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I need an external disk for my laptop that I leave plugged in all the time. What is the most reliable external hard drive type? I thought SSDs were more reliab

by bravura 11y ago

I need an external disk for my laptop that I leave plugged in all the time. What is the most reliable external hard drive type? I thought SSDs were more reliable than spinning disks, especially to leave plugged in constantly, but now I'm not as sure.

Thorbears 11y ago
This article, and the majority of the comments here, are about using SSDs in server environments, where permanently high load and zero downtime is the norm. And it doesn't even seem to be about SSDs vs HDDs, it is about SSDs vs future technologies. For personal use, SSDs outperform HDDs in just about every aspect, if you can afford the cost, an SSD is the better choice. And there is nothing mentioned here about downsides of leaving a drive plugged in and powered on at all times.
ScottBurson 11y ago
I still don't trust SSDs as much as I do spinning disks. While neither kind of drive should be trusted with the only copy of important data, I would say that drives used for backup, or for access to large amounts of data that can be recovered or recreated if lost and where the performance requirements do not demand an SSD, might as well be HDDs -- they're cheaper, and arguably still more reliable. If the workload is write-heavy, HDDs are definitely preferred as they will last much longer. While all disks can fail, HDDs are less likely to fail completely; usually they just start to develop bad sectors, so you may still be able to recover much of their contents. When an SSD goes, it generally goes completely (at least, so I've read). So it depends on your needs and how you plan to use the drive. For light use, it probably doesn't matter much either way. For important data, you need to keep it backed up in either case. SSDs use less power, particularly when idle, so if you're running on battery a lot, that would be a consideration as well.
- cnvogel 11y ago
  Anecdotal evidence: 2.5" SATA HDD failed for me suddenly just last Tuesday, SMART was fine before, both the attributes and a long (complete surface scan) selftest I did a few weeks ago after I got this lightly used notebook from a colleague (I only needed for tests). I think what people experience is that the sudden death of SSDs doesn't occur more often than on HDDs. But with the mechanical issues and slowly building up of bad sectors gone, sudden death is probably the only visible issue left. (Just my personal opinion.)

by bravura 11y ago

Thorbears 11y ago

This article, and the majority of the comments here, are about using SSDs in server environments, where permanently high load and zero downtime is the norm. And it doesn't even seem to be about SSDs vs HDDs, it is about SSDs vs future technologies. For personal use, SSDs outperform HDDs in just about every aspect, if you can afford the cost, an SSD is the better choice. And there is nothing mentioned here about downsides of leaving a drive plugged in and powered on at all times.

ScottBurson 11y ago

I still don't trust SSDs as much as I do spinning disks. While neither kind of drive should be trusted with the only copy of important data, I would say that drives used for backup, or for access to large amounts of data that can be recovered or recreated if lost and where the performance requirements do not demand an SSD, might as well be HDDs -- they're cheaper, and arguably still more reliable. If the workload is write-heavy, HDDs are definitely preferred as they will last much longer. While all disks can fail, HDDs are less likely to fail completely; usually they just start to develop bad sectors, so you may still be able to recover much of their contents. When an SSD goes, it generally goes completely (at least, so I've read). So it depends on your needs and how you plan to use the drive. For light use, it probably doesn't matter much either way. For important data, you need to keep it backed up in either case. SSDs use less power, particularly when idle, so if you're running on battery a lot, that would be a consideration as well.

cnvogel 11y ago
Anecdotal evidence: 2.5" SATA HDD failed for me suddenly just last Tuesday, SMART was fine before, both the attributes and a long (complete surface scan) selftest I did a few weeks ago after I got this lightly used notebook from a colleague (I only needed for tests). I think what people experience is that the sudden death of SSDs doesn't occur more often than on HDDs. But with the mechanical issues and slowly building up of bad sectors gone, sudden death is probably the only visible issue left. (Just my personal opinion.)