I have several portables externals hard drives to save important information and data (since photographs to films in Blu-ray). I was thinking about the possibility of buying a new one, but the popularity of SSD disks make me doubt.
The most important purposes that a external disk must achieve to me, are:
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Not needed to be conected to electricity.
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Huge capacity.
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Big lifespan.
I tried to investigate this topic, but i don’t find any conclusions. So in the end of 2023… Which is the best option to a lifespan external disk? SDD? Or HDD?
Thanks in advance!
I use a mix of HDDs and SSDs at home. They’ve got pros and cons that orient them for different use cases. For long-term, high capacity, cold storage HDDs win.
SSDs win in pure performance (read/write speeds), and SSD tech continues to improve. However, compared to traditional HDDs they’re more expensive ($/TB), fail abruptly more often (i.e. become irrecoverably broken without warning), and have strictly finite IO cycles (read up on TRIM and “wear leveling” if you’re interested in the technical bits).
Here’s a Backblaze article comparing SSDs and HDDs. It’s not intended to be comprehensive, just an overview of what to look out for.
SSDs are appropriate for internal drives where you need fast access speeds or portable drives that you take with you on travel and actively use frequently. If you want a more cost-effective, stable, and long-term solution I’d generally recommend HDDs unless your use case REALLY needs SSDs for some reason (like if you live on a locomotive and are constantly bumping and jostling, SSDs aren’t gonna head crash lol).
I wouldn’t expect both external SSDs and HDDs to last more than 3-5 years.
Huge capacity.
What is exactly capacity? Cuz external SSDs have lower max capacity than HDDs.
In the end, the best option is to have backups!
It depends much on your handling. If you transport the drive often, i would recommend an SSD, because they are not influenced by vibration, drops etc like an HDD is and will survive a lot of trips in hot and cold. All my dead drives were external HDDs that were transported around.
If you dont transport it, i would go for an HDD, because it is unbeatable in price per Terrabyte in comparison to an SSD. If you have a reliable 3-2-1 Backup strategy, it will be replaced if it fails, but none of your data is in danger.
As you said, you want to not needing to be connected to power, this rules out 3,5HDDs and limits you to 2,5HDDs or SSDs. There you pay double for an 4Tb SSD vs 4TB HDD.
SSDs tend to corrupt Data much faster than HDDs if unpowered for a long time (if archival is more your intention). Lifespan of an SSD is in the TBW, so the more data you write, the sooner it fails. A 4TB Samsung 870 QVO fails after 2880 TBW. A HDD writes ands stores data as long as it mechanically works.
A HDD stores Data upowered for a longer time and could last Years if handled correctly (i phased out a 2007 drive this year, run daily and still working without problems, just too small).
i would say, id depends very much on your usecase.
If you plan to do more of archival saving, rethink your power limitation. 2,5HDDs have right now hit kind of a wall in maximum capacity. if you go 3,5HDDs they are unbeataable in price to size. You get there nearly double the capacity per money spent vs 2,5HDDs, exspecially with bigger drives like 12, 14 or 16TB.