Question SATA SSD for data storage

[Timmah!]

As the title says, do you consider SSD safe nowadays to use for data storage?

I am currently in the process of buying entire new rig. It will come with 2x 2TB m2 drives for system disc and for games, but i intend to migrate the HDDs from my current machine into it as well. On these, i historically store data, photos, music, documents, most importantly work files - i work as architect, so these are folders with DWGs, max files, photoshop files. My work folder (about 1TB of data currently) at this point is located on 11 years old 2TB WD Caviar Black, which is still going strong (knock on wood). Aside of that one i have few years newer, much less used 6TB WD Gold, to which i recently, about 2 months ago, manually backed up said work folder - in case the Black drive randomly failed, given its age.

Anyway, i saw 4TB Crucial MX500 SATA SSD for about 250 EUROs, so i am playing with an idea to throw it into my order, as i am still waiting for delivery, cause some parts are not stock. Then replace that Caviar Black with it, and perhaps set up some kind of regular automatic back-up system to that 6TB HDD i have. Do you think that would be a good idea and is it even possible (the back-up part, what software does one use for such purpose?) I realize buying 2 of these into RAID and mirror them would be probably even better, but 500 is bit steep.

Thanks for any advice

 

[Tech Junky]

I've got SSD's from over a decade that still work fine. The idea though should be using the Gold as the backup still. Spinners are very reliable and give indications before failure that it's time to replace them unlike SSD's that tend to just fail without warning.

The NVME drives will give you the immediate speed for real time work flows.
The SATA SSD's will give you significant speed up to ~500MB/s for longer term storage / bulk space at a reduced cost.
The spinner will be your backup of everything. Put it in an enclosure or use a SATA / USB cable to perform the backups and not leave it in the system or connected.

I use one of these cables - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071GRCGF4

The cable is nice as it doesn't mean pulling an enclosure apart if you need to swap the drive and it's compact enough for a small space when storing and works on both 2.5 & 3.5 drives. 2.5 drives don't need the AC power cable either.

4TB for $250 is a pretty good deal as SATA SSD's usually run about $100/TB


Now, if you wanted to bump your speeds from SATA to Gen3 there's an option for $320 - https://www.amazon.com/TEAMGROUP-Internal-Compatible-Desktop-TM8FP4004T0C101/dp/B08Z7LN8NM that gives you 5X the speed of the SATA drive. If your new system has room for another M2 it might be worthwhile to consider.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08979DF1S - $330

 

[kschendel]

Any drive can fail, SSD or hard drive. I've had zero trouble with my SSD's, some of which are beat on fairly hard all day long. That's a meaningless data point, of course.

Regardless of storage device type, you need a backup strategy. (Of course, you only back up the data you care about!) Mirroring (RAID 1) is not a backup strategy, it only protects you against storage device failure. It does nothing to protect you from board-level, software, or user failures. Operating without backups is just like doing high-wire without a net, except that it lacks the OMG factor.

I'm all-SSD now, except for one 8 TB drive that I only need to spin up when I'm loading a SF3000 TPC-H run. Definitely better than the days when my Ultra 60 had 20 hard drives spinning, and the daily driver Mac Pro had 4...

 

[Tech Junky]

all-SSD now

I've considered this as well but, bulk storage would get expensive quickly. If prices drop due to less chia and more supply to about $50/TB I would certainly move to non spinners. Right now though spinners sitting at $20/TB just makes more sense for me. I run a raid 10 for redundancy and anything that truly needs a backup I just drop into Google since it's 15gb of space for free and if you need more you just make another account.

Realistically the must have stuff doesn't add up to much space. The want to keeps do though unless you're producing content that has a monetary value and is large in size.

All drives do fail but, SSD chip based storage either works or doesn't. Spinners give warning signs though either audible or smart data warnings.

 

[OlyAR15]

I'm using 4tb SSD in my NAS, been using them for a couple of years now. So far so good. Just wish they weren't so expensive. I would have thought the 8tb ones would have dropped in price by now.

 

[Tech Junky]

8tb ones

I've been watching them for awhile as well and they seem to just stick at $1k for some reason. Though checking them for this thread I noticed the gen3 options i had saved all went oos and gen4 versions are finally hitting instead. It's a funny market though beyond the 2tb size. Could be the chia farmers snapping them up still. I suspect like the GPU market there will be a glut of stock soon.

 

[Charlie98]

All of my builds have a 2nd SSD as a storage drive, usually the retired OS SSD from that or another build, so it's not a huge SSD. In any event, I still have at least 1 HDD for long-term backup, and multiple portable USB HDD's for backup as well.

I have had an SSD fail... and the only thing that saved my data was my redundant backups on spinners.

 

[aigomorla]

I would have thought the 8tb ones would have dropped in price by now.

Im hearing its expensive because it requires a special type of controller to manage data greater then 2tb.
That is why for the longest time 4tb's were pricey as heck, and 2tb x 2 is still considerably cheaper.

I would love a large cap SSD, but i feel having SSD's in R0 is probably a better solution for most things i do then a single large SSD, as you get a multiplicative addition on writes, and also in most cases a increase in speed at the cost of latency, which is very marginal on a SSD.

 

[Tech Junky]

it requires a special type of controller to manage data greater then 2tb.

Not so much. It's like any other disk that needs to be using GPT instead of MBR to get beyond 2TB.

The issue with putting them in R0 though is if / when they die you lose all of your data and at the speeds of SAT/NVME SSDs it's a bit redundant anyway.

If you want SSD performance out of a spinner though Seagate made a dual actuator spinner under their "mach.2" that hits 500MB/s in terms of speed. The issue with these though is you can't find them anywhere as I've been looking for them to price them out for an upgrade.

Seagate MACH.2 Multi Actuator Technology Breaks Throughput Record; HAMR Reliability Tests Exceed Industry Standards | Seagate Blog

Seagate’s advanced HAMR and Multi Actuator technologies move closer to market At the OCP summit this week Seagate and its partners revealed new proof points showing continued progress, solid results, and customer and industry adoption of the company’s advanced …

blog.seagate.com

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