Day Destroyers

[Hawkeye]

But I've been using a laptop for the last 5 years, so maybe laptop drives aren't as good quality. I don't know. They seem to last less than two years for me.

This says it all. Laptops; the very word makes me cringe.

As for Desktop PCs I believe it goes something like this:

Samsung > WD > Seagate > Maxtor

I've had a couple of WD drives in my machine that have been running for years. I've hard formatted them roughly 30 times too (nothing to do with the hard drive performance).

Currently, my main drives are Samsung SpinPoint F3s. They're not the fastest, but they are damn reliable.

 

[Architect]

This says it all. Laptops; the very word makes me cringe.

As for Desktop PCs I believe it goes something like this:

Samsung > WD > Seagate > Maxtor

I've had a couple of WD drives in my machine that have been running for years. I've hard formatted them roughly 30 times too (nothing to do with the hard drive performance).

Currently, my main drives are Samsung SpinPoint F3s. They're not the fastest, but they are damn reliable.

Spinners? Why? Except for the big data I farm out to my Cloud all my computers, including desktops, are SSD's.

 

[Hawkeye]

Spinners? Why? Except for the big data I farm out to my Cloud all my computers, including desktops, are SSD's.

SSDs are not quite there yet. I find they die quicker than spinners and are nowhere near as large (unless you are willing to fork out silly money).

Also formatting them isn't advised.

 

[Architect]

SSDs are not quite there yet. I find they die quicker than spinners and are nowhere near as large (unless you are willing to fork out silly money).

Also formatting them isn't advised.

What? I've got at least three of the first gen still running strong and being used daily. Haven't had a single one die yet. I've got about 10 from Intel, to OtherWorldComputing (the best) and OCZ.

Whoever advised you about formatting is silly, of course you can format them, I've done it about a million times. And like I said, for big data you use infrequently stick it on a big desktop spinner.

 

[Hawkeye]

What? I've got at least three of the first gen still running strong and being used daily. Haven't had a single one die yet. I've got about 10 from Intel, to OtherWorldComputing (the best) and OCZ.

Whoever advised you about formatting is silly, of course you can format them, I've done it about a million times. And like I said, for big data you use infrequently stick it on a big desktop spinner.

Ah, my mistake. I was talking about a specific type of formatting. Doing the type of formatting you mentioned has little impact on an SSD.

I was referring to a complete wipe of data - zero-filling.

Doing this type of format frequently will drastically reduce the lifespan of an SSD. Plus, the available writable space will reduce over time.

 

[Architect]

Ah, my mistake. I was talking about a specific type of formatting. Doing the type of formatting you mentioned has little impact on an SSD.

I was referring to a complete wipe of data - zero-filling.

Doing this type of format frequently will drastically reduce the lifespan of an SSD.

A single write of zero for security purposes? As you know with SSD's there's no magnetic domains so a single write is good enough AFAIK. I still don't get it, you can write to every bit on your disk. Then you can write to them all again. This makes no sense.

Plus, the available writable space will reduce over time.

I don't understand what you're saying here either. You seem to be thinking of TRIM support, which isn't quite what you say here (TRIM affects performance not MTBF).

Plus it entirely depends on the Controller. The OWC controller does wear leveling, automatic TRIM and bad block allocation.

Enterprise customers put them at the front end of their DB, don't think for a minute they would do this if they weren't better than spinners in every way.

 

[Duxwing]

Inexplcably breeding two blue chocobos instead of a blue and green one, even though you did everything right, AND having not saved prior to the breeding.

O.o?

-Duxwing

 

[Hawkeye]

A single write of zero for security purposes? As you know with SSD's there's no magnetic domains so a single write is good enough AFAIK. I still don't get it, you can write to every bit on your disk. Then you can write to them all again. This makes no sense.



I don't understand what you're saying here either. You seem to be thinking of TRIM support, which isn't quite what you say here (TRIM affects performance not MTBF).

Plus it entirely depends on the Controller. The OWC controller does wear leveling, automatic TRIM and bad block allocation.

Enterprise customers put them at the front end of their DB, don't think for a minute they would do this if they weren't better than spinners in every way.

SSDs leak memory just like any solid state memory - a usb pen drive for example. This is a known fact.

And no, a single reformat on an SDD is as useless as it is on an HDD in terms of security. They format the same way as in they don't actually erase any data. Easy to recover.

The rewrite life of an SDD sector is far lower than that of an HDD sector.
Every time you write and rewrite, it becomes more difficult to actually read what is on that sector. You can't keep writing and rewriting to a sector indefinitely, there is a limit. Therefore, zero-filling an SDD reduces its lifespan significantly more than a simple reformat as you are writing to every sector and lowering it's limited rewrite-ability.

 

[Architect]

SSDs leak memory just like any solid state memory - a usb pen drive for example. This is a known fact.

Leak memory ... help me out here, define "leak". I have no idea what your talking about and didn't find anything useful by search.

And no, a single reformat on an SDD is as useless as it is on an HDD in terms of security. They format the same way as in they don't actually erase any data. Easy to recover.

Yes of course, I'm obviously talking about an actual write of the bit, not including the wear optimizations of the OS and controller.

The rewrite life of an SDD sector is far lower than that of an HDD sector.
Every time you write and rewrite, it becomes more difficult to actually read what is on that sector. You can't keep writing and rewriting to a sector indefinitely, there is a limit. Therefore, zero-filling an SDD reduces its lifespan significantly more than a simple reformat as you are writing to every sector and lowering it's limited rewrite-ability.

Yes, but your terms "far" and "significantly" are inappropriate. Look up the MTBF of SSD's. As I said I'm personally using SSD's from three years ago. And SSD's don't suffer from drop issues (I've lost two spinners from getting knocked while running - head impact parking doesn't always work that fast).

In real world application SSD's are far superior, haven't you noticed that everybody is using them?

 

[SpaceYeti]

O.o?

-Duxwing

Final Fantasy 7, yo.

 

[Duxwing]

Final Fantasy 7, yo.

Oh, OK.

-Duxwing

 

[Hawkeye]

Leak memory ... help me out here, define "leak". I have no idea what your talking about and didn't find anything useful by search.

This is where the overall size of an SSD will shrink overtime due to the limited amount of time a sector can be written to before it becomes unreliable. It is why wear-levelling algorithms exist - to slow the rate of segment death.

In real world application SSD's are far superior, haven't you noticed that everybody is using them?

This in no way means that they are better. There have been a number of developments in technology that have been superior to the "popular" trend.

Granted SSDs are faster at transfering data but they fall behind in terms of storage. Also SSDs die more catastrophically than HDDs meaning yuo are more than likely going to lose all the data on the drive.