Kroll Ontrack on field SSD reliability

[Brink]

How likely are you to lose data from an SSD failure? According to Kroll Ontrack's survey of almost 2,000 people, pretty likely: 24 percent of respondents had lost data due to SSD failures. Here's what you need to know.

Kroll's online survey found that just 5 percent of respondents didn't use SSDs. Given their ubiquity in Macs, Ultrabooks, tablets, smartphones, and newer desktops that's not surprising. Even better, 81 percent used SSDs for performance, while only 10 percent thought they were more reliable.

That's good, because that's reality. As Kroll's Jeff Pederson, senior manager for data recovery, noted:

While adoption of SSD is up and failure rates between SSD and HDD are consistent, the types of failure are generally different. With hard drives, a bad motor or scratch in the platter can cause failure. Because there are no moving parts in SSDs, general electric failure or wear leveling failure are more common.

38 percent of survey respondents experienced a failure with an SSD, and of those, 64 percent lost data. That's just over 24 percent of all people surveyed...

Read more: Kroll Ontrack on field SSD reliability | ZDNet

 

[lehnerus2000]

24% isn't an encouraging number.

I don't really see much benefit for ordinary desktop users to install large SSDs (i.e. >120 GB) unless you have some special need.
Large SSDs are probably better used in laptops, because of the limited internal space and battery power.

I'm using most of the 480 GB SSD in my main desktop, to base my regularly used VMs (XP, W7, W10 & LM17).
My main desktop also has 8TB of HDD space for my files (documents, music, pictures, videos, additional VMs and "local" backup images).

 

[ncgmcpherson]

24% isn't an encouraging number.

I don't really see much benefit for ordinary desktop users to install large SSDs (i.e. >120 GB) unless you have some special need.
Large SSDs are probably better used in laptops, because of the limited internal space and battery power.

I'm using most of the 480 GB SSD in my main desktop, to base my regularly used VMs (XP, W7, W10 & LM17).
My main desktop also has 8TB of HDD space for my files (documents, music, pictures, videos, additional VMs and "local" backup images).

For SSDs you want about twice as much space as you need. First, for over provisioning to ensure the drive has the space it needs when writing to the cells. (That eats up on avg. 10%) Also, wear leveling. The article touched on this. The controller will move around writes and deletes to wear the cells more evenly. HDDs do a similar thing. If you only leave say, 25%, then more cells are written to more often, leading to quicker failures of those cells. Which as the article shows, can possibly kill a drive depending on how many die and your controller.

HDDs fail as well, also touched on. I think the difference here is that the mechanical failures normally don't take out a whole drive, unless you drop it and crash the heads, and even that is more protected these days. Also, Windows' built in OS tools, and other drive tools, are good about getting data moved when it detects a possible failure on a mechanical platter due to a sector showing signs of wear. With the electric cells of an SSD, normally by the time it's detected it's too late.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

For what seems like ages, I put off buying an SSD. Then I found a PNY 120GB SSD for a really discounted price and I jumped on it. Three months later, the PNY SSD abruptly died.....one day it worked fine, but the next day it wouldn't even boot up, and defied all attempts to access it. I called PNY Customer Support and they flatly refused to help me. So now PNY is on my sh** list.

I immediately went to Amazon and found a SanDisk 120GB SSD at a very reasonable price, bought it, and three days later installed it. That was almost a year ago now, and the little SanDisk SSD is still performing 100%, according to the SanDisk Dashboard.

I bought a second SanDisk 120GB SSD for my backup computer.

For me, the advantages of an SSD over a spinner are: Extremely faster file access and read, quieter operation, less power draw and less heat generated. And, you can literally put an SSD ANYWHERE!

If I may suggest.....Since an SSD can die without any warning at all, keeping a backup on a spinner is a very good idea. About once a week, I clone my SSD to a 500GB SATA III spinner, so if my SSD dies, I can always boot up my PC from the spinner. More often, I do a compressed Image backup of C: (SSD) to an external 1TB, USB-3 drive.
Yes, I do practice what I preach, that is, "the only bad backup is the one you decided NOT to make".
Backup! Backup! Backup!

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

 

[RoasterMen]

My samsung HDD only lasted for 5 years because it was never been defragged. I bought a new Hitachi Hard Drive and learned my lesson. Defragging isn't actually that long (Maybe because my main partition only has 70.4GB and the other ones have 227GB?)

 

[TechnoMage2016]

Some self-proclaimed Experts will tell you that running Defrag puts extra wear and tear on a HD, thus shortening it's life. BS!, I say. A badly fragmented HD will work it's A** off trying to read fragmented files.

Years ago, even before MS came out with a Defrag routine, Central Point Software marketed a defrag program called "Compress". It worked exactly like the defrag that MS finally released. Coincidence? :sarc:

Then some will remember Norton's Speed Disk. It would have been OK, if it were not destroying Seagate drives all over the place. There was no internet at that time and no Forums, but the word still got out, coast to coast, through the Bulletin Board network.

Anyway, doing a frequent Defrag, keeps it in good running condition, and only takes a few minutes.*

I used to Defrag my spinners on a weekly (not weakly) basis, as the final part of my weekly HD maintenance..... and right before I did a full C: drive backup.

* Don't run Defrag on an SSD. Only use "Trim" to keep it in good shape.

Cheers Mates! Happy Independence Day! (US only)

TechnoMage