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About LinkBacksYes with my current machine, but my next build will likely be all ssd.
I do have server/nas for archival and they're staying on hdd, with ssd boost/os where possible, for a long while yet I would think.
Yes with my current machine, but my next build will likely be all ssd.
I do have server/nas for archival and they're staying on hdd, with ssd boost/os where possible, for a long while yet I would think.
Yes, and yes it is indeed a matter of size vs. cost for me.
Large storage sizes just aren't economical enough for most consumers in SSD compared to HDD. Especially if you bring shucking external HDDs into the equation, making the HDDs even cheaper.
I use SSD's for all my live data. However I do use a number of mechanical drives for offline backups. By which, I backup my live data to drives to store offsite, due to the low cost and connivance over tapes.
Yup. My desktop started out with 80 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD, excluding backups. I upgraded its SSDs twice, to 240 GB and then to 1 TB. Then, last summer, I added a 3 TB HDD, as I'd met the demands for fast storage, but was running low on mass storage. I anticipate my next upgrade will be on the SSD front again.
My backup storage (18 GB overall, providing one hot and two cold backup copies of my main data) is all mechanical, but both of the laptops I use only have SSD storage.
My laptops are all SSD. 1.25 TB in my new laptop, and 240 GB in my Core 2 Extreme laptop. Neither one has full copies of my pictures, DVD backups, program installer archives, etc., so they don't need tons of storage.
Failure-wise, I've only ever had one HDD fail, and no SSDs. These days I consider them about equal for stationary storage, and SSDs better for mobile storage. Regardless, I'd rather have the less reliable one, but backed up, than the more reliable one but not backed up.
Main drives are SSD, boot is 256 and the gaming (application) drive is 1Tb.
But the media drive (4Tb) with P2P, for MAME, and the connected backup (4Tb) are still mechanical. Performance isn't the driver (sic) with the latter two.
It's also a bit unfair to calling generalize mechanical drives as being "screeching". Most hard drives these days are actually pretty quiet. Yes, Toshiba's X300 is still pretty loud, but most of their drives aren't, and neither are most Western Digitals or Seagates. I returned my X300, but have no noise complaints about any of the other drives I've bought in the past 15 years.
Almost forgot, I also have a floppy disk drive in my main machine, which is mechanical storage. I was chuffed to get it up and working, and to provide some balance to its thoroughly 2010s hardware with some authentic 1990s storage. It did cost slightly less than the cheapest SSD at the store would have, thanks to already having an old drive and a few floppies on hand. But I can't say that getting a few megabytes online for cheap was the main driving factor.
Currently have 8TB of mechanical storage (2TBx4, in 2 4TB raid o arrays).
With that I have a 512gb NVME boot and a 256gb NVME as a cache on the raid arrays. Then I have 16GB ram caching whatever it likes across the above.
I will say the performance to price of the above setup means I won't change it unless I have to.
For any worried I backup everything on an 8tb external HD and run a UPS due to the ram caching which will shutdown if running out of battery and unattended.
Last edited by Percy1983; 21-08-2020 at 11:30 PM.
Yeah, approx 34TB of spinners across my NAS/server/USB backups, vs maybe 8tb of SSDs (made up of 500GB, 1 & 2tb units)
That would change considerably if high capacity SSDs dropped in price - a few 4tb ironwolf SSDs would be sweet.
Do I still use mechanical storage? Yes .... for some purposes.
Unlike the majority view here, I have always had one major reservation (and a question mark or two) about SSD's. The reservation is cost, or more specifically, value for money.
As far as I'm concerned, the cost of SSD's over mechanical, per GB, is only justified where that speed really matters. For some purposes, and some users, that cost is justified. For me, it's getting more and more justifiable at lower capacities. At High capacities, it either isn't justified (for me) or simply isn't available, short of second-mortgage pricing.
So .... booting a device? Not justified on main PCs, because I'm not sitting waiting for it. On many portable devices, like tablets, MS Surface Pro, etc, it probably is justified BUT anything above 128GB or 256GB at most, seriously bumps the price. And those capacities can be limiting if it iss that device's only storage device.
But an SSD of a modest size, like above, doesn't command that much of a premium over mechanical. So I ask myself, how big a boot drive do I need? Or, maybe boot plus applications. For many years, I've used a fairly small C drive for booting and system stuff, D drive for applications, F drive for main data. Drives E and G+ have varying uses depending on what the machine is for.
So I would normally use SSD for my D drive (software), maybe for C drive (boot) and for some data types. But most of my data files are relatively small, and relatively infrequently loaded and/or saved. So SSD has minimal benefit. But there can be a LOT of those files.
Oh, and games are generally (these days) on SSD.
So for me, I use a blend of SSD and mechanical, depending on the usage case.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
I'm not either, but I'm certainly no more trusting of mechanical drives than SSDs. Maybe less trusting of mechanical.Originally Posted by alpha channel
For files I can't afford to use, backup, backup, backup. How I do it varies. RAID (mirroring on some machines, RAID 5 on others) gives me some resilience but even then, backup. I see RAID as an adjunct to backup, never an alternative or replacement for backup. RAID, for me, is about trying to ensure a failure doesn't take my data out when I need it, for tight deadlines. Backups, or in some cases, what I call "archiving" is for making sure I don't lose important stuff. My definition of the difference is I "backup" data that changes frequently, but archive stuff that doesn't. For example, I "archive" masters of photo, video and audio files, typically onto MO or PD drives, due to media longevity. I backup files (or more accurately, drives or directories) that change regularly, onto more transient media.
Oh, and I always have several copies of "archived" data.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
How long do SSDs retain data without power applied compared to an HDD? How about flash drives?
CDs have proven to be unreliable over a 10 year period. Hopefully DVDs will be better than carefully stored HDDs with the same data. M-DISCs would look hopeful if the readers were likely to available for even a tenth of the expected life of the discs.
The only way to keep data is to keep transferring it to new media.
That's why I use MO and PD drives/discs. I've yet to lose data from one.
To be fair, I've been pretty lucky with both CD and DVD discs too, provided they're carefully stored. But I sure wouldn't trust them for a sole copy of anything that mattered.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
Currently using a 6TB and 2TB for game storage. Games are taking so much space that I'll likely need to add another 6TB. Instead of installing them when I want to play. I just leave them on the hdd and transfer them to ssd.
My main PC is now all solid state, given it's used mostly for gaming, it's got a 500gb SATA SSD and a 1tb nvme drive that Linux and windows respectively boot into.
However my home server has 16tb of spinning rust across 4 drives that stores all of my documents*, photos** and other media.
It does have a 128gb SATA SSD which Ubuntu server boots from, but that's largely used as transcoding partition for movies.***
*Also backed up elsewhere.
**Not THOSE sorts of photos, these are also backed up elsewhere.
***Not those kinds of movies either...
I have 12tb of NAS storage (3x4tb) in a QNAP TS-453A for all my music. I'd love to have SSD drives in it but cost is still prohibitive. My PC is 1tb M.2 nVME.
Yes, all my 3 PCs, including the one built 4 weeks ago have NVMe / SSD but also mechanical drives. SSD for boot and programs / Steam and HDD for drive image and other backups. SSD still way too expensive for me to use as backup storage. Also HDD in my NAS.
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