Thinking of an SSD as backup drive
By
Call Me Awesome,
Posted on: 2012-01-11 07:01 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Quote:
With the price-per-MB of SSDs still being rather...high, using one as a backup drive doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You're going to pay what? $150 for a 60GB SSD and an external enclosure?|
Originally Posted by VoodooCompany
I'm wanting another backup option. With the current prices of harddrives, I'm not willing to go ahead with a NAS setup (yet) but will eventually when that supply/pricing comes back inline with what it should be.
So I've been looking at SSDs since the prices have gotten a little better (especially compared to hard drive prices) and their performance. However, having never used one, I'm curious to the idea of using them as a back up drive only. Are they treated like plug and play? Is their reliablility (disk integrity / life span) been proven yet for this application? The NAS is something I want eventually, but the idea of a very fast and (I'm guessing) portable hard drive is compelling, especially if I'm able to store it off site as insurance. Or am I way off? |
You can get a 1TB MyBookLive (NAS) for that. Or for another $20, a 2TB version.
I just picked up a 2 gigger myself.
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Definitely this, while an SSD makes for a fantastic system drive with it's speed it's certainly a poor choice for a backup thanks to the limited size and high cost per GB compared to HD's even now. Also using an SSD in an external enclosure is hamstringing it's performance, even ESATA will be (unless it's changed in the last couple of years) much slower than an internal setup to say nothing of USB.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
With the price-per-MB of SSDs still being rather...high, using one as a backup drive doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You're going to pay what? $150 for a 60GB SSD and an external enclosure?
You can get a 1TB MyBookLive (NAS) for that. Or for another $20, a 2TB version. I just picked up a 2 gigger myself. |
I have literally dozens of WD MyBook external drives on my shelves for archive storage of video and I've had good luck with them without a single failure. I've also had a couple of Seagate external drives with less stellar results... one died on me after about 1 month.
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The pricing I've seen was $160? for a 120GB (or it was $140 for 160GB, I can't remember), with lower capacity ones costing more per GB.
My current rig has an external slide in connector on the chasis, hence the only reason I was even considering one if it was treated like plug and play when I wanted to use it.
I'll check out your links later on. The NAS boxes I were looking at didn't come with drives, and never quite fit the mold with what I wanted in terms copy and LAN speeds, and were upwards of $200 - 400. These were multi bay units, and wasn't sure if I wanted to go that route just yet anyway.
Also, my main concern was whether SSD was "more reliable" than how reliable most drives are nowadays, especially with a lot of read/writing to disk. The 120 - 160 GB is plenty for the stuff I actually care about currently, I'm just looking for the extra safety net of "more reliable". Unless SSDs aren't, of course.
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Originally Posted by VoodooCompany
The pricing I've seen was $160? for a 120GB (or it was $140 for 160GB, I can't remember), with lower capacity ones costing more per GB.
My current rig has an external slide in connector on the chasis, hence the only reason I was even considering one if it was treated like plug and play when I wanted to use it. I'll check out your links later on. The NAS boxes I were looking at didn't come with drives, and never quite fit the mold with what I wanted in terms copy and LAN speeds, and were upwards of $200 - 400. These were multi bay units, and wasn't sure if I wanted to go that route just yet anyway. |
Like I said, the 2 gigger is working QUITE well for me thus far. Just had my old 320GB WD NetCenter **** the bed on me after 5 years. First WD product I've EVER had "die" on me.
One thing with the MyBook Live. Put it in an area with some decent ventilation. It gets a little warm. You'll see a lot of the reviews from people on Newegg talking about them dying fast. This is why. These devices aren't meant to be stacked in like books/dvds on a shelf.
In comparison to the old NetCenter. The MBL is faster. A LOT faster. With the NetCenter, there was always a short "hitch" as the drive spun up from wait-state. I just don't see that on the MBL. Additionally the MBL is gigabit (as is my entire internal network). So transfers are only slowed down by the hard drive inside.
And, on the "Ooh! Nifty!" front, it integrates well with my Blu-Ray player and can stream movies through to my TV.
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They're very reliable. They're also much more durable than hard drives. One of the SSD manufacturers did a video of what it takes to destroy one. That had a guy 'pitch' it to someone else who hit it with a bat and it still worked fine. To actually make it fail, they needed to step up to a golf club. A full strength swing shattered the casing.|
Originally Posted by VoodooCompany
Also, my main concern was whether SSD was "more reliable" than how reliable most drives are nowadays, especially with a lot of read/writing to disk. The 120 - 160 GB is plenty for the stuff I actually care about currently, I'm just looking for the extra safety net of "more reliable". Unless SSDs aren't, of course.
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Having said that, I can't imagine using one as a back-up device. You're paying through the nose and giving up the biggest benefit (higher transfer speed). This is the opposite of the normal strategy. Everyone used to use tape drives for their back-ups. Sure, they were slow, but who cared when it was doing a scheduled and unattended back-up. The point is, they were cheap. Whatever back-up method you use for offsite copies, you really should have a minimum of TWO. The goal here is that you never have all copies in the same location at the same time. If you have the one computer and one back-up drive, the day you bring the back-up to the computer is the day your desk catches fire.
P.S. "especially with a lot of read/writing to disk" - Using an SSD for a back-up is NOT a lot of read/writing to disk. Not by any stretch of the imagination. My SSD is my primary drive on a system that runs 24/7. I have a ton of stuff running at all times, including 8 instances of SETI@home.
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At least some of them are. I've gotten lucky with my OCZ setup.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
They're very reliable.
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But I know of several people who've gotten BADLY burned by them.
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| They're also much more durable than hard drives. One of the SSD manufacturers did a video of what it takes to destroy one. That had a guy 'pitch' it to someone else who hit it with a bat and it still worked fine. To actually make it fail, they needed to step up to a golf club. A full strength swing shattered the casing. |
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Quote:
Reminds me of a test of a Panasonic toughbook - laptop certified to handle 1m drop test onto concrete.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
They're very reliable. They're also much more durable than hard drives. One of the SSD manufacturers did a video of what it takes to destroy one. That had a guy 'pitch' it to someone else who hit it with a bat and it still worked fine. To actually make it fail, they needed to step up to a golf club. A full strength swing shattered the casing.
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They dropped it out of a second floor window (third floor for the US readers) - a few cosmetic scratches to the finish
Ran over it with a motorcycle - this threw it 50 yards across the carpark - same result.
Volvo estate - more scratches and it disloddged the battery - reconnected and booted back up without problem.
Transit Van - cracked screen - connected external screen - still working
Main Battle Tank! - that did the trick
And that was with a standard hard drive gel mounted.
But yes SSD is more rugged and the current ones have been shown to have a very similar MBTF - faults tend to be the memory degrading rather than mechanical which is the main cause of failure with hard drives although as the above indicates appropriate mounting techniques can address that. Note however the toughbook was about twice the cost of a standard equivalent laptop.
I still wouldn't choose one for backups - for that you want reliable and cheap - speed is less of an issue. An SSD otoh gives Fast and reliable but expensive.
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Lots of stuff to mull over. I know the pricing isn't ideal and that's why I didn't just go out and do it yet. With the hard drive pricing issue, my current harddrive cost $70 last March; the exact same one is now $240. Granted the $ / GB is probably still in favor of disks, but that kind of price increase just makes me shake my head and leads to me thinking like this. Specifically for the amount of data I actually want to make absolutely sure I have reliable back up for, including the idea of a portable drive to keep it in a safe keeping place. I already have have an older machine I use to back up too, but it's power use and case size and noise just won't cut it for constant use. I have been bothering with CDs and DVD backups, but it's getting too cumbersome now. Thought of Bluray discs, but again, just too cumbersome for me. The NAS would be my 2nd (and technically 3rd and possibly 4th) back up routine, depending on the number of drives.
RE: Western Digital's personal storage options. I actually looked at these 1 - 2 years ago but was just never sold on them. I've still not read all that great reviews about them (newegg or otherwise) and the posts here are about the first good ones I've ever seen. The drives they come with have never impressed me, but maybe they are more reliable with just back ups instead of using them for constant access (DVRing type stuff, multiple 100s of gigs of writing and replacing on a pretty constant basis). I've kept my eye on a couple of other boxes, but the prices of the drives still bug me. Hell, I went ahead and bought a complete system awhile back just because the price of the drive in the system was cheaper than the cost of the whole system.
I've been burned by all other formats throughout the years including using external harddrive enclosures of yore. I'm getting pretty good about retrieving most of the stuff on the formats that die, but I'm tired of wasting my time like that. I've been lucky, lately knockonwood, with not losing the actual important stuff, but that's because I do have multiple back up routines currently. They are just time consuming.
I was really hoping the SSDs would drop heavily since the summer, but they haven't decreased as much as I had hoped. That, and I just want to play with one because it's still new before the next new thing comes out 
Maybe I'll try to find some really really cheap 500GB or even lower SATA drives and whatever NAS system is the most reliable "soon".
But thanks for the insights. I think I'll avoid the SSD as back up only for now.
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With the flooding in Thailand knocking out a good percentage of the worlds hard drive production, I would not expect SSD prices to drop. In the short term, I expect SSD production to be ramped up (to the extent possible) in order to get business that previously would have gone to hard drives.|
Originally Posted by VoodooCompany
I was really hoping the SSDs would drop heavily since the summer, but they haven't decreased as much as I had hoped.
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AFTER hard drive production is restored, and the backlog of orders dealt with, THEN I would expect to see a drop in SSD prices. Maybe by 4th quarter 2012.
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Using an SSD for backup is like using a sports car to haul dry wall from Home Despot (intentional misspelling). Normally the idea is to use a slower, cheaper per GB device/medium for backup purposes, not a faster more expensive one.
I find external USB hard drives to be quite affordable and while internal OEM hard drive prices have gone berserk due to the Thailand flooding. Also the retail channel prices for internal drives hasn't been affected as much as the OEM market drives you find at NewEgg or TigerDirect.
As for external USB hard drives the 1.5TB WD My Book Essential with both USB 2 and USB 3 interface is $140 at Best Buy. Still less than 10 cents a GB. The 2TB is on sale for $150 and 3TB for $200. This assumes when you say backup drive you really mean backup drive and not just an excuse to slip the purchase of an SSD by someone that you could repurpose later as a boot drive. 
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I'm wanting another backup option. With the current prices of harddrives, I'm not willing to go ahead with a NAS setup (yet) but will eventually when that supply/pricing comes back inline with what it should be.
So I've been looking at SSDs since the prices have gotten a little better (especially compared to hard drive prices) and their performance. However, having never used one, I'm curious to the idea of using them as a back up drive only. Are they treated like plug and play? Is their reliablility (disk integrity / life span) been proven yet for this application?
The NAS is something I want eventually, but the idea of a very fast and (I'm guessing) portable hard drive is compelling, especially if I'm able to store it off site as insurance.
Or am I way off?
I've already forgotten about most of you