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SSD Question / Regular Hard Drive

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forumguy302

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Aug 19, 2013
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First time poster here, been around 'lurking' for a little while.

Anyways, I am building my second computer and looking to get an SSD, I have read that SSDs do not have as long of a life as a conventional drive, is this true?

The reason I am asking is I am looking at this SSD - http://www.atdcomputers.com/proddetail.asp?prod=mz-7te1T0bw

I figure 1tb is plenty of storage, but am curious if it will be able to last the life of the computer. I do a lot of data transfer to my machines for work, so I will be writing/deleting quite a bit.

Would I be fine running this drive only?

Or would it be better to run something like the 840 pro listed here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W00ZD1548 as my main drive, and a traditional HDD for storage/writing?

Thanks in advance!
 
Depends how you use it.
If you constantly write 10's of GB to it when its nearly full, it wont last long.
As for it lasting as long as your PC, nobody can give you that guarantee when you dont give a timescale, we dont know how much data you will write, how much free space you can leave and we dont know the average of how long any SSD will really last anyway.

If you dont need an SSD, use hard drives. Unless it will save you enough money to replace them if they go titsup.
 
I have read that SSDs do not have as long of a life as a conventional drive, is this true?
Click to expand...

In most cases no. SSDs have expected lifetimes of at least 2 times that of a spinning hard drive when used in a desktop computer or laptop with typical desktop usage. This is provided you purchased a 128GB or larger modern day SSD and you do not have a runaway application that is constantly writing to the SSD.
 
I do a lot of data transfer to my machines for work, so I will be writing/deleting quite a bit.
Click to expand...

SSDs can handle 10s of GB of writes every single day for 5 or so years. Is this the scale of writing that you plan?
 
drescherjm said:
SSDs can handle 10s of GB of writes every single day for 5 or so years. Is this the scale of writing that you plan?
Click to expand...

This is true if the writes are not concentrated on a small set of cells.
 
It helps, but drives with a small amount of free space have to do a lot more juggling which adds more writes overall than if there was more free space.
Another issue is that there needs to be enough background time to perform the wear leveling before the next mass write occurs, otherwise the least worn cells wont be available.
 
Even when there is little free space there is almost always a bit of over provisioning. Usually the difference between GiB and GB. Drives are specified in GB but have GiB actual NAND. The rest will be used in overprovisioning. Although some drives go further and reserve more space for overprovisioning models like 240GB or 250GB have added overprovisioning.
 
Agreed, although the GB/day lifetime considers over provisioning but does not assume the drive is near full, there will be some form of average use factored in.
The problem is magnified when there are a lot of large writes in a short space of time and little space left.
If this was irregular, it wouldnt matter much as things could even out.
 
Many consumer SATA SSDs are outright garbage.

Good one only have about the same reliability as good HDs.

There are specific problems you need to be aware of, such as that SSDs refresh their data on a regular basis while powered up. If you place them on a shelf too long, or turn off your computer indefinitely, they simply forget their contents.

Another specific problem is that raid1 on SSDs is a really bad idea since many fault causes in SSDs are closely correlated to the amount of data written, and in raid1 they are synchronized and will fail close to each other. You might not have a chance to sync in a new drive.
 
Thanks for all of the help. I have decided to go with the SSD for now. I purchased on Friday! From what I have read here and researched, the SSD should do just fine. I do write a bit of data and delete it regularly but no where near the drives limits.
 
Been running my O.G. Intel Extreme's in RAID5 for almost 5 years now. Not a single hiccup and I write/delete a lot of data to them. You should be fine. Just buy an external and keep all your data backed up just in case.
 
HydroBudz said:
Been running my O.G. Intel Extreme's in RAID5 for almost 5 years now. Not a single hiccup and I write/delete a lot of data to them. You should be fine. Just buy an external and keep all your data backed up just in case.
Click to expand...

Not to nitpick, just saying. You learn the true value of your raid subsystem when drives fail.
 
there are two kinds of SSD.one is FLASH, another is DRAM.
The former useful life isn't very long, but not the latter.
 
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