[kwlug-disc] OT: SSD disks?

Thu Nov 12 13:33:21 EST 2015

I have to agree with pretty much all that Chris said, keeping in mind that
the price difference between HDD and SSD is still a factor for me.  I've
seen many HDDs fail over the years, but I've yet to see an SSD fail (yes,
they're still too young to do a proper failure rate comparison).

I just recently replaced the SSD in my Windows desktop client with an Adata
512gb SSD for $230 (
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1088&item_id=076683).
I couldn't get Windows install to work with this new drive until I disabled
SMART on it.  I don't have any clue why that worked.  All of the Googling I
did for the error I was getting said to turn on SMART, but it was already
on, so I tried the opposite of what the whole world was saying and sure
enough, it worked.  I do still get some driver issues (and BSODs) that I
didn't get before the rebuild, and that SSD is the only hardware that got
changed.  So draw your own conclusions.

The drive that I replaced, a Samsung 256TB SSD, is still salvageable, if
you're concerned.  The Windows install on it was so Frankensteined that I
decided to start over from scratch.  Luckily I have one of those toaster
drive bays that I could pop the Samsung into to recover any data from the
drive.  While I was worried that the drive itself failed, it seems to be
running ok in the toaster.

Back to the original topic, however...  Right now my primary Linux desktop
client has an el-cheapo motherboard that doesn't offer SATA III so while an
SSD might help, I wouldn't be able to get the full bang for the buck.  So
I'm using an older HDD while I dream of rebuilding everything in that
desktop from scratch.

Also, I have some NAS boxes that use 2, 3 or even 4 TB HDD drives.  I
imagine it will be years and years before we can get 4TB SSD for what I
paid recently for 4TB HDD.  So for the time being I'm stuck with HDD for my
network storage solutions.

My Lenovo laptop came with a 1 TB HDD and a 16gig mSATA.  It's almost three
years old now.  I use the mSATA as a swap partition (I have 8 gig RAM).  I
think the jury is still out on whether or not you should use mSATA as a
swap drive, but I had to use it for something.  I would love to replace the
HDD in the laptop with a SSD, for all the reasons Chris mentioned.  In
fact, once I scrape together a few bucks I just might pop out the 1TB HDD
for a 512 TB SSD, but I'm not sure it will be the same Adata.

So you can be sure that once SSD prices drop even more (or the next breed
of even faster, cheaper drives comes along), I will start replacing my
aging HDDs as quickly as I can.

On Thu, 12 Nov 2015 at 12:00 Chris Irwin <chris at chrisirwin.ca> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 11:45:59PM +0000, B.S. wrote:
> > The real world scenario is - can one, and which, trust these
> > newfangled SSD drives? And, aside from the is the price different
> > worth it, especially vis a vis the purported increase in speed
> > (anecdotal evidence here says no), is the price and capacity
> > differential over spinning drives worth it / are they more/less
> > reliable than said spinning drives?
>
> If we're counting anecdotes, I'll put mine on record and say that I will
> never, ever have (or willingly use interactively) a system based on an
> mechanical HDD again. Hell, even my remove VM (on linode) is backed
> entirely by SSDs now.
>
> SSDs are Faster - yes you might not "notice" anything but boot times
> when switching to an SSD, but you do notice switching back to an HDD
> once you're used to it.
>
> Also, considering my primary machine is now a laptop:
>
> * No moving parts. Spinning a disk at 5400 or 7200 RPM, then skimming
>   the heads just barely off the surface in a device *that moves* is just
>   the craziest idea ever. Back when I was a student, the amount of free
>   pizza I got for replacing dead laptop hard drives was obscene. When
>   was the last time I had to worry about head parking or drop sensors?
>
> * Much reduced power consumption on my laptop (yeah, I couldn't put it
>   aside :)
>
> HDDs are still great for bulk data storage, simply due to price per GB.
> That's backups, home movies, flac cd rips, videos, etc.
>
> > (Putting aside the eco/power consumption elements, here. And never
> > mind that avoiding single point of failure means you're going to have
> > multiple/redundant storage, of whatever technology used.)
>
> I treat all drives like they are going to fail any moment, also
> regadless of technology used. This happens. A lot. I have a stack of
> dead/dying hard drives at home. I only have one dead ssd so far. I
> currently own and use seven SSDs, and down to seven in-use hard drives,
> plus my two external backup hard drives.
>
> I currently put more trust in SSDs than HDDs. Almost all my HDDs are
> raid1 pairs because I consider their failures to be exceedingly common
> (especially any drives purchased in the year or so following the
> Thailand flooding). All my SSDs are individual drives that I can recover
> from backups. I'm prepared, but not actively expecting it.
>
> > They note that warnings of imminent problems are well exposed, giving
> > one time to address, to at least as good a level as spinning disks.
> > Spinning or not, ignore such warnings at your peril.
>
> Yes and no. I believe the larger studies (like that by google) found
> that SMART errors were a reliable forcast for failure, but the lack of
> SMART errors can not be assumed to indicate a healthy drive.
>
> I've had hard drives fail without warning, and gracefully migrated from
> drives with errors.
>
> My failed SSD had no errors before death.
>
> > People were backing up to optical media for said permanent storage
> > that turned out not to be. (Optical media having dyes, and dyes fade
> > ...) Along the way, the amount of data to be archived seems to have
> > grown exponentially - thus some of the reason for the growth to the TB
> > drives we see available today. Given the low SSD capacities vis a vis
> > these TB drives, they do not seem to fit this purpose. Thus whether or
> > not they retain their data, when we know the more cost effective
> > spinning drives do, isn't so important to me.
>
> The advantages of SSDs (seek times, throughput, etc) do not apply to to
> sitting on a shelf, but all it's negatives (mainly capacity & price) do.
> You just can't beat hard drives right now, regardless of where we fall
> on SSD reliability.
>
> Archival SSD devices are something only SSD manufacturers need to
> consider right now.
>
> Regardless of storage medium, you'll want a way to verify data, even if
> the drive "works". A filesystem that can do checksums on it's own would
> be helpful...
>
> > Thus, I guess, cloud growth as off-site backup/archival storage. Which
> > has its own excessive costs, and risks.
>
> I currently back up to 2x 2TB hard drives, which are swapped weekly and
> dragged to work.  If disaster strikes, my recovery estimates involve
> "drive to work", "buy hard drive on the way home", and "SATA/Disk
> transfer speeds". I can do the recovery with just a LiveUSB and a
> replacement drive.
>
> With cloud backup, I also have to factor in slower transfer speeds,
> bandwidth caps (300GB/mo would take me three months to restore all my
> data), and possibly a *client* I need to install and configure first,
> which might mean *not* a LiveUSB.
>
> For a "normal" user, where a failed hard drive means a magical new one
> gets installed with a fresh copy of Windows/OSX, cloud backups make a
> lot more sense.
>
> --
> Chris Irwin
>
> email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
>  xmpp:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
>   web: https://chrisirwin.ca
>
>
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