long-lasting SSD/HDD for ~$100?

[primexx]

There's two concepts being talked about, and this leads to the common misconception that HDDs are more reliable than SSDs.

 

One concept is failure rate, I'll call that reliability. The numbers clearly show that SSDs are superior in this respect. The lack of moving parts does wonders for continuing-to-work-properly. Early SSDs had potential issues with unreliable controllers but the technology has long matured to be more stable than spinning platter drives.

 

The other concept - which people who claim that HDDs are more reliable think of - is how long you can safely keep the data on the media, I'll call this longevity for lack of a better term. Here, HDDs do much better than SSDs because of the way that flash cells work. SSDs have a finite and definite lifetime measured in write cycles, and when that fails it fails spectacularly. Plus the cells lose charge over time if not refreshed. In contrast, HDDs - being magnetic - don't really have a pre-predetermined time-to-nonfunction, and the data still exists on the platters even after the drive stops working, so you can if you really wanted to extract the bits directly. As a result, you can estimate pretty accurately when an SSD will stop holding your data with just the average load on the disk, whereas an HDD can hold data indefinitely, *if* it doesn't fail.

 

So what's more reliable? SSDs, no question about it. An average SSD's failure rate is better than the best HDD's failure rate. (still just talking about ~2% here, so the difference is mostly fractions of a percentage point). What is likely to keep your data longer? HDDs probably.

 

But the real question is: why don't you have enough copies so you don't have to care which storage media is slightly better at keeping your data safe?

[moeburn]

A hybrid drive is a regular HDD with a little bit of NAND (flash) cache. Basically it runs an algorithm that learns what your most used data is and then stores it on the NAND.  So you'll get a bit more speed for your most used data, but overall, it's nowhere near the performance of a SSD.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025402/ssds-vs-hard-drives-vs-hybrids-which-storage-tech-is-right-for-you-.html

 

In Windows, isn't that the exact same result as having a standard HDD, and a USB key with ReadyBoost enabled on it?

[threetonesun]

A hybrid drive is a regular HDD with a little bit of NAND (flash) cache. Basically it runs an algorithm that learns what your most used data is and then stores it on the NAND.  So you'll get a bit more speed for your most used data, but overall, it's nowhere near the performance of a SSD.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025402/ssds-vs-hard-drives-vs-hybrids-which-storage-tech-is-right-for-you-.html

 

Confusingly, Apple uses the Fusion Drive to describe an SSD + a spinning drive managed as one drive through software. So that is an option on some PCs now, but in general "hybrid" drives are as you described here.

[Astra.Xtreme]

In Windows, isn't that the exact same result as having a standard HDD, and a USB key with ReadyBoost enabled on it?

 

It probably is similar, but the speed of USB is slow in comparison to SATA speeds.

[moeburn]

There's two concepts being talked about, and this leads to the common misconception that HDDs are more reliable than SSDs.

 

One concept is failure rate, I'll call that reliability. The numbers clearly show that SSDs are superior in this respect. The lack of moving parts does wonders for continuing-to-work-properly. Early SSDs had potential issues with unreliable controllers but the technology has long matured to be more stable than spinning platter drives.

 

The other concept - which people who claim that HDDs are more reliable think of - is how long you can safely keep the data on the media, I'll call this longevity for lack of a better term. Here, HDDs do much better than SSDs because of the way that flash cells work. SSDs have a finite and definite lifetime measured in write cycles, and when that fails it fails spectacularly. Plus the cells lose charge over time if not refreshed. In contrast, HDDs - being magnetic - don't really have a pre-predetermined time-to-nonfunction, and the data still exists on the platters even after the drive stops working, so you can if you really wanted to extract the bits directly. As a result, you can estimate pretty accurately when an SSD will stop holding your data with just the average load on the disk, whereas an HDD can hold data indefinitely, *if* it doesn't fail.

 

So what's more reliable? SSDs, no question about it. An average SSD's failure rate is better than the best HDD's failure rate. (still just talking about ~2% here, so the difference is mostly fractions of a percentage point). What is likely to keep your data longer? HDDs probably.

 

But the real question is: why don't you have enough copies so you don't have to care which storage media is slightly better at keeping your data safe?

 

Thanks, thats the best answer yet!  

 

I guess I'm more interested in failure rates than data longevity.  My data isn't important, I'm just a desktop gaming PC user.  I just want to know which will last longer before I have to go out and buy a new one.

[ViperAFK]

wait wtf is a hybrid, is that an SSD and an HDD in one?  how do they show up in the PC, as two drives? as two partitions?  i hope to god not just one partition that automatically manages between SSD and HDD...

It just shows up like a regular HDD. The HDD has a few gigs of SLC flash that is automatically used as an intelligent cache.

[pickytech]

Modern SSD's should last years, and years unless you have some sort of abnormal ridiculously high write workload on them constantly. The samsung 840's are pretty decent SSD's too, I have two of them. The 256gb 840 (tlc) in my gaming desktop as my os/programs drive (my games are mostly on a dedicated WD black 750gb), and a 128g 840 pro (mlc) in my laptop as the only drive.

While I do not own the Samsung 840, I do own the Samsung 830. I have had it for the better part of a year and a half (I did not get the 840 for a reason that I cannot remember--I think it was not in stock--following a poorly timed Vertex 3 failure last year around the physical release of the Intel 520).

 

It failed catastrophically this past Saturday with a majority of my data being lost. The boot sector became corrupted somehow, and upon installation of a different drive, I found that literally about half of the drive was lost in the murky undeleted state that corrupted drives can get themselves into; many files were seemingly not there at all.  I was able to recover the majority of my data (most was backed up, thankfully meaning I only lost a day or two at best) with some software recovery, but I cannot say how disappointed I am.

 

Now, I have also had an OCZ Vertex 3 have its boot sector corrupted twice (same drive), but that was a relatively known issue after the fact, and there was zero data loss beyond the boot sector corruption.

 

I had almost purchased the Intel 520 back when I bought the Samsung 830, but I went with the Samsung due to assumed reliability and cost. Now, I regret that decision.  The Intel drive is admittedly a better model, but it is noticeably faster and it comes with a five year warranty.  Ordinarily, I like to order my computer hardware online (e.g., Newegg, and more commonly Amazon due to fast free shipping as well as price recently), but MicroCenter actually price matched Newegg, which matched Amazon, and I got it on the day that I needed it.

 

None of the other hardware (or OS) had changed in any of the boot sector failures, and it is leading me to suspect that my power supply may be bad (my PC is hooked into a battery backup that cleans/stabilizes the voltage before passing it along).  Fortunately, I bought a good one during a big sale, but I never got around to installing it.  I think it's now time to do so in order to avoid having my Intel SSD see the same failure.  It's odd though because the Vertex 3 failed pretty quickly (twice in two months), while it took the Samsung 830 just under a year and a half to fail.

 

Anyway, if I were looking to spend $100, then I would probably buy a HDD unless you find an ultra reliable SSD (supposedly the Samsung 840 or Intel).  The best thing about HDD is certainly capacity in that price range. The Hybrid drive is probably the best choice at that price for maximum lifetime bang-for-your-buck.

[ViperAFK]

While I do not own the Samsung 840, I do own the Samsung 830. I have had it for the better part of a year and a half (I did not get the 840 for a reason that I cannot remember following a poorly timed Vertex 3 failure last year around the physical release of the Intel 520).

 

It failed catastrophically this past Saturday with a majority of my data being lost. The boot sector became corrupted somehow, and upon installation of a different drive, I found that literally about half of the drive was lost in the murky undeleted state that corrupted drives can get themselves into; many files were seemingly not there at all.  I was able to recover the majority of my data (most was backed up, thankfully meaning I only lost a day or two at best) with some software recovery, but I cannot say how disappointed I am.

 

Now, I have also had an OCZ Vertex 3 have its boot sector corrupted twice (same drive), but that was a relatively known issue after the fact, and there was zero data loss beyond the boot sector corruption.

 

I had almost purchased the Intel 520 back when I bought the Samsung 830, but I went with the Samsung due to assumed reliability and cost. Now, I regret that decision.  The Intel drive is admittedly a better model, but it is noticeably faster and it comes with a five year warranty.  Ordinarily, I like to order my computer hardware online (e.g., Newegg, and more commonly Amazon due to fast free shipping as well as price recently), but MicroCenter actually price matched Newegg, which matched Amazon, and I got it on the day that I needed it.

 

None of the other hardware (or OS) had changed in any of the boot sector failures, and it is leading me to suspect that my power supply may be bad (my PC is hooked into a battery backup that cleans/stabilizes the voltage before passing it along).  Fortunately, I bought a good one during a big sale, but I never got around to installing it.  I think it's now time to do so in order to avoid having my Intel SSD see the same failure.  It's odd though because the Vertex 3 failed pretty quickly (twice in two months), while it took the Samsung 830 just under a year and a half to fail.

 

Anyway, if I were looking to spend $100, then I would probably buy a HDD unless you find an ultra reliable SSD (supposedly the Samsung 840 or Intel).  The best thing about HDD is certainly capacity in that price range. The Hybrid drive is probably the best choice at that price for maximum lifetime bang-for-your-buck.

I still have a vertex 2 on one of my older machines that still works great, after years of constant use too (it used to be in my gaming desktop that was on pretty much 24/7 that the 840 is in now, I transferred it into my older laptop recently after I got the samsung 840 upgrade for my gaming desktop)

 

BTW the samsung 840 pro in my laptop also has a 5 year warranty :) and the regular 840 in my desktop has a 3 year warranty. Both these warranty's are more than you find in most hdd's these days... (it seems a lot of hdd's have moved towards 2 year warranties from what I see on newegg.)

[moeburn]

None of the other hardware (or OS) had changed in any of the boot sector failures, and it is leading me to suspect that my power supply may be bad (my PC is hooked into a battery backup that cleans/stabilizes the voltage before passing it along).

 

For the record, power supplies and AC/DC electricity are my thing.  I think you're describing a "pure sine-wave" UPS instead of a "modified sine wave" one.  Which really doesn't matter for a PC. Unless "cleans/stabilizes the voltage" is just marketing lingo for "uses power capacitors and a voltage regulator", in which case I would hope to god it did. They all do that.  

 

But the point is, so does your PC power supply.  They all have voltage regulators on the output side of the transformer, and they (and the transformer itself) have a lot of tolerance towards modified-sine-wave power inverters.  So unless your PSU's voltage regulators have gone wonky (very possible), your UPS shouldn't have anything to do with it.  If your mobo reports your PSU voltage levels, you can graph them on your PC to check and see how the regulators are doing.  If not, you can measure them with a DMM.  Either way, I kinda doubt they are causing your SSD failures.

[ViperAFK]

For the record, power supplies and AC/DC electricity are my thing.  I think you're describing a "pure sine-wave" UPS instead of a "modified sine wave" one.  Which really doesn't matter for a PC. Unless "cleans/stabilizes the voltage" is just marketing lingo for "uses power capacitors and a voltage regulator", in which case I would hope to god it did. They all do that.  

 

But the point is, so does your PC power supply.  They all have voltage regulators on the output side of the transformer, and they (and the transformer itself) have a lot of tolerance towards modified-sine-wave power inverters.  So unless your PSU's voltage regulators have gone wonky (very possible), your UPS shouldn't have anything to do with it.  If your mobo reports your PSU voltage levels, you can graph them on your PC to check and see how the regulators are doing.  If not, you can measure them with a DMM.  Either way, I kinda doubt they are causing your SSD failures.

If he keeps getting SSD's failing that quickly though something is definitely going on, even if its not the PSU. SSD's typically have very low failure rates, and lasting under a year for any ssd is highly abnormal. And samsung has a pretty solid reputation for reliability (OCZ's reputation is a little shaky though)

[moeburn]

If he keeps getting SSD's failing that quickly though something is definitely going on, even if its not the PSU. SSD's typically have very low failure rates, and lasting under a year for any ssd is highly abnormal. And samsung has a pretty solid reputation for reliability (OCZ's reputation is a little shaky though)

 

Yeah, but unless that 5v line feeding his SSD is completely isolated from any other lines and has no other devices connected to it, surely some other pc component would have gone wonky first?

[ViperAFK]

Yeah, but unless that 5v line feeding his SSD is completely isolated from any other lines and has no other devices connected to it, surely some other pc component would have gone wonky first?

I don't profess to know what's causing his SSD issues, just saying that having that many SSD's fail in such a short timespan is highly abnormal :)

[ToneKnee]

I'd like to point out to the Op that the article from ZDnet he posted here is from 2 years ago and consumer grade SSD's have made advances since then.  I would go with a SSD, anything Intel or Samsung can be reliable, especially Intel as they usually have longer warranty periods.

 

We can argue all day which is more reliable but at the end of it all, you can either have a good drive or a bad drive.

[primexx]

I'd like to point out to the Op that the article from ZDnet he posted here is from 2 years ago and consumer grade SSD's have made advances since then.  I would go with a SSD, anything Intel or Samsung can be reliable, especially Intel as they usually have longer warranty periods.

 

We can argue all day which is more reliable but at the end of it all, you can either have a good drive or a bad drive.

 

Intel's probably still among the best but the fact remains that they're not using their own controller right now. Considering that the next generation Intel controller is in the pipelines for enterprise SSDs, I'd just recommend going Samsung at this time with their new-ish MDX controllers. Both companies built up the reliability reputation on their own previous-gen tech, and Samsung is the one that's actually using their own this generation. Intel's validation of SandForce no doubt helps, but I just don't see how it can compare to the old Intel controllers.

[pickytech]

But the point is, so does your PC power supply.  They all have voltage regulators on the output side of the transformer, and they (and the transformer itself) have a lot of tolerance towards modified-sine-wave power inverters.  So unless your PSU's voltage regulators have gone wonky (very possible), your UPS shouldn't have anything to do with it.  If your mobo reports your PSU voltage levels, you can graph them on your PC to check and see how the regulators are doing.  If not, you can measure them with a DMM.  Either way, I kinda doubt they are causing your SSD failures.

Power is not my thing, so that's good to know.  I'll have to give the graph a shot, but if this was all just really bad luck, then I will be even more disappointed to have it strike three times.

[moeburn]

Power is not my thing, so that's good to know.  I'll have to give the graph a shot, but if this was all just really bad luck, then I will be even more disappointed to have it strike three times.

 

I know about power supplies in general, but I have no idea what kind of tolerance the various PC components would have to variations in voltage.  I don't know of any graphing software, but I personally use OpenHardwareMonitor which displays all my PSU's voltages, as well records their minimum and maximum values.  

 

Here's a sample from my PC, but again, I really don't know about what variations in voltage are typical for a good PC PSU.  But this is a relatively new (6mo) Thermaltake 500w PSU, and I haven't had any problems with it.

+- FRS780M (/mainboard)
|  |
|  +- ITE IT8720F (/lpc/it8720f)
|  |                    :   current    MIN      MAX
|  |  +- CPU VCore      :    1.312    1.312    1.344 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/0)
|  |  +- Voltage #2     :     1.12     1.12     1.12 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/1)
|  |  +- Voltage #3     :     3.04    2.992    3.072 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/2)
|  |  +- Voltage #4     :    2.928     2.88    2.928 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/3)
|  |  +- Voltage #5     :     2.16     2.16     2.16 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/4)
|  |  +- Voltage #6     :    3.376    3.328    3.376 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/5)
|  |  +- Voltage #7     :     2.16     2.16     2.16 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/6)
|  |  +- Voltage #8     :    2.176    2.176    2.176 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/7)
|  |  +- VBat           :    3.264    3.264    3.264 (/lpc/it8720f/voltage/8)

[+LogicalApex MVC]

There's two concepts being talked about, and this leads to the common misconception that HDDs are more reliable than SSDs.

 

One concept is failure rate, I'll call that reliability. The numbers clearly show that SSDs are superior in this respect. The lack of moving parts does wonders for continuing-to-work-properly. Early SSDs had potential issues with unreliable controllers but the technology has long matured to be more stable than spinning platter drives.

 

The other concept - which people who claim that HDDs are more reliable think of - is how long you can safely keep the data on the media, I'll call this longevity for lack of a better term. Here, HDDs do much better than SSDs because of the way that flash cells work. SSDs have a finite and definite lifetime measured in write cycles, and when that fails it fails spectacularly. Plus the cells lose charge over time if not refreshed. In contrast, HDDs - being magnetic - don't really have a pre-predetermined time-to-nonfunction, and the data still exists on the platters even after the drive stops working, so you can if you really wanted to extract the bits directly. As a result, you can estimate pretty accurately when an SSD will stop holding your data with just the average load on the disk, whereas an HDD can hold data indefinitely, *if* it doesn't fail.

 

So what's more reliable? SSDs, no question about it. An average SSD's failure rate is better than the best HDD's failure rate. (still just talking about ~2% here, so the difference is mostly fractions of a percentage point). What is likely to keep your data longer? HDDs probably.

 

But the real question is: why don't you have enough copies so you don't have to care which storage media is slightly better at keeping your data safe?

What numbers? I'd be interested in a source. As SSDs haven't been in real world usage long enough to give an accurate picture of their long-term reliability.

 

Of course, both SSDs and HDDs fail and do so for a wide variety of reasons, but I don't think an SSD is a solid choice yet if you want reliability and especially not consumer level SSDs. Enterprise SSDs are mind blowingly expensive and the major thing they are supposed to provide is the ability to run 24/7 7 days a week.

 

As I said earlier, if you need the speed increases that SSDs  excel at (lots of random small I/O due to access times) then do it. Otherwise, stick with platters.

 

For my server I recently went with 600GB 10K RPM 2.5" SAS disks for the reliability and speed for my workload over an SSD. Samsung 840Pros would have been price comparable, but they aren't able to withstand what I need them to withstand.

[the evn show]

Removed

[+LogicalApex MVC]

In fairness to the people calling you out: you haven't provided any evidence to support your claims that HDDs are significantly more reliable than SSDs, or even establishing what would count as 'reliable' for the sake of our discussion. Simply asserting 'the data isn't there for SSDs' while relying on 'everyone knows hdds are reliable' seems like an intellectually dishonest debate tactic. The data I was able to find when trying to form a position didn't really support the sort of certainty with which you're making your claims: annualized failure rates of 5-8% past 2 years isn't the sort of number's I'd use for "reliable" -- heck, I'd bet sports cars have better numbers than that, and nobody points at Ferrari or Jaguar as a reliable toy. You also haven't set a baseline for what you consider "long term" or "enough data". It seems like most articles consider 2 years to be a typical operating life of a storage device and "long term" ends at about 4 years +/- 25%.

<snipped>

 

Thanks for the detailed response. The first source you cited, Google's HDD study, is the best I know of and is a great solid resource. I didn't cite much because I'm typing one handed (having wrist surgery on 7/24), but I appreciate your detailed response.

 

But this was the point I was attempting to make. We have studies like the Google study, and others, on HDDs that allow us to empirically evaluate the reliability, but we lack this for SSDs. In theory SSDs should be more reliable due to the lack of a motor, among other things, but we don't yet have the empirical data to say this is true. Drive makers don't publicly disclose failure rates so we have no idea how well SSDs are holding up overall (the same is true for HDDs, but we look to studies like the one from Google to break that veil).

 

For SSDs a lot of weight is borne by the wear leveling algorithm. Due to the finite write lifetime it is very important. But we don't yet have data to show how well these algorithms actually work or how long a SSD can hold its data without being refreshed.

 

The Achilles' heel of SSDs is write endurance. We know the more write intensive your usage the faster the SSD will fail.

 

Again, I am not anti-SSD. I just think it is still a technology that fills a specific need.

[primexx]

yea I can't povide anything better than evn did. I did a quick google search for the data that I found when I first researched SSDs before purchase, can't find it, and it's probably old enough to be outdated anyway, though I found a new report suggesting the same thing. To summarize though most of what I found have been return (for defect) rates or warranty claim rates, which while not the most representative sources, were the ones with the greatest scale that I can find. It seems like what evn found suggests numbers even better than the ones I had in mind.

 

For SSDs a lot of weight is borne by the wear leveling algorithm. Due to the finite write lifetime it is very important. But we don't yet have data to show how well these algorithms actually work or how long a SSD can hold its data without being refreshed.

 

The Achilles' heel of SSDs is write endurance. We know the more write intensive your usage the faster the SSD will fail.

 

I think we're all in agreement on this point. But to use the terminology that I earlier defined, it's not really a reliability issue as much as a longevity one. It doesn't mean that SSDs necessarily defect more than HDDs, but certainly if an HDD works, it will likely keep your data for a much much longer period of time than an SSD can, simply because there's a pre-defined lifetime due to the nature of flash cells.

 

Practically speaking, though, I don't care what the marginally different failure rates are between SSDs and HDDs, when we're talking about <2% failure rates (only buy the best of each) it really makes no difference whether it's stored on flash cells or platters, or whether parts have to move to retrieve it. I'd buy one or the other depending on whether I want speed, or storage size. Whatever medium is used, I still need to maintain multiple backups anyway, so who cares if one fails 0.1%-point more than the other?

[+LogicalApex MVC]

yea I can't povide anything better than evn did. I did a quick google search for the data that I found when I first researched SSDs before purchase, can't find it, and it's probably old enough to be outdated anyway, though I found a new report suggesting the same thing. To summarize though most of what I found have been return (for defect) rates or warranty claim rates, which while not the most representative sources, were the ones with the greatest scale that I can find. It seems like what evn found suggests numbers even better than the ones I had in mind.

 

 

I think we're all in agreement on this point. But to use the terminology that I earlier defined, it's not really a reliability issue as much as a longevity one. It doesn't mean that SSDs necessarily defect more than HDDs, but certainly if an HDD works, it will likely keep your data for a much much longer period of time than an SSD can, simply because there's a pre-defined lifetime due to the nature of flash cells.

 

Practically speaking, though, I don't care what the marginally different failure rates are between SSDs and HDDs, when we're talking about <2% failure rates (only buy the best of each) it really makes no difference whether it's stored on flash cells or platters, or whether parts have to move to retrieve it. I'd buy one or the other depending on whether I want speed, or storage size. Whatever medium is used, I still need to maintain multiple backups anyway, so who cares if one fails 0.1%-point more than the other?

I think we're agreeing more than not. If you need speed SSDs are your best choice. If you don't need the speed then SSDs aren't all that amazing.

 

I was just giving more information for the view that was being thrown around early on that users should go SSDs for all use cases.

[ViperAFK]

Lets get some hard data in here. Take a look at this. They tested a samsung 840 SSD, which uses the low end TLC flash, by writing massive amounts of data to it over extended periods of time. The results were very promising when it came to endurance: http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4178/10/hardwareinfo-tests-lifespan-of-samsung-ssd-840-250gb-tlc-ssd-updated-with-final-conclusion-final-update-20-6-2013

 

EDIT: Just noticed that the evn show already linked to this article on page 3 :blush:

 

SSD's failing due to running out of write cycles is highly unlikely, and the idea that SSD's are any worse than a HDD for reliability is FUD.

 

Primexx and logical are correct: If you want speed, an ssd is a good choice (they are great to install the OS on, very noticeably quicker than an OS installed on a regular HDD), and for data storage a HDD is typically the best choice because of the cheaper price and larger capacity. Since an SSD is no less reliable than a HDD, reliability doesn't really even need to come into the equation. What it mainly comes down to is what the drive will be used for (data or OS) and price per GB :)

 

IMO the ideal setup for a desktop is an SSD boot drive and larger HDD(s) for storage and backup (regardless of whether you have HDD or SSD you should always have backups!). For a laptop I prefer to go SSD only, because on a laptop it brings the advantages of being silent, no vibrations, and not having to worry about damage due to dropping and such.

[moeburn]

Lets get some hard data in here. Take a look at this. They tested a samsung 840 SSD, which uses the low end TLC flash, by writing massive amounts of data to it over extended periods of time. The results were very promising when it came to endurance: http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4178/10/hardwareinfo-tests-lifespan-of-samsung-ssd-840-250gb-tlc-ssd-updated-with-final-conclusion-final-update-20-6-2013

 

EDIT: Just noticed that the evn show already linked to this article on page 3 :blush:

 

SSD's failing due to running out of write cycles is highly unlikely, and the idea that SSD's are any worse than a HDD for reliability is FUD.

 

Primexx and logical are correct: If you want speed, an ssd is a good choice (they are great to install the OS on, very noticeably quicker than an OS installed on a regular HDD), and for data storage a HDD is typically the best choice because of the cheaper price and larger capacity. Since an SSD is no less reliable than a HDD, reliability doesn't really even need to come into the equation. What it mainly comes down to is what the drive will be used for (data or OS) and price per GB :)

 

IMO the ideal setup for a desktop is an SSD boot drive and larger HDD(s) for storage and backup (regardless of whether you have HDD or SSD you should always have backups!). For a laptop I prefer to go SSD only, because on a laptop it brings the advantages of being silent, no vibrations, and not having to worry about damage due to dropping and such.

 

That article may have already been linked, but I missed it, and I found it very informative, so thanks!  It's basically the answer I was looking for.  The fact that something else is going to kill an SSD before the number of write cycles does.  Good to know :D