HDD vs SSD from another point of view

Hello everyone
So here is another mid age size old question :sweat_smile:

To pure SSD or mix SSD

there is no doubt that SSDs are better in
Speed/reliability/portable/durability
And I definitely choose them for any laptops or desktops for the main
But in 2 criteria i have my questions/doubts
1- how is the repairability and recovery comparison between these 2 -for example after 20 years if it fails disks can be recovered by professionals but how about SSDs if electric surge/heat / physical damage occurred

for long term keep back up (my second backup) i am using a 5TB external HDD to keep my photos and music snd some more documents, i may plug that less than once a week and not use it much

2- as the price is still way cheaper, is it a good idea to ho for a 1TB m.2 Mvne and 4TB hdd?

3- how noticeable in speed is m.2NVme vs SSD on SATA + which one is more reliable and last longer

Thanks for your patience

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Rep-arability/recover-ability shouldn’t be a consideration if you are using the proper 3 prong backup system. Seems like a good idea to use the plater drive for data especially if it isn’t used often.

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  1. They are both terrible so never count on it for either drive type, do as @philbar mentions and have a good 3+ copy backup of all important data. (It’s been this way for the whole 40 years of my using computers)

  2. It depends on your budget and need for fast data read/write. If price was no object I’d only use SSD’s for in PC data storage (an important point on backups, make sure copies are on different media types)

  3. Whether or not you’ll notice the speed improvement of NVMe is dependent on your workload. If you work a lot with huge files, e.g. high definition video editing, you’ll likely notice the speed boost but for most other tasks you probably won’t notice.
    Reliability/longevity is the same for either interface because the underlying storage technology is the same.

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I would have thought NVMe would show the most improvement in a high IOPS situation, not necessarily with large files. Lot of small files being accessed simultaneously, for example.

But, yes, backup strategy and SSD for main storage.

I use SSD -> HDD -> NAS and SSD -> OneDrive and SSD -> Carbonite
(I use Carbonite for off-site backups, I use a local HDD on my PC for mirrored backups every hour and that mirror is then synced to the NAS. I also keep all of my documents on the SSD in my OneDrive folder, so they are also backed up there.)

When I first got my PC, it had a single SSD and an HDD, I bought it to experiment with VMs and put them on the HDD at first, after all, all my previous PCs had had HDDs and were fast enough. CentOS took around an hour to install in a VM. I put in another SSD and tried again, I had 2 CentOS and a Debian server VM installed in under 15 minutes, installing in parallel (Ryzen 7, 32GB RAM).

One thing though, don’t use SSD as a backup medium! It loses its charge over time and can suffer from memory loss! I use either tape (at work) or an HDD and NAS (home) for local backups. The other thing is to have the backups planned, they run a pre-defined times, not when I remember to perform them!

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If the total size of the data being moved is the same than this is true. However for most users this is almost never the case and what most consider a lot of small files will have the speed difference hidden by the OS and drive RAM caching. Notable exceptions would be compiling a Linux kernel or installing an OS, two tasks that are infrequently done by most users.

If you expect many months of storage from the backups than yes, do not use flash memory for storage. However when re-used in 3 month or less increments flash is reliable (worst systems have > 8 months power off retention). I’ve included flash memory in my data backup strategy for nearly 20 years now. The flash is reused on a weekly to daily basis and it has been as reliable as any other media type for me.

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Agreed. I was thinking more about a business situation, where once a month, the last full backup is put aside for a year and the annual full backup is held for 10 years - although I’d probably want tape for that anyway…

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Thank you those are very helpful

Yeah exactly for my personal files i have online + physical backups
Thought im a little not sure whether to put sensitive documents on a regular online storage (i.e google drive, dropbox, one drive, etc)

As for reliability and repairability
My concern us exactly the memory lost and/or other incidents
Like as hdd has disks it is possible to even open inclosure and recover it somehow but what if an sdd gets power shocked is it recoverable
If anything like this happens is it possible to read data off those chips?
And even NVMe has more exposed components and barebone
As a backup solution ( not a NAS and not something that backs up every day)
For example something like your old shoe box full of childhood photos :sweat_smile: which one makes more sense to put something on and leave it hoping it would last better

I understand your concern with sensitive documents online, although you could encrypt them. You could also use drives stored in a separate location rather than online storage (in addition to the drives on your device and the external, local drive)

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This way I see guys on desktops SDD for the OS and Apps + spinning drive for data; hybirds are best for laptops.