Advice Request SSD vs HDD reliability

Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.

Are SSDs more reliable than HDDs?

  • Yes, significantly more reliable than HDDs

    Votes: 45 71.4%
  • Yes, but only marginally more reliable than HDDs

    Votes: 3 4.8%
  • Very little difference in reliability between SSDs and HDDs

    Votes: 3 4.8%
  • No, SSDs are less reliable than HDDs

    Votes: 12 19.0%

  • Total voters
    63

Digerati

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Mar 2, 2017
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I would quote if I was replying to your comment. My reply was the answer to the initial question "Are SSDs more reliable than HDDs?"
Then 3-4 years has nothing to do with this. SSDs are extremely reliable pieces of hardware. Tablets have used SSDs exclusively for years. And more and more notebooks and PCs come with SSDs only. All my builds for the last 4 years have been SSD only and all are still working just fine.
 
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509322

There is a fundamental difference between reliability and longevity.

Longevity does NOT equal reliability. Something that works 10 out of 10 days is 100 % reliable. However, it is short-lived if it dies on the 11th day.

SSD write-cycle exhaustion is not the issue like some here would assert. Heavy use isn't going to kill SSDs at a rate that makes them less reliable than HDDs. It's a fallacy from the days of old that is perpetuated by those that don't know what they're talking about.

And you're not even comparing apples to apples because the reliability indicators for SSDs and HDDs are different by their very nature. So there is some subjective assessment that is made because the absolute numbers don't tell the whole story. However, the narrative that is widely spouted is that "HDDs are more reliable than SSDs." And a lot of people unfortunately have that burnt into the inside of their skulls. It's poppycock, not only from a technical perspective, but one based in reality and actual study after study.

The primary driving factor behind continued heavy HDD use instead of SSDs is money, and not reliability. The install-base of HDDs is huge, and companies aren't going to needlessly spend money to switch-out existing functional hardware. They'll use it until it dies. (Why many still use XP.)

One buys and implements hardware based upon the premise of a balance between desired workload, performance and cost. What is the single biggest determinant of virtually all things human ? - money, of course. So why am I going to spend $1000 on an enterprise SSD when I can buy an HDD for $100 that will meet my workload requirements ?

Nowadays the reliability of SSDs is every bit that of HDDs. In fact, in the harshest of environments, SSD reliability exceeds that of HDDs.
 
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uninfected1

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Jan 28, 2016
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Unfortunately this thread has degenerated into a petty, points scoring slanging match, fairly symptomatic of a trend with MalwareTips in general in recent times. If anyone happens to visit this thread expecting intelligent discussion I suggest they move on because they will be disappointed.
 
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509322

Unfortunately this thread has degenerated into a petty, points scoring slanging match, fairly symptomatic of a trend with MalwareTips in general in recent times. If anyone happens to visit this thread expecting intelligent discussion I suggest they move on because they will be disappointed.

You created the topic and the poll, so technically, you are to blame.

There is no recent trend. It is, has been and always shall be. That's the nature of online stuff. Here, there and everywhere.
 

DeepWeb

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Jul 1, 2017
1,396
HDDs have parts that have to move and will eventually fail. All of our SSDs will outlive their actual use. But I highly recommend MLC or even SLC if you can find such a thing. Also good to shop for enterprise SSDs. A used enterprise SSD probably still has a longer lifetime than a new consumer SSD. Keep your eyes out for Micron's on ebay. I managed to buy a 1 TB SSD rated 2 PB writes over its lifespan. I am using it for backup but even at the rate I am using, my math tells me this SSD would last me for decades.
 

shmu26

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Jul 3, 2015
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Politics and religion? Count me out because my life problems are like politics problems, and religion is kind of way to brainwash people because the only thing they trust the most is the Holy Bible book that got lost in translation to the point we don't even know what the original one said anymore. How many English Holy Bible we have these days? Over 25 different versions like holy cow, and let's alone other languages version of the Holy Bible.
I was 100% kidding, of course. It was merely a sarcastic comment about how heated up we get about IT stuff.

By the way, I read the Bible in the original Hebrew. Yeah, no kidding this time. But you still need commentaries. The Hebrew language has changed quite a bit over the last 2000-3000 years.
 
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509322

I was 100% kidding, of course. It was merely a sarcastic comment about how heated up we get about IT stuff.

By the way, I read the Bible in the original Hebrew. Yeah, no kidding this time. But you still need commentaries. The Hebrew language has changed quite a bit over the last 2000-3000 years.

Any topic that is basically "What is best ?" online is going to devolve into an emotionally-charged discussion. The topic matter doesn't really matter. Throw on top of that fact that online posts aren't normal human questions, and consequently, there is an almost 100 % certainty of post misinterpretation, and that is a formula for dramas.

People must not have a lot of online experience not to realize this.

To me this entire back-and-forth of HDD versus SDD is not one bit surprising. Ask the same, more or less, of Intel vs AMD or security soft X vs Y - and the fanboism and other stuff are sure to rear their heads.

People get too emotionally involved. The topics that are discussed here, well... "other" people don't get bonkerz over them.

Go over to Reddit. There's actually a thing called "downvote brigading" and there are full-force downvote\upvote bots. And it gets much, much worse than that on a lot of subreddits.
 
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509322

By the way, I read the Bible in the original Hebrew. Yeah, no kidding this time. But you still need commentaries. The Hebrew language has changed quite a bit over the last 2000-3000 years.

Aramaic. I think it flows nicely.
 
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shmu26

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Aramaic. I think it flows nicely.
Yeah, I also read the Aramaic translation of the original Hebrew. It is the best translation.
The Septuagint would have been even better, but we don't have the original.
 
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509322

Yeah, I also read the Aramaic translation of the original Hebrew. It is the best translation.
The Septuagint would have been even better, but we don't have the original.

Ancient linquistics is quite difficult. Biblical versions of languages are notoriously cryptic. e.g. - ancient Heberw versus ancient biblical Hebrew. Not quite the same. Read a word or two. Stop. Wut ? Do a quick lookup in a couple of texts. Read a word or two. Stop. Wut ? Another check, but different scholarly texts this time. And so on.

I bet medieval Polish is probably a mind-freak.
 
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shmu26

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Ancient linquistics is quite difficult. Biblical versions of languages are notoriously cryptic. e.g. - ancient Heberw versus ancient biblical Hebrew. Not quite the same. Read a word or two. Stop. Wut ? Do a quick lookup in a couple of texts. Read a word or two. Stop. Wut ? Another check, but different scholarly texts this time. And so on.

I bet medieval Polish is probably a mind-freak.
Just read Shakespeare. That's hard enough.
 

Vasudev

Level 33
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Nov 8, 2014
2,224
Only point where HDD wins is under extreme cold conditions SSD controller might fail to operate unlike HDD. Yeah the chances are slim.
I had a strange occurrence once when my ambient temps dropped from usual 30C to 17-20C and PCIe SSD won't boot up. That was last year though. I still use same SSD w/o any issues.
 

shmu26

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Only point where HDD wins is under extreme cold conditions SSD controller might fail to operate unlike HDD. Yeah the chances are slim.
I had a strange occurrence once when my ambient temps dropped from usual 30C to 17-20C and PCIe SSD won't boot up. That was last year though. I still use same SSD w/o any issues.
Interesting. So booting up a computer on a chilly day might not work, with SSD?
 

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