Use SSD for Documents?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

I have a spare 500GB SSD.

I don't think it'll sell for more than £30 so not sure it's worth that.

I have a mechanical HDD 7200 or whatever it is that I've been storing my documents on as well as temporary storage and downloads.

I have a 1TB NVMe drive that has 500GB for Windows and 500GB for games (500GB will be enough for me for now).

Don't access the photos and documents very often really but wondering whether it's worth using the 500GB SSD as my Documents storage or should I continue with the HDD for that?

Sort of coming from a viewpoint that I know SSDs have a finite life but HDD sort of don't? Don't want to risk documents going wrong (yes, they're backed up every few months).

Thanks

[Steven P. Administrators]

SSDs use far less power, are far quieter than mechanical HDDs and the "finite life" of a SSD is a myth
 

Quote

The lifespan of an SSD is significantly longer than that of an HDD. While HDDs tend to last around 3-5 years, SSDs can last up to 10 years or more. This is because SSDs have no moving parts, whereas HDDs have spinning disks that can wear down over time. Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=lifespan+ssd+vs+hdd

Use the SSD for your documents.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Hmm.

I guess the other thing is whether I spend £200 odd and go (2TB) NVMe and don't even bother with the SSD.

I could do with 2TB of space for everything and 1TB SSD don't seem great value for money when compared with NVMe.

Although there are a couple of 1TB ones for £65 each. Crucial, PCIe 4.

[spikey_richie]

What about using the mechanical drive as a back-up drive? Set up something like Cobian backup/Robocopy to sync across? Or do you already have a strong backup strategy?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

yeah can't say I've used a platter drive in my machines in years; I just recently retired my first self built system that has been running the same 2 SSDs for boot/storage since roughly 2011 and they're still perfectly healthy. You've got nothing to really worry about using it as a storage drive.

[+Warwagon MVC]

As with anything as long as you keep good backups it's fine. SSD's tend to die a bit more abruptly than hard drives. With an SSD it's .....what ssd?

[Biff in the Bay]

Why would you not just store them on Google Drive or OneDrive? That way then you know your data is always accessible and don't have to worry about hardware failures.

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 28/10/2022 at 10:17, Biff in the Bay said:

Why would you not just store them on Google Drive or OneDrive? That way then you know your data is always accessible and don't have to worry about hardware failures.

Because some people would prefer their stuff not be in the cloud?

[freedonX]

On 28/10/2022 at 10:19, Warwagon said:

Because some people would prefer their stuff not be in the cloud?

Unless it's paranoia or a specific reason not too, then cloud isn't a bad solution.
It does make your life easier when you forgot about hardware maintenance

[Biff in the Bay]

On 28/10/2022 at 11:19, Warwagon said:

Because some people would prefer their stuff not be in the cloud?

He says he doesn't access the information much, so I didn't see the harm in perhaps Zipping the information with a password and loading it up to the Cloud. Then there's no worries about hardware failures or data loss, been doing it that way for many many years. But everyone is different. 

[Tomoko]

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While HDDs tend to last around 3-5 years, SSDs can last up to 10 years or more.

In my experience hard drives usually last a really long time, especially modern ones. I've only had a hard drive fail once that I can recall; I think it was a Maxtor. While I do have an SSD for my OS now I'm still using a 12 year old Samsung external hard drive daily, and I have almost a dozen other working hard drives stored away with some being nearly 20 years old. Whenever I upgrade I keep my old hard drive with all my files and OS, sort of like time capsules. The 40 year old hard drive in my IBM PC/XT still works fine also.

When they do fail they usually give you warning well in advance also. When an SSD fails though, no warning at all. Poof! It's gone. Of course everyone should have backups.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

On 28/10/2022 at 10:51, spikey_richie said:

What about using the mechanical drive as a back-up drive? Set up something like Cobian backup/Robocopy to sync across? Or do you already have a strong backup strategy?

It'll join the other drives as backups but photos and documents (the most important stuff) are on the PC and backed up on two other drives so pretty set on that front.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

On 28/10/2022 at 16:17, Biff in the Bay said:

Why would you not just store them on Google Drive or OneDrive? That way then you know your data is always accessible and don't have to worry about hardware failures.

My OneDrive and Google Drive are full of the absolute most important photos / documents.

They're a mirror of each other, which is also stored on two hard drives and on the PC itself.

But yeah, they're already full.

[Biff in the Bay]

On 28/10/2022 at 13:16, Sir Topham Hatt said:

My OneDrive and Google Drive are full of the absolute most important photos / documents.

They're a mirror of each other, which is also stored on two hard drives and on the PC itself.

But yeah, they're already full.

Google One is $36 bucks a year for 200GB, they have tiers for more if needed. Cheaper than buying new hard drives. 

[Tomoko]

On 28/10/2022 at 14:20, Biff in the Bay said:

Google One is $36 bucks a year for 200GB, they have tiers for more if needed. Cheaper than buying new hard drives. 

Not exactly cheaper. You can buy a 2TB hard drive for close to that price and you don't have to give it back after a year.

[ThaCrip]

Like I imagine already mentioned... HDD's are probably safer because with SSD's, while they may last longer than HDD's, when they do die I suspect they are a lot more likely to die instantly with no real warning where as with a hard drive you probably will be more likely to get some level of warning before it outright dies.

with that said.... as the saying goes, 'don't put all of your eggs in one basket'. so basically... always have backup copies. so in the OP's case use BOTH the HDD and SSD for your backups as the odds of both of those dying at the same time should be slim.

 

but depending on how long term you need to store that data, especially if it's not something you update much, and you don't have a ton of data to backup, I suggest using CD or DVD recordable media (Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden brand specifically) as I still consider that to be the best alternative to hard drives for long term data storage. I still got some media (Verbatim etc) that's over 10 years old and still scans well with KProbe, which basically means disc degradation has been slim-to-none and will likely last many more years, if not decades. because in my opinion if you got quality media and burn quality is good initially, it's likely going to last a 'easy' 10-20+ years for a conservative figure, which is a decent portion of ones lifespan. plus, I don't think it will be difficult to still find computers with optical media in 10+ years either, but in 20+, who knows. but I suspect it will mostly boil down to as long as the SATA connections on computers remain standard, optical media should be a good long term storage medium for 10-20+ years from now.

 

On 28/10/2022 at 13:11, Rigby said:

In my experience hard drives usually last a really long time, especially modern ones. I've only had a hard drive fail once that I can recall; I think it was a Maxtor.

 

While I am only one person, my experience is similar to yours. I have only had basically two HDD's fail on me since I have been using computers (i.e. 1995 to date) and they were all pretty old by modern standards... IBM 40GB/Maxtor 80GB (both standard desktop hard drives). that IBM I think was referred to as the 'DeathStar'. sadly, I think that 80GB Maxtor was the most I ever paid for a HDD though as I don't recall exact price but it might have been like $300. but putting that aside I think the next most expensive HDD I ever bought was one I am currently still using, which is a 5TB HGST which I think I paid $180 for as I typically don't exceed $130-ish tops for a HDD, but thankfully I got a 'renewed' 6TB HGST not long ago for only $60 which helped off-set the cost of the 5TB I paid too much for.