SSD worth the money?

[Shep]

Just speccing a couple of new work pc's, nearly there, but i have the option of adding 250gb SSD drives. Faster boot-ups and rapid access to my bigger programs are the attaction, there will also be 1TB standard hard drives as back up storage.

I could run everything from the 1tb HD but i fancy the ssd's for speed of access

Are they OK nowadays?

 

[twizzle]

Just speccing a couple of new work pc's, nearly there, but i have the option of adding 250gb SSD drives. Faster boot-ups and rapid access to my bigger programs are the attaction, there will also be 1TB standard hard drives as back up storage.

I could run everything from the 1tb HD but i fancy the ssd's for speed of access

Are they OK nowadays?

We use them for our pre-sales laptops......very fast boot up and the VM's run much faster..... Our internal techs muttered about limited life due to no re-writes on the disc but when we looked at it in detail it was 4-5 years and we replace our laptops every three years.. So didnt stress about it...

 

[Grim Rider]

I have an Apple AirMac I use for work and a Samsung netbook I use for motorcycle rallies and have SSDs in both of them, partly for speed of boot up and partly for reliability as I carry both on the motorbike and had problems with hard drives in the past. To date both SSD drives been very reliable.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

They are pretty good but they do have the limiter write to problem. Couple of things you can do. Turn off defrag and don't run anything that involves a lot of writing. I have known their write cycles to be used up in months but that was an extreme case and made worse by someone who didn't have a clue.

 

[ebbo]

They are pretty good but they do have the limiter write to problem. Couple of things you can do. Turn off defrag and don't run anything that involves a lot of writing. I have known their write cycles to be used up in months but that was an extreme case and made worse by someone who didn't have a clue.

I thought it was all win with a Solid State Drive, I had no idea there was a write limit, I doubt many people do

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

They are managed better than your typical USB flash drive but the underlying tech is still pretty much the same just bigger and faster. If used properly or at home they will last a long time, longer than normal drives in many cases but write to them a lot and their lives can be short but that should only happen in commercial use. Servers can kill them quick for example but sometimes they are worth every penny because of the speed advantage.

 

[Shep]

I thought it was all win with a Solid State Drive, I had no idea there was a write limit, I doubt many people do

Me too, i've a few more questions to ask the tech bods now, cheers.

I am now waiting for my Ipad to pack up now i'd guess thats SSD?

 

[Blackal]

I quite fancy the idea as the operating system drive for my next PC, and for my next laptop's Operating System/Applications.

I use Lenovo laptops, and you can fit a second HDD in place of the optical drive - and with 1TB drives common - everything else can go on that.

Al

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

I definitely wouldn't be concerned about ssd on a mobile device. They hardly write any data so ssd will probably last way longer than the rest of the device. Most general users on laptop or desktop will never have a problem either but then other than a fast boot will probably never notice any other benefit either. Is it really worth the big extra cost to save a few seconds? I guess that's up to the individual.

 

[shugie]

SSDs do make a lot of difference to speed for most things, just be aware that they need slightly more care than conventional hard disks when it comes to backup. I backup my SSDs on a daily routine.

 

[Shep]

SSDs do make a lot of difference to speed for most things, just be aware that they need slightly more care than conventional hard disks when it comes to backup. I backup my SSDs on a daily routine.

I hesitate to ask but why do they need extra care?

 

[ianf]

I hesitate to ask but why do they need extra care?

They can be buggered up by constant writing to the same blocks, and eventually run out of spares. Though the firmware in the controller takes care of most of it, it's better to avoid writing small bits of data to the same files over and over thousands of time. Writing can slow down in these cases too as it needs to erase many more bits in a low level address line to rewrite the data, the erase is slow. They aren't a lot less reliable than modern spinning drives, but they are more complex logically, and therein lies chances of losing stuff if the firmware is buggy. They can also get multiple bit errors if radiation gets them, unlike rusty plates.

Buy a normal disk for backups, and do them daily, same as you should do anyway, and all will be well.

We use (sell) slc drives at work, for some very high activity files, and the failure rates have been ok. We treat them like tyres, rather than wheels, as they will wear out, and bump up maintenance charges to cover replacement.

 

[original_concept]

Maybe Apple have it right, I've been using a Macbook Air with a 256GB SSD getting on for 2.5 years.

No problems and its used nigh on daily, at work (all day) and then some after.

Like now.

Maybe all this doom-mongering is Windows specific ;-)

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Maybe Apple have it right, I've been using a Macbook Air with a 256GB SSD getting on for 2.5 years.

No problems and its used nigh on daily, at work (all day) and then some after.

Like now.

Maybe all this doom-mongering is Windows specific ;-)

Depends what your using it for. Are most of your documents off the device like cloud or network share. How much saving do you actually do on the device? Lots of people think they are heavy users but in reality as far as the device are concerned they aren't. They save a hand full of documents a day, surf the Web and read a lot of stuff. Creation/saving is fairly low though. You can read an ssd indefinitely, it's writing that is limited.

 

[original_concept]

Lol. Don't confuse me with a consumer.

The Cloud? Geez. Lets see. Cent OS running WebSphere 7/8.

Windows 7 / 8 VMs.
GIT repos.

Then all the good apple stuff, aperture. Devonthink DBs.

I could go on but you get the picture.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Yes sure so your a pro but you still didn't answer the question. How much do you actually save on your Macbook? DB'S mean squat they are read thousands of times more than written too. Linux is every bit as guilty at writing as windows is. Between linux swap files and windows page file they are just as bad as each other.

 

[shugie]

I don't think the issue is operating system specific, just that I know there is a limit to the number of write cycles, and I have no way of determining how many write cycles will be needed to cause the disk to fail, so tend to make doubly sure that I have a decent, recent, backup.

If I was really concerned about it I would have two mirrored.

 

[Clive]

I don't think the issue is operating system specific, just that I know there is a limit to the number of write cycles, and I have no way of determining how many write cycles will be needed to cause the disk to fail, so tend to make doubly sure that I have a decent, recent, backup.

If I was really concerned about it I would have two mirrored.

Not sure that would help, wouldn't you end up with 2 duff disks at the same time?

 

[Blackal]

Lol. Don't confuse me with a consumer.

The Cloud? Geez. Lets see. Cent OS running WebSphere 7/8.

Windows 7 / 8 VMs.
GIT repos.

Then all the good apple stuff, aperture. Devonthink DBs.

I could go on but you get the picture.

No no - please.................. go on

 

[cbutler]

Just bought the Samsung 840 Pro, 550MB/s read and write is immense. Load time on my MacBook is literally 10 seconds (timed it ). Games are instant and haven't seen it freeze (yet?)

In terms of life, it comes with a five year warranty which is longer than any mechanical drive has ever lasted me.