Are external storage drives finally safe to use?

Rolo, I'm not sure you can be so hard and fast with those facts. If an SSD experiences a power supply failure and fries it's FLASH modules... nothing will be there.

If an HDD has a serious head crash, data WILL be lost. If either lose their controller module, the "surface" (Nand block) data will be just fine... replacing of each (fairly low cost) will allow for almost full recovery.

It really depends on how it prematurely fails...

 

Note I emphasized "premature death" of an SSD. In fact, even if your SSD is not dead, if you want to recover some data you accidentally deleted a while ago, you simply can not, even with hefty paid services. The reason is simple, because of the trim command.

When you delete your data from a trim-enabled SSD, basically your data is gone for good, becomes trim constantly move the data files on your SSD to new blocks of NAND flash, therefore the old data was constantly overwritten by new data, in order to balance the write load of SSD blocks. On HDD, only the entry of that file from the file table is erased, the data itself is still on the HDD on its original block, therefore it is recoverable, up until you overwrite it when new data manually. There is a huge difference.

http://techgage.com/article/too_trim_when_ssd_data_recovery_is_impossible/

 

Except that when an SSD fails you can't do anything with it. Not even read it. Not without a recovery lab.

 

Well no device will retain data if it is immolated...not much point in stating that.

Same with an HDD. When you say "SSD fails" you mean the controller, not the storage. Flash memory does fail and those failures are built into the design of the SSD and handled by the controller. If the controller breaks (because, well, that must be a common problem somewhere though I've only witnessed it once, when it was struck by lightning.) then, no, you can't access anything with that--just like an HDD with a bad controller.

The JEDEC standard for flash memory in SSDs is 1 year (older SLCs last longer, like 10 or some such); when the drive fails, it faults into read-only so its contents are preserved for recovery. That's the standard--regardless of when it happened, premature or otherwise. It isn't my opinion packaged as facts; since I'm not an authoritative source, go look it up. You can start here (it's really dry reading though): https://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/focus/flash/solid-state-drives
or here: http://www.jedec.org/standards-docu...06?order=field_doc_full_number_value&sort=asc

An SSD is less likely to suffer "premature" failure since it has no mechanical parts which are the most prone to fail, prematurely or otherwise. If your HDD mechanics fail, you're not retrieving your data. If your HDD is burned to a cinder, you're not getting your data then either. Given that the OP is talking about external storage, which would you have more faith in: a dropped SSD or a dropped HDD (on or off)?

Seriously? None of this has anything to do with SSD/HDD data retention after device failure.

If I delete data, it goes to the recycle bin. If I delete that, I want it gone. Sector recovery is the Hail Mary you use when you really screwed up, not as a reliable means of recovery since, as you've pointed out, doesn't work if those sectors were overwritten. Of course, this is all moot since we're talking HDD failure which means those sectors, overwritten or not, aren't accessible by you any longer.

Yes, your data are still on the platters save for any head bounces/crashes/defects in magnetic media but show me a "low cost" platter recovery service; I'm betting "call for a free quote" is mutually exclusive with "fairly low-cost". Backups would be cheaper.

Anyway, the original point I was correcting here is that data on SSDs aren't irrecoverable after failure and that is by design; how you go about that is determined by your firmware.

Finally, one doesn't plan to recover data off of a failed device; that's what separate backup mechanisms are for.

 

Yes a SSD may suffer premature failure, and when it fails, it fails without warning signs. S.M.A.R.T monitoring software is useless on a SSD. You may have your external SSD working 100% today, but tomorrow you may not even be able to find it in BIOS, a 100% death. With HDD, you can use SMART monitoring tools to monitor its status. When you see warning signs, yo backup your data immediately.


Of course the best way it to keep at least two backup copies of your data and never have to recover from a dying/dead device.

 

I think "inability to write due to end-of-write-life" needs to be substituted for failure in that context.

Anyways, drives are black boxes. When they fail I throw them in the garbage. I don't bother with analysis or anything time consuming. And it is best to avoid the data recovery scenario by doing backups.

 

It is not an anomaly. The speed is in Mbits/sec. So you are actually getting around 62.5 MB/s. You can change from bits/sec to bytes/sec in Marcium. Go to Edit Defaults > Advanced > Advanced Backup Options > Report Transfer Rates In.

 

Thanks Raza0007!

 

I have a WD 750 GB My Passport USB 3 drive (granted not ruggedized) that is one of the drives I use for backup. It is several years old and came with a bunch of crappy software that fortunately could be removed. Most of the newer external combo drives (my nickname) come with encryption built in which can't readily be removed and is not associated with a password. In short after reading a few horror stories I don't want any part of them.

 

uh-oh. i just bought a 2 TB WD portable a few weeks ago and haven't got around to using it yet. took an image of the ~300 MB of stuff on there and was hoping to reformat and wipe everything off of there.

 

I ended up ordering this enclosure along with a Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000 1.0 TB ... will test and report the findings

 

Also have a WD and a LaCie here that are dead. Kept the LaCie and saving cash to send it to a pro recovery service since there is data on there that I would be extremely happy to have again.

Since that happened I have been with HGST and had a good experience so far. If you look at this https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
you might also be able to make a good decision on what HDD to get. HGST was bought by WD, though you can still get HGST HDDs. The 2TB as well as 4TB HDD from HGST are solid I find.

Those are not really external HDDs but I keep them in a docking station and that works quite well I find.

Alternatively you could look at SSDs. If I had the cash I would get the 1TB version of this one http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_850_pro_ssd_2tb_review
and use it for the OS on C:, assign 100GB to that and the rest for data and work on D:, though then that would be internal and I guess using a SSD over an external connection would perhaps cause a bottleneck, meaning the speed you get from the SSD could be slowed down by a slow USB connection.

edit: The Samsung SSD has a 10 year guarantee.. enough said.

 

I have a 512 meg Samsung 850 Pro and a 256 meg 840 Pro in my primary rig and they are both excellent drives. The 512 meg is almost a year old and the 256 meg is going on 2 years and both are as fast as they were the day I bought them. The Oyen Mini Pro with the HGST 1 gig 2.5" drive that I referenced above is excellent as well and quite fast and inaudible for a standard hard drive.