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 d

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.