Booting to SSD is 17 sec (think it's because it's set to boot to CD 1st) with HDD it's 100 sec. As long as I take current OS images every once in a while & backup data I can't see giving up on SSDs.
Thanks for the feedback, I'm about to buy a new machine and these kinda comments are a bit confusing and worrying to me. Some say SSD's are not reliable, and others say that's nonsense. I do wonder if I should just stick to HDD's. BTW, on some machines they give you a 64GB SSD, but Windows is installed on the regular 1 TB HDD, this is completely useless right? For speed the Windows OS should be installed on the SSD, if I'm correct?
Yes, it's best to put the OS on the SSD, and data on the HDD. But decent 240 GB SSDs are getting more affordable, so I'd consider using two of them in RAID1 for redundancy.
Any drive can fail. I have had worse luck with SSDs. You should have backups in any case. You should probably try a SSD to see how you feel about continuing with them in the future.
Yes, the Asus machine I bought earlier this year, had a 64GB SSD with nothing installed on it. When I copied some apps to it, I didn't see any speed difference, very weird. BTW, let's say the SSD with Windows dies, is there any way to still boot up Windows? Well, some comments including yours are worrying to me. Currently I have a 9 year old 250GB HDD from Maxtor, and even though it's highly fragmented, it's still working OK. How long do you think will a 120GB desktop SSD last? Does it also depend on how the SSD is used?
BTW, I found these links: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/consumer-grade-ssds-actually-last-a-hell-of-a-long-time/ http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/ssds-are-fast-but-do-they-last/3621 http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043634/how-to-stretch-the-life-of-your-ssd-storage.html
Well, you can always boot the install DVD. But if the SSD with Windows has truly died, there's nothing left to fix. That's why I said RAID1 aka mirrored disks. But I was forgetting the Windows aspect. I see that Windows does offer software RAID, but I don't know how reliable it is. I do know that "Intel motherboard RAID" is NOT reliable. And for what it's worth, I also know that Linux software RAID is reliable
Dead is dead. When mine died the laptop didn't even recognize there was a drive installed. Mine lasted about 3 years with light usage. You may consider that acceptable. My WD HDDs I put back are at least 5 years old and still going.
SSD as a boot disk. HDD(s) as storage disk(s). Macrium Reflect to create an image of the SSD to one of the internal disks, copy paste that image to an external disk. If the stored data is important use a file and folder sync software: sync from disk_1 to disk_2 (internal) and/or to disk_3 (external) and/or to the cloud (Dropbox type) There's also the NAS server solution which, though expensive, gives ease of use and reliability (plus you can do a lot of things with Synology's excellent, Linux based, software).
I'm currently using a 120 GB Kingston SSD in my laptop. It's fast and buggy. Pros: - Boot time is halved (for whatever that's worth) - Applications load a bit faster the first time - Backups and large file transfers take much less time - Not terribly expensive, and large enough for my needs - Comes packaged with an external drive enclosure and free partition backup software Cons: - The high I/O speed causes quirky behavior in some applications. e.g. VTE based terminal emulators seem to hang a lot. - Likewise, the laptop has developed some graphics and suspend issues that it didn't have before. No idea why. While it's fun to see a full KDE desktop load in 5 seconds, I'm not yet convinced that this was money well spent. The SATA drive enclosure was by far the best part of the deal IMO; as for performance, I saw more improvement in desktop responsiveness by propping up my laptop on makeshift legs (little adhesive plastic hooks that I bought for $1). So, for geeks I'm ambivalent; for end users, I'd recommend sticking with HDDs for a while longer.
The drive and its drivers are probably not configured correctly. And sometimes certain existing configurations just don't like to be upgraded.
I believe SSDs will be consumer-ready when you don't have to take into consideration all the precautions listed in the third article.
That is one plus for HDDs. With HDDs, mechanical components tend to fail before electronic components. And so failure is often gradual, allowing data recovery from failing drives. Several years ago, one of my HDDs developed a drive motor problem. Most of the time, it wouldn't spin up. But if I hit the computer case a few times, it eventually started. And it wasn't a loose power connector, by the way Well, consumer SSD technology has improved a lot in the past three years.
I have an external hard drive that getting that way. It takes several minutes before it spins up. I can't complain as it's an 80GB drive and about 10 years old. For 8 of those years, it ran 24/7. Now it stores system backups. What is considered to be the expected life of a current SSD of decent quality? IMO, a 3 year lifespan is unacceptable. When I consistently get 10+ years from HDDs, a 5 year lifespan would be disappointing. For me, reliability is far more important than speed. I'm also concerned with secure file erasure on SSDs.
noone_particular, According to this.... http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/consumer-grade-ssds-actually-last-a-hell-of-a-long-time/ ... my SSDs have 200 years to go. The Google study of 100,000 HDs found 40% were dead by 5 years.
I have bought a desktop with a 128GB SSD, the speed is worth it. I can't imagine that it won't last longer than 5 years. It's from Toshiba by the way.
A question to everyone who's using a SSD + HDD combo. How to setup the HDD? I've noticed that in the past few days I've been working only with the 128GB SSD, not that strange since Windows is installed on it, but what should be put on the 1TB HDD? And will it expand the life of the SSD? I must say that I'm impressed with the speed, everything loads faster and snappier.
I use SSD for system and programs. I put my data on HDD. I leave my Pagefile on SSD. IMO you shouldn't worry about SSD lifespan. If you use it "normally", you won't wear it out.
You could use the HDD for large files that you won't be editing a lot. If you do video, for example, you could keep files that you're actively working with on the SSD, and move older stuff to the HDD.
Put your "data" files on the HD. Keep the OS partition lean and mean. This makes for faster image backups and restores. Two minutes in my case for Win8. In the Win7 or Win8 Navigation pane on the left, in Favourites click Desktop Double click your username icon The following are icons to be dealt with.... Contacts Desktop Documents Downloads Favorites Links Music Pictures Saved Games Searches Videos Right click the item, Properties, Location tab Change C to D (so you now might have D:\Users\Brian\Desktop)(assuming D is the drive letter of your partition on the HD) Apply Yes to "Create Folder" Yes to "Move Folder" OK Any files subsequently placed in the above folders will be placed on the HD, along with the files just moved.
That's a huge difference. In other words, there's no consensus regarding how long SSDs really last, only that it's very dependent on how they're used.
Where did you get your 200 years from ? Don't forget the MTBF and the erratic behaviour that certain models behaved (they don't age/fail in the same manner to spinning disks) - the 840 Series started getting uncorrectable errors a third into its life. We are going to need someone like Google or Blazeback that can run and report on hundreds of SSDs being run in relatively well maintained environments over 5 or more years before we can compare trends and it will be a long time before SSD's will be suitable for use in the scale these guys use.
@ Simplicity, J_L, mirimir and Brian K Thanks for the feedback. It might sound a bit strange but I actually save all of my important and most used files on the desktop. So instead of doing that, I will make a couple of folders on the HDD, with shortcuts on the desktop. This will save space on the SSD, and will put the HDD to work.
