if an SSD fails, it's usually catastrophically and without warning. HDDs usually give some warning signs before they fail completely (bad sectors, read/write errors, strange noises).
  
  The SSD memory cell failure mode is to retain the last written contents, so I actually don't think I agree. In the SMART diagnostics, it shows how many of these bad cells are present, which is a reasonable indicator of impending failure from age
- Hdd are good for storage. An SSD sometimes fails by the block mapping area that handles location of where it placed bits of data. When that fails nobody is getting any data off that storage. with an HDD even if your fs table dies you can still pull all the files off using the strings tool. Having said that some sort of self healing system like ZFS should be used to prevent bit rot.
- As someone who is slowly migrating his Nas to u.2 SSD, so much this.
  Reliability, speed, density. Everything is better with solid state.
  
  As a European: low power consumption!

The main drive should ALWAYS be an SSD these days. Having an SSD drive is the single most important component when it comes to making your PC feel fast. Even when it comes to secondary drives, I'd stick to SSDs, since you can find 2TB SSDs for less than $100 these days.
HDD come into play when you need more than 4TB and have stuff to store that doesn't need to be fast, like movies, backups, etc. Those are fine on a HDD, as HDDs are still substantially cheaper at that size and you won't even find >10TB consumer SSDs.
Another thing to consider is noise, HDDs make quite a substantial amount of noise in a modern PC, so a USB HDD that you can disconnect when not in use ain't the worst idea.
As for reliability, there is no real advantage one way or the other, both can randomly die. Make backups.

SSDs are really the way to go unless you need massive amounts of storage. I have 4x4 TB spinning disks in a RAID z1. I built it out of refurb WD enterprise grade hardware on the cheap. Going on almost a year of trouble free use. I got each drive for 30 bucks. There's no way I am going to get that kind of space on an SSD for 120 bucks.

if you have to ask then get an ssd

HDDs are for cheap, not for reliable. Anecdotal, but my personal failure rate with HDDs is around 98% while my failure rate with all forms of flash media (including SSDs) is around 2%.
With 1 TB SSDs being available for as little as $20 (not particularly fast ones but still far faster than HDDs), I don't see a use-case for HDDs at all unless you need dozens of TBs of storage.
- Hard drives are not that unreliable, well, so long as you pick the right model.
  BackBlaze's statistics are here: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q2-2023/ - they run tens of thousands of inexpensive drives to run their cloud backup service. Some HDDs are much better than others.
  That document also links to their SSD statistics (they don't have that many SSDs yet, so the stats aren't as good) but while SSDs tend to have lower failure rates, there are some models of SSD that have higher failure rates than HDDs. For example, one Seagate SSD they use has an AFR (annualised failure rate) of just under 2%, but one Toshiba HDD they use has an AFR of only 0.31%. (Another thing to be aware of is that Backblaze's drives will all be in air conditioned data centres, not in the random temperature/humidity spreads of a PC in someone's home).
  If you look at the stats as a whole generally SSDs have half the failure rate across the board to HDDs, but it varies a lot by make and model. So be careful on which you pick, and take backups :-) For my money, all my PCs (desktop and laptops) are pure SSD setups. My server still uses spinning disks, mainly because it's older server class hardware with a SAS array.
  
  By the time enough longevity data has been collected to be really useful, obsolescence is becoming a factor. And even if the same model number is still being sold, the hardware inside may have changed and all of the data may not be directly relevant.
  Sticking with a reputable product line and assuming that past performance is relevant doesn't always help, either... I remember the ~~Deskstar~~ Deathstar drives fiasco, and got bit hard by it.
- Of course anecdotes are of very limited usefulness, but I had exactly the opposite experience. The HDDs that failed on me, failed slowly with SMART errors that gave enough time to make a backup, and never failed completely. On the other hand I had a cheap SSD die completely and without any warning after only limited use, and experienced bit rot even on reputable vendors.
  tl;dr choose what you want but make backups

IMO, its just about how much storage you need and how much money you can spend. 1TB SSD cost almost the same as HDD. Higher capacity will make SSD much more expensive while HDD is getting cheaper.
Go with SSD if you can afford it, but none of them is reliable. Backup is your friend

SSD only. HDD is on the way out. Most HDD's are too slow and unreliable.

if you need less than 4TB just get a solid state

I use HDDs for long term and larger storage.. my home partition, working partitions and the OS itself are on distinct SSDs.
It would be great if I could move my data from my old WD-Elements external HDD, quickly, to an intern HDD without any fuss.
Take the casing off and remove the hard drive, install it in your computer. Done.
- Do google the model number to ensure the drive in question is actually shuckable, not all are

SSD for your OS. HDD for storage.

Lots of good comments already in a short period, and you'll probably get lots more. My own contribution agrees with a what has already been said -- basically it depends on exactly how you plan to use your storage space. I basically upgrade and expand my storage space every 5+ years as larger drives become available, but this requires constant monitoring for failed drives and keeping up my redundant arrays. We now have software technologies like zfs to minimize failures, so if you want to build a large array of HDDs then look into that.
So yeah, if you want a couple terrabytes to store some media, probably stick with SDD or even get a mirrored pair for redundancy. If your storage needs are much larger, then HDDs will be the way to go. If you are confident in your computer skills and want to save money, there are plenty of options for 'refurbished' drives that can last nearly as long as new. If you're just starting out, keep backups because total failures are a harsh teacher (and losing the last pictures of your wife's now-deceased grandfather are a lesson that will never be forgotten), but those lessons will carry you on to build bigger and more robust. My own latest upgrade, just put online earlier this year, is composed of roughly 105TB of formatted storage in three pools, with the more critical stuff backed up to the larger pool. Also look into recursive backups so that a change you made a month ago doesn't destroy everything before you notice.

What you can do is have a 1-2Tb SSD and use that as your day to day drive then use Timeshift to regularly backup the entire drive to a HDD.

For personal computer always use SSD, only get HDD for media servers and that sort of stuff.

I use ssd for everyday use, but sync my files to a larger internal hdd as a backup/archive. I even occasionally sync all that to an external drive just to be extra safe (Because it would be a disaster to lose all the random stupid bullshit I've accumulated over the years).

get a spiffy new ssd for that extra internal space, but keep the external--upgrade it if it's only usb2.0, too--for your primary backup.

If you are looking for cheap storage, i recommend you check out diskprices.com . At least it helped me sometimes to find the disk with a low price per TB.

SSDs are quite reliable and way faster than HDD over time. Only use HDD if your backing up data and even yet, there are mdiscs for data archiving.

29 comments