My external hard drive failed recently, and I’d like to replace it. SSHDs are said to be more reliable than disc-based drives, so I’ve been looking at those.
But even for the same size, I’m seeing a very wide range of prices. That suggests to me that there’s some other trait that I should be looking at, that makes some superior to others. But I’m not sure what it would be: They should all be much faster and more reliable than disc-based drives. What else distinguishes them?
Or is there no difference, and I should just get one of the cheap ones?
Ah, I had thought that the H in SSHD was “hard”, not “hybrid”. That might account for it: A cheap 2-terabyte SSHD might be 1.5 TB magnetic platters and 0.5 TB solid state, while an expensive 2-TB SSD would be 2 TB entirely of solid state.
The speed would be a nice bonus, of course, but since this would be an external drive, not my primary, it wouldn’t make much difference. The main reason I was looking at solid-state was the reliability, since this drive just failed, after all, and the one I had before that was flaky. And I expect that a hybrid drive would be no more reliable than its least-reliable component, so it wouldn’t offer any advantages there. It looks like I might just get another magnetic-platter drive, then.
I"m totally not a gamer, nor do I render 3D landscapes, just a “business application” user with some light photo and sound editing. The overall responsiveness is massively better ever since I switched to a 2 TB SSD. The speed with which the computer boots is more than 4x as fast. I stopped seeing the spinning rainbow ball of “wait” – I really never see it any more, ever.
I’d get another external HDD, or even perhaps two. For an external drive, I don’t see the point of paying extra for an SSD. (Unless perhaps it’s getting bounced around quite a bit.)
Just for the record, I’ve had two drive failures in my life. I had one hard drive fail about 20 years ago, and I had one SSD fail about 5 years ago. This one anecdote doesn’t prove anything about average reliability, but be aware that SSDs can fail.
Speed, M.2 drives are faster than SSD. Don’t quote me, but I think it’s because M.2 drives are connected to the PCI express lanes directly and the SSDs need to go through the SATA interface which is a lot slower than PCI express.
According to this link https://www.pcguide.com/ssd/guide/nvme-vs-m-2-vs-sata/ SATA hits a max of 600 Mb/s and M.2 can hit 4 Gb/s on PCIe 3, 4 can run faster but based on videos I have watched (Linus Tech Tips for one) the memory can’t write/read fast enough for long enough at this point in time to make the expense of PCIe4.0 drives worth it.
I’ve one SSHD but I don’t see a lot of improvement in performance. SSDs are much better but in terms of storage cost a lot more than regular HDs.
Given that, I usually get an SSD with enough storage for the OS and some apps and data, and then use the regular HD for other apps and data not used often. In all cases, I back up the system and data to external drives and the cloud.
Finally, the SSDs that connect directly to the motherboard are even faster and sometimes the cost is the same as those that are connected via cables.
M.2 is a form factor. You can have an M.2 that uses the PCIe Bus lanes (fast) or an M.2 that uses SATA (slower). Mind you, an M.2 on SATA is still leagues faster than a traditional hard drive, but it’s not any faster than a 2.5" SSD. If you buy an M.2 drive, you want to make sure what sort of M.2 slot you have (PCIe or SATA) and purchase accordingly. PCIe SSDs are often called NVMe drives which isn’t entirely accurate since NVMe is a storage protocol and PCIe is the way it transfers the data but, these days, you’d be hard pressed to find an SSD that’s one but not the other.
One important characteristic of SSDs is the number of bits that are stored in each NAND flash memory cell. With the caveat that some of my recollection of this may be dated, SSDs fall into what used to be three (but is now four) basic categories in this respect: single-level cell (SLC), multi-level cell (MLC, with two bits per cell), triple-level cell (TLC, with three bits per cell), and the newest, called quad-level cell (QLC) which didn’t exist when I bought my last SSD. The number of bits per cell determines both speed, to some extent, but mainly determines durability – the total number of write cycles possible. SLC, if it’s still used at all, is rare and only seen in enterprise-class SSDs used in servers, but even then there is now something called enterprise-class MLC (eMLC).
So for home use the typical choice is between MLC and TLC (and now, I suppose QLC). The general consensus seems to be that for most typical use, a current-generation TLC will outlast the lifetime of the PC and isn’t worth worrying about. Personally, because of the relatively small cost difference, I chose a Samsung 850 Pro (MLC) for my main desktop computer and my newest laptop, and a TLC for my older desktop. Looking at specs and reviews, it was also gratifying that the Pro was also faster than the equivalent 850 EVO (TLC) and hits the maximum SATA speed possible.
But keep in mind that technology is always improving, and in the latest drives you may be well served by TLC – look at the durability specs, and the warranty. There are other factors to durability and reliability, such as the specific flash technology used and how effectively cells are remapped to minimize reuse. I installed a very inexpensive SSD in my old laptop that I got on sale because it was considered obsolete, and I was surprised to discover later that it was an MLC type, yet I’m sure than a modern Samsung EVO (TLC) would blow it away. The comparisons are only valid for the same or similar generations.
On the subject of form factor, both of my newest SSDs are the 2.5" SATA-connected types rather than M.2 because that’s all that my computers can handle. But when my son built his latest computer aimed at gaming performance, he opted for a triple hierarchy of drives. It has two ePCI-connected M.2 SSDs, one for Windows and one for the most critical gaming, plus a 1 TB SATA-connected SSD for other gaming, plus 4 TB of general storage in mechanical drives, brought over from his previous computer.
For an external, backup/long term storage/archive drive a hybrid drive offers pretty much zero gain. The nature of such use means that caching in the SSD part is ineffective. Unless you need really large amounts of storage my inclination is to avoid spinning rust as much as possible. I have endured enough disk failures to have something of an allergy to them. All disks are just a cache. Unless you have a regime of multiple redundant off-site backups, you are in-line for a bad day eventually. Plan on a fire destroying your house, or a thief stealing all your computers and the backup disks. Once an ability to survive that is in place, you can choose your local overflow disk drive.