Using SSD for cache

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

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MizzKittenzz wrote:

Every PC savvy person knows that you do not turn a PC off daily, let alone even weekly...

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Eh... You mean "not weekly, let alone daily" maybe?

Anyway, that's just complete nonsense.

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 Yes you may save a few cents at the time but in the long run you'll pay more for killing your hard drive.

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Two of my hard drives have failed me so far. On both accounts it was the heads coming off. Leaving your computer on all day, every day will not prevent that. I don't know where you live, but leaving your computer on all day costs quite a bit more than a few cents.

Please don't tell me you also leave the car running when you don't use it. It will lengthen the life of many expensive components in the engine, but is it economical? Your TV, do you leave that on as well? Maybe your stereo equipment?

Let's say my computer draws 5W when in sleep mode. I don't use my computer 16 hours a day. Let's assume the PC goes into sleep mode the second I don't use it. 5x16x365=212000Wh=212kWh. 212x€0,25=€53,-. So every two years you can buy a brand new SSD.

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I've lost maybe ten hard drives in the twenty some years I've owned them. I've yet to lose any solid state storage device. That's across all my iPods, iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, audio recorders, video cameras, DSLRs, test equipment, etc. Solid state storage is certainly newer than rotating magnetic media, but it's becoming increasingly well understood and the wear leveling and error detection algorithms get better all the time. Meanwhile magnetic recording is pushing up against the quantum limits of magnetic domains and will succumb to the kinds of degradation mechanisms recognizable to those who fight tunneling/oxide wear in the itty bitty transistors of Flash memory devices. Reading bits off a hard drive is already an exercise in heady stochastics.

Solid state will displace magnetic storage, so this argument has a finite lifetime.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

You must abuse your drives a lot worse than I do... anyway, those are my experiences as well.

"tick grind tick....nothing". Makes my skin creep.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

You must abuse your drives a lot worse than I do... anyway, those are my experiences as well.

"tick grind tick....nothing". Makes my skin creep.

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I did run some disk intensive engineering software years ago, but most of the failures were due to manufacturing issues, I think. I bought three Maxtor drives in the late 90s to build a little RAID server. All of them died within the first year. All of their replacements died within the second.

I've never lost data due to a drive failure. I have, twice, lost data to anti-virus software. I will never again run anti-virus software.

And oh, I do remember that sound.

... shudders.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

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MizzKittenzz wrote:

Every PC savvy person knows that you do not turn a PC off daily, let alone even weekly...

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Eh... You mean "not weekly, let alone daily" maybe?

Anyway, that's just complete nonsense.

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 Yes you may save a few cents at the time but in the long run you'll pay more for killing your hard drive.

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Two of my hard drives have failed me so far. On both accounts it was the heads coming off. Leaving your computer on all day, every day will not prevent that. I don't know where you live, but leaving your computer on all day costs quite a bit more than a few cents.

Please don't tell me you also leave the car running when you don't use it. It will lengthen the life of many expensive components in the engine, but is it economical? Your TV, do you leave that on as well? Maybe your stereo equipment?

Let's say my computer draws 5W when in sleep mode. I don't use my computer 16 hours a day. Let's assume the PC goes into sleep mode the second I don't use it. 5x16x365=212000Wh=212kWh. 212x€0,25=€53,-. So every two years you can buy a brand new SSD.

It doesn't really matter anyway, since in either sleep or hibernate mode, your hard drives are powered off.

So let's say you keep your computer idle. Instead of my low estimate of 5W, let's say the computer uses 50W. Then we're at €530 a year. You could buy a whole new computer after two years.

EDIT, oh I see Maddy sneaked in while I was editing...

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Actually your savings are probably greater than that.

Because that wattage is dissipated as heat energy.  So in the Summer, if you do cool your house, you need to use at least 5 watts for cooling just to offset the heat generated by your computer.

During the winter I keep my computer under my desk but in the summer I have to move it off to the side just because the heat it generates can make me sweat and I really don't want to crank up my air conditioning any more than I have to.

But as long as we are on the topic, here's some factoids I googled:

Computers and Monitors: When Should I Turn Then Off

Leaving your computer on... Overheating? Lifespan?

I especially liked these two quotes:

"Either way You choose it will become morally [i'm not sure what they meant by "morally" here] obsolete before it fails from running 24/7 or often switching."

"This is a pointless thing to worry about. Things break eventually. Sometimes sooner rather than later. Pondering whether or not they broke because they ran too long or because they were power-cycled one too many times is worthless.

 

Do the world's energy resources and your power bill a favor and put your computer into sleep at night. Do your peace of mind a favor and buy quality parts.

 

Edit: Oh and do your sanity a favor and BACKUP."

 

edit:grrrrrrr.....typos

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Oh and do your sanity a favor and BACKUP."

 

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Can't say that often enough, no matter what kind of drive one uses.

I was dumb enough not to have made enough back ups when my second drive failed me the evening before a deadline. That was one LONG night.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kwakkelde Kwak wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Oh and do your sanity a favor and BACKUP."

 

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Can't say that often enough, no matter what kind of drive one uses.

I was dumb enough not to have made enough back ups when my second drive failed me the evening before a deadline. That was one LONG night.

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I've even gone as far as cloning a Hard Drive.

The hours saved in formatting and running updates and reinstalling all my software made it well worth it.

If I was dependent on my computer for business puposes I'd certainly do it again.

[Sassy Romano]

As others have said, just go SSD and be happy.  Use it for the whole machine.

With regard to lifespan, be it SSD or spinning disk, you should plan for a back up.  People store far too much digital data these days without realising just how often disks fail and when they fail, they fail.  I've lost plenty of disks but less data due to my regime.

At present my PC has an OS disk which is SSD.  Two 2TB disks which are configured as a mirror so a drive can fail with no loss of data.  A further 2TB disk which is used soley as a nightly backup of 7 day retention of the main SSD.

I'm far less interested in arguing about warranty or lifespan than accidental deletion, malware infection or other potential data loss that might occur.  It's irrelevant to me whether an SSD lasts 1, 2 or 3 years as it'll be under warranty.  What does matter is that I can recover my PC within an hour with minimum effort and by the time 3 years has passed, i'll want a bigger SSD anyway and so it's likely to be refreshed before it wears out.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

As others have said, just go SSD and be happy.  Use it for the whole machine.

With regard to lifespan, be it SSD or spinning disk, you should plan for a back up.  People store far too much digital data these days without realising just how often disks fail and when they fail, they fail.  I've lost plenty of disks but less data due to my regime.

At present my PC has an OS disk which is SSD.  Two 2TB disks which are configured as a mirror so a drive can fail with no loss of data.  A further 2TB disk which is used soley as a nightly backup of 7 day retention of the main SSD.

I'm far less interested in arguing about warranty or lifespan than accidental deletion, malware infection or other potential data loss that might occur.  It's irrelevant to me whether an SSD lasts 1, 2 or 3 years as it'll be under warranty.  What does matter is that I can recover my PC within an hour with minimum effort and by the time 3 years has passed, i'll want a bigger SSD anyway and so it's likely to be refreshed before it wears out.

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Yep.

My main computer has a SSD/HD mashup Apple calls "Fusion Drive". That's backed up every hour in a ping-pong fashion to two external hard drives.

When I was working, my client files were also backed up to a network drive, slowly bounced to my website and at the termination of every project, or upon reaching a milestone, archived to a 2.5" project specific HD which was stored off site (either in my barn or at Mom's ;-) An HD, Flash drive or SD card was also sent to the client, containing a virtual machine image of the entire working environment for my project. The OS, tools, and all data files were frozen in time at the moment of project completion.

I run no malware detection/removal software, as my personal experience has been that such things are far more dangerous than the malware I'm easily able to avoid.

I do not burn CDs or DVDs because I've had too much trouble with longevity or compatibility between the various machines I've used to burn them and read them over the years.

I haven't had a hardware failure of any kind in years, but I have had hard drives become unreadable because of firmware errors. Reformatting and updating the drives has brought them back.

There isn't any form of storage I trust as much as pencil/ink/toner on paper.

;-)

[Madelaine McMasters]

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MizzKittenzz wrote:

My husband went longer then 4yrs... But anyway... I'm off to shop a bit. As its getting really personal here ... Instead of calmly stating an opinion it somehow instead goes directly to personal attacks ...

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I hope you didn't take my response as a personal attack. It was simply an explanation and an observation.

Had I done my graduate work the "approved" way, I'd have something approaching a PHd in a mashup of electrical/biomedical engineering and physics. But I do things my way, so I officially have only a BSEE and lots of post graduate credits that add up to nothing more than the satisfaction of my own curiosity.

Technology moves fast. Much of what I learned in school (other than how to learn) is already obsolete. So when I encounter certainty about a technology (or anything really), I question it. I do not wave my diploma as proof I know anything. It's just too humbing (and exciting ;-) when a youngster on her/his way to earning one runs circles around me. When that happens, I do my best to not be swatted aside.

 

[Coventina Dalgleish]

Current statistics on media storage failures are 1.5% for ssd and 5% for hard drives.

On off power may have an impact on ssd's it also has the same impact on HD electronics

 

Actually I lose more WD drives than any other type to the extent they do not talk to me any longer ))

Actually it all comes down to QC  and most of the  spinners have long ago set the QC levels for their products.

 

In actuality it makes little difference if you run the power sucking computer 24/7 or  turn it off  every day it will fail in time.

 

Most likely this time will correspond to the time you need to replacing it anyway or at least upgrade 

The run all the time or turn off scenarios have been going on as long as there have been electronic systems

and neither has any documentation or proof that they are better it seems to be the situations am right because I say so.

 

I have no idea why I still have Maxtor drives dated 1994  still functioning, 250 gb versions but they keep spinning on.

 

As far as SSD's are concerned they seem to be getting a lot cheaper lately as the new technology's are implemented

and the speed increase leaves no doubt in their effectiveness. One might make the assumption that they will die at the same rate as the spinners but with less warning

 

so buy a new ssd each year and keep them happy and back up your data then take the old one out and skip it across the water just for the fun of it the way it is going  the price you paid for your sparkly new ssd last year will be 1/2 the price this year. And they will continue to upgrade the nand gate memory's until they perfect the tech

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Coventina Dalgleish wrote:

Current statistics on media storage failures are 1.5% for ssd and 5% for hard drives.

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I've read that statistic as well. A couple years ago, Google presented a paper describing their experience with HD failures across all their server farms. They punctured a lot of myths with that paper, including the "bathtub curve" and "hot is bad". I look forward to a comprehensive analysis of solid state storage from a major player someday soon. Fusion IO and others are running headlong into the SSD server market, and I don't think they're doing it blindly.

[Perrie Juran]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Coventina Dalgleish wrote:

Current statistics on media storage failures are 1.5% for ssd and 5% for hard drives.

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I've read that statistic as well. A couple years ago, Google presented a paper describing their experience with HD failures across all their server farms. They punctured a lot of myths with that paper, including the "bathtub curve" and "hot is bad". I look forward to a comprehensive analysis of solid state storage from a major player someday soon. Fusion IO and others are running headlong into the SSD server market, and I don't think they're doing it blindly.

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Tom's Hardware surveyed a number of Data Centers about failure rates back in 2011.  LINK

It would be nice if they were to do the followup survey that they said would be needed.

The biggest problem with SSD's as I see it is that failures occur with no warning and that when they fail you (at least at this time) cannot recover data  from them.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Coventina Dalgleish wrote:

Current statistics on media storage failures are 1.5% for ssd and 5% for hard drives.

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I've read that statistic as well. A couple years ago, Google presented a paper describing their experience with HD failures across all their server farms. They punctured a lot of myths with that paper, including the "bathtub curve" and "hot is bad". I look forward to a comprehensive analysis of solid state storage from a major player someday soon. Fusion IO and others are running headlong into the SSD server market, and I don't think they're doing it blindly.

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Tom's Hardware surveyed a number of Data Centers about failure rates back in 2011. 

LINK

It would be nice if they were to do the followup survey that they said would be needed.

The biggest problem with SSD's as I see it is that failures occur with no warning and that when they fail you (at least at this time) cannot recover data  from them.

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I was aware of Tom's survey, but the sample size was pretty small. SSD failure mechanisms are different than those for HDD and it'll take some time for the management algorithms (which affect recoverability) to catch up. But, as Google discovered in their massive survey, SMART (the management algorithms used in HDDs) is also pretty stupid.

None of the players in the Tom's survey were large enough to compare with Google. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and others are deploying SSD on a large scale. SSD is the only storage technology in most mobile devices. This suggests businesses are confident they can manage the risks, and that it's worth it.

As we shift to mobile devices, the biggest unrecoverable error we face is... losing the devices!

Hence the importance of an effortless backup plan.

[droolcules]

SSD are not 'built for speed'. They are both more reliable and faster due to solid state design. The speed is a by product of using solid state technolgoy, but the first uses for large solid state drive that I remember where for earth quake proofing mission critical systems at the enormous cost of early SSD technology, people still did it.

 

Now days SSD is BOTH faster and more reliable than HDD storage. A few years ago in earlier generations there were significantly limits on total writes which limited the lifespan of SSD devices.

This is no longer a significant limitation to solid state drives and the end result is a higher number of hours before mean tiem failure.

 

The same methodology used to test mechanical hard drives is used to test solid state drives and solid states now reliable out last mechnical hard drives.Solid state drives also continue to improve more rapidly than mechanical hdds. These days the only reason to go HDD over SSD is because of the much larger capacity on the HDD. I'd recommend everyone switch over to solid state drives for the OS and main apps. It's affordable enough and the performance boost is huge. It's easily the best money you can spend to see a performance increase in your system.

 

Even if you were worried about SSD long term reliability you would still install the OS and main apps on teh SSD and simply used your HDD to store pictures and financial data. Of course we live in the age of cloud storage and I think thats the direction most people will want to go for backing up reasonble amounts of sensitive data, just don't skimp on your passwords. There is no reason not to get the massive performance boost that SSD can give your system at today's pices and capacities, other than you don't feel like you need a far more resonsive PC and faster load/zoning/boot times or any type of manipulating of large files as well as any type of file copy process. If you do any of that then SSD is going to give you a pretty huge boost during those operations. 

I've worked in IT for over 15 years and have a CS degree. The modern data shows that SSDs are more reliable. Data from 5 or 10 years ago may show the opposite. I use a Samsung 880 Pro and it works great. It's also far more resistant to corrupting if your computer crashes or power goes off without a UPS/shutdown. It's also of course much more resistant to damage from shock via dropping or damange from vibration. It's tiny and generates very little heat, unlike my array of 15 TB of mechnical drives I use for my server storage. I wish I could afford 15 TB of solid state performance to eliminate my conerns of mechanical drive failures. In normal user, gaming and home server usage, SSDs are superior and show lower failure rates. When you do push an SSD to it's limits you can cause it to fail prematurely, pretty much like any electronic device. The difference is your moving tremendiously more data on an SSD over the same given period of time in a stress test and that's just not how a normal user or even server often works. Only in very specific uses would you run into this problem with SSD and that would be likely on large computer clusters doing massive multi threaded data manipulations. Still, you would accomplish these tasks in a fraction of the time with SSD, you just might push the drives beyond their current design limits and over time that would wear them down. In any type of normal PC usage, even file sharing or 2nd life caching you should not come any where near the write limits of an SSD within any unreasonably short amount of time. I expect my SSD will easily last 8+ years and I consider myself a demanding user. I would not put my trust in any existing mechnical hdd to last that long with as high a level of certainty. It's still electronics though and even among mechnical hard drives electronics are not anywhere near rock solid, but you should be ably to rely on an SSD as much as an HDD. For backups you simply need multiple locations/drives to store data or it's not really much of a backup.

Here is a long standing and reliable site for informatoin and benchmarks on storage technology.  .

http://www.storagereview.com/ssd_vs_hdd