Should I go with SSD or stay with HDD

[ThinkPad560X]

So Ive been debaiting over getting SSD Hard Drives or keep with HDD Hard Drives (with the +TB sizes) I been reading about SSDs and that they are faster and no moving parts but keep hearing they dont last long (adding data / erasing data) and eventually starts getting slower and slower until it dont want to save data or lost data. HDDs I already know about, just keep them clean with the disk tools and dont bounce them around, in my case laptops I dont like HDDs in. The other nice thing about HDDs is they are up to I think 3TB now. SSDs are 128GB but not sure now, but those are alot of money. So should I stay with HDD or go with SSD?

[Cigarguy]

SSD

[Saucey]

They are VERY speedy yes. I've gotten my X61t to about 70% full and it still runs at a decent speed before I cleaned up stuff.
I know the OCZ Vertex had alot of errors and would go bad, I think they fixed these problems now, still unsure.

What model were you thinking of getting an SSD for? Best part about them is that you could drop a laptop without having to worry about the data being lost.

[kony]

The answer is simple - both!!!

SSDs are extremely fast, no comparison with HDDs. They were often pron to failure, but it's no longer true nowadays (I think in theory modern SSDs should last longer than HDDs!). You should definitely get one for OS and software you use on a daily basis, while get HDD as a secondary drive for anything else (music, movies etc.). This is what I've done and I believe it's the perfect set - I have everything I use often on a SSD while I have a large collection of music files (and some other stuff) on a secondary drive which is HDD. This way I can both enjoy quickness and storage.

[pointyhat]

I went SSD a couple of years ago on an old T61.

It changed my life. Enough said.

Everything happens instantly.

[sir_synthsalot]

I would go with SSD for laptop, unless you really need the 1TB of space or something.

For desktop you can go with SSD + HD for storage if you need the space.

The speed of the SSD is really phenomenal. Best upgrade you can get for a laptop. After having one I don't want a mechanical drive ever.

It takes a lot of write cycles to wear out an SSD or to slow it down. Under normal use you will not wear it out. People have done accelerated wear testing if you are curious how long they last.

[wolfman]

Both (see my sig), but if you can only have 1, SSD. They are coming down in price a good bit of late.

[ajkula66]

So should I stay with HDD or go with SSD?

SSD only makes sense on a system that runs W7 or W8/8.1

Improvement in speed and responsiveness is impressive.

Having said that, I never install anything on a SSD that I'm not willing to lose in a split second. When these things go down, there is no warning and no recovery.

I've seen a few go "poof" with my own eyes and it was not a pleasant sight.

My $0.02 only...

[ZaZ]

I switched over to SSDs completely five or so years ago and you just forget how much slower hard drives are than SSDs. If you're going to have one, I'd vote SSD. If you're willing to spend some money, there's the WD Black2, which combines a 120GB SSD and 1TB hard drive into a 9.5mm drive.

[Cigarguy]

On all my laptops with an Ultrabay adapter, SSD in main bay for OS and programs while Ultrabay is for HDD for data only. I almost never use a CD drive anymore so this works for me. SSD, HDD or both backup, backup, and then backup some more.

[A31]

I've been using SSDs in my desktops since October 2011 and I'd never go back to having a HDD as a primary boot device in my desktops.

I've owned a Crucial M4, SanDisk Extreme and an OCZ Vertex 4. All 128GB, but 256GB versions are getting cheaper. Not had any issues with the Vertex 4, though earlier Vertexes did have problems, yes (mainly with the controllers IIRC, resulting in a lot of blue screens).

Sequential read and write speeds on all of them have been impressive on SATA 6GB/s, I wrote a post showing some of the read/write speeds here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 90#p707241

I would actually recommend you buy a Samsung 840 now. They are fast drives.

It's amazing how much cheaper these drives have become. When I bought my first SSD in October 2011 (the 128GB Crucial M4), it set me back £160. Now you can get 128GB drives for about half that - and even 256GB drives are getting close to the £100 mark.

[Brad]

Been using them for a while and haven't looked back.

I have used mainly Lenovo FRU SSD's and don't recall one issue after deploying hundreds.

Like George mentions they can fail instantly so backups are even more important when using SSDs. Backup as often as you can afford to lose everything.

I am mostly surprised at how slow HDDs seem though I do notice that the latest HDDs seem significantly faster.

My .01c is SSD all the way.

Brad

[Temetka]

I'd go with an SSD combo. Boot from the SSD and keep your programs there, but any data you care about would be on a traditional spinning hard drive.

[ThinkPad560X]

I have a 32GB SSD in my IBM ThinkCentre M51 with Windows 7 and it seems to run the same as the previus 1TB HDD did with Windows XP. what will get the system to run better without a motherboard upgrade. Ive been playing a PC game and its playable but jaggy sometimes. Other then the 32GB SSD Windows 7, it has a Intel Pentium 4 HT 3.0GHz, 4GB RAM Max and a Nvidia GeForce GT 520 and the games are installed on a External 1TB USB 3.0 HDD. and wanting to get a PCI USB 3.0 4 slot card.

[A31]

You won't see any FPS difference in games by having an SSD.

[Cigarguy]

Especially if said game is installed on the HDD not on the SSD. Installing a few games on the SSD will see faster program load and disk access but will do nothing for FPS.

[loyukfai]

An interesting read regarding the longevity...

http://techreport.com/review/26058/the- ... fter-600tb

SSD or HDD? It depends. Usually SSD is recommended for the OS, small and frequently accessed files, while HDD is often recommended for large files like media.

Cheers.

[Medessec]

I will slip in my personal recommendation of going SSD.

Eventually, all computing will be on SSDs, so it could be a matter of keeping with the times. But the other advantages can be dependent on what SSD you buy. I would highly advise NOT buying an SSD secondhand, or buying an old one. Older SSDs have a wide range of problems, and they may not make efficient use of the speed. I'd highly recommend you buy a newer Intel SSD or Samsung Evo, Crucial SSDs are also good too.

SSDs are expensive, but if you follow through with it, the speed is undeniably brilliant and it will be extremely easy to take it for granted. On top of that- SSDs consume less power than HDDs, and are dead silent which means the only noise will be coming from the fan. And my roommate has his fan reconfigured in his X61 to remain off until the heat builds up, so unless he's gaming or watching YouTube videos, his X61 is 100% dead silent.

An SSD boot drive with a HDD high-capacity storage is a match made in heaven. I have that system worked out with my W700ds and T60/61 Frankenpad, where in the Frankenpad, a SATA Ultrabay tray holds a 500GB HDD. I also usually swap this Ultrabay HDD into my X60T's Ultrabase for traveling, so I have all my big files with me. Just one other reason to love and adore Thinkpads.

[A31]

An interesting read regarding the longevity...

http://techreport.com/review/26058/the- ... fter-600tb

SSD or HDD? It depends. Usually SSD is recommended for the OS, small and frequently accessed files, while HDD is often recommended for large files like media.

Cheers.

Yeah that makes sense. I have Windows 8.1 and my software on my 128GB Vertex 4 and my other files on my Caviar Green 2TB and 3TB drives.

But SSDs can fail. My first Crucial M4 failed on me in December 2012. I had to go back to using Windows on a HDD for a while whilst I waited for my replacement (which is still working perfectly) to arrive. It felt so slow in comparison!

[Cigarguy]

Interesting that on almost all tech forums, people talk about HDD as though it's this indestructible infallible technology while SSD will fail if the wind shift 2.4580 degrees the wrong direction. DO NOT trust either, all will fail. It's just that one will die quietly and suddenly while the other usually (but not always) go screaming and kicking to the grave. If you are one to never back anything up, at least the screaming and kicking will allow you to prepare to go to your own grave.

As for me, of the 16 SSD and about 20 HDD currently in use over the past 2-3 years, I've had zero SSD failure and 2 HDD failure. It could have been easily the other way. I've had 2 different SSD which were prone to Sandforce's sudden BSOD that drove me batty for a while but was eventually fixed with a firmware update from Sandforce.

I use my SSD hard. On my primary Thinkpad, 14" T60, it's hibernating at least 3-4 times a day. I know exactly what this do to a SSD but I don't care. I want the convenience. Been doing this for 3 years and that $20 32GB Samsung SLC SSD is still ticking along just fine. I've got it's replacement, loaded with OS and programs, ready to go the day that it dies.

Finally remember that the first Hyundai, Honda and Toyota that first arrive in NA were known to be crappy and have reliability issues. Time have changed and my changed again. So to have SSDs. When you've tried a SSD it is hard to go back to a HDD, just as it is hard to go back to a horse and carriage when you've tried a car.

[sir_synthsalot]

With a mechanical HD I used to use hibernation a lot because it allowed me to get back to desktop faster. With an SSD it boots so fast that hibernation is no longer a very useful feature.

[Cigarguy]

With a mechanical HD I used to use hibernation a lot because it allowed me to get back to desktop faster. With an SSD it boots so fast that hibernation is no longer a very useful feature.

On anything with SATA II speeds or faster, yes. On older SATA I machines, such as the T60, I find hibernation slightly faster. But the main reason I use hibernation is not the speed, it's the ability to save an existing state vs restarting everything. Of course this comes at a cost and I know that. I also know that I'd rather have the convenience at the expense of a $20 SSD. Had I paid $400 for the SSD, that would be different.

[A31]

Interesting that on almost all tech forums, people talk about HDD as though it's this indestructible infallible technology while SSD will fail if the wind shift 2.4580 degrees the wrong direction. DO NOT trust either, all will fail.

Most people will say that SSDs are more reliable than HDDs, and they'd be right, but you are right in saying that they can both fail. I wouldn't say 'don't trust either of them', I'd say 'keep in mind that neither will last forever', though SSDs should have longer lifespans than HDDs.

[Medessec]

I've completely understood that SSDs aren't fullproof. But unlike HDDs, it's not impossible for them not to be. HDDs are always at a fault, because they have moving parts... any exposure to shock will put it at risk of goofing up.

My friend had an OCZ SSD that completely failed, and he lost all his data including some pictures he took on a Road Trip he had. The worst personal experience I've had, is that Windows BSOD-d, then when I restarted it, chkdsk came on, and all my data was jumbled. I ended up having to reinstall Windows.

As the technology is now, HDDs are the superior storage solution for capacity vs. cost. They're also a lot better off than they were a long time ago for operating in a laptop... with S.M.A.R.T., and "airbag", where the laptop shuts off the hard drive when it detects it falling, which BTW was a Thinkpad innovation!

With controllers and connectors, and board power protection, and the actual standards for SSDs getting better(with mSATA, and new PCI-E SSDs), SSDs themselves will only get better, and after seeing how good the really good ones are now, I'm pretty set on making sure any laptop I use a lot has an SSD in it.

[Cigarguy]

Laptops, desktops, tablets and now even USB drives, SSD is the wave of the future and it's a good wave.

[ThinkPad560X]

Is a CF "Compact Flash" the same as a true SSD? Im using a CF and it runs fine. All my laptops back about 5-6 years ago I bought 16GB CFs for them as a real SSD was alot of money. I even remember buying my 2nd USB flash drive "2GB" and spending $74.00 for it and now I see some places sometimes even give them away for free.

[Medessec]

In a sense, yes. CF cards are "Solid State" storage solutions, because they're memory chips.

However- running an OS on them really depends on a number of factors... many CF cards were made very simply just to store photos from cameras, so they don't have the same data controllers or bus chips that full HDDs do. An OS doesn't run very healthily on most CF cards, unless you've got the right setup. But if you figure it out, it shares all the advantages as a modern SSD... the reliability, the low power consumption, no moving parts. However- speed again is dependent on the CF card, and also it maxes at IDE speed... which by today's standards isn't a lot of headroom for an OS.

CF cards were the first major form of removable small memory storage, made for digital cameras and camcorders, kinda like SD cards now. So it's no surprise they're abundant and available everywhere for dirt cheap.

[ThinkPad560X]

Has the biggest drives halted? For the past 3 years now "Not really looking at HDs in stores today" I saw 2TB or maybe its 3TB out for a long time now and no bigger. And thats just for the disk drives. I bought a External WD 1TB last year since it was for $120.00 and they had the 2TB for $180. And I just keep all my PC games installed on it. For SSD I only saw 256GB so far and thats going for around $500

[Medessec]

Hard Drives are still prancing around... 4TBs are the highest capacity available to consumers, with Seagate planning to ship a non-standard 5TB 7200RPM HDD soon, and according to some articles I just googled... 6TB drives may be floating around the enterprise market.

There's Samsung Evo and Crucial SSDs clipping a Terabyte now... and the big new thing now is PCIe SSDs, which allow for even faster speeds than SATA 3. The new "barrel" Mac Pro has a tall one that looks like a RAM stick, but plugs in on a side, and ASUS has come out with a RAID 0/1 PCIe SSD to be used in conjunction with their R.O.G. motherboards.

[Temetka]

If I could find a 500GB SSD for $150 from Intel or Samsung I would be all over it. Until that day comes I will keep on using the traditional 7200RPM 2.5" HD's in my laptops because the price / storage capacity cannot be beat. I might be convinced to go to 320GB but that would be the smallest I'd be willing to go.

Regarding enterprise drives, I just set up a new file server for a client that has 12 2TB HD's in it. After configuring the RAID they have a little over 20TB space on that server for their files. Yes it's a lot, but once I am done moving the data from their other 2 (soon to be retired) servers they will have about 11TB of it left. They had 4 external drives plugged into one server and 3 in another. More space will always be required. With their setup I wouldn't even want to know what 20TB of SSD goodness would cost. Considering this machine is rocking 15k HD's the cost was already high (i'd have to check with them and see if the mind me posting the cost on the internet) and it was a hard sell in the first place. But the Dell rep tossed in some extra RAM, and shaved almost 2 grand off the price, they went for it. Which makes me glad because their next newest server was rocking a dual core xeon and 4GB of RAM. Ugh.