Gaming How long SSD's have lasted you?

gifi4

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Hey guys, I'm just curious about how long they've lasted the users, I've read about some dying roughly at the 10 year mark, also heard of some lasting barely 2 weeks...
At the very least, from that info I just provided, it's safe to say that if you have any important data on an SSD, have a regular backup onto either another HDD, online or something else.

Also one more quick question:
What's your backup plan, if your main drive were to die (SSD/HDD) do you have your regular programs backed up? What about the OS, easy and quick access in case disaster strikes?

As for me, I'm about to go backup the regular programs I use, so I don't have to bother redownloading everything if something goes wrong.
 

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It is not really known how long ssd's will last but some of them die very fast and others seem to still be running since the begginning of the ssd's. All I know is that the sandforce controller is something you would want to avoid if you want your ssd's to have a long lifespan.
 

Originality

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That's not quite true anymore. SSDs are more stable than they used to be, and it took a lot of firmware updates to get that far. Even the Sandforce 2200 controlled SSDs no longer have the chronic blue screen syndrome from before. As for my Vertex 3, its holding up well so far.

Also, I schedule backups for every Sunday.
 

Scorpei

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I have 2 fully functional machines at arms length for my day to day work, my laptop and PC on which I am working this moment. My PC has an agility 3 120gb, where my laptop has an HDD. Aside form those machines I have a PC at my parents' house which is pretty much a fully functional machine with an Intel 40gig SSD.

As far as storage, most of my data is stored on my server (also within arms length) which has a raid 5 disk array (look it up, wrote about it here somewhere). It's OS is on an SSD (some corsair 30 gig disk, not a clue about the age) but also an older version of the OS still available on a CF card (8gigs microdisk). Meaning aside from full failure my data is safe for 1 HDD fail (or 2 if you count my cold-spare).

My IMPORTANT data however is kept in at least 2 locations, 3 machines: my workstation, my brothers server here and my brothers server at his place. That means that even if my house burns down I have at least a one day backup of all my important documents. If the place doesn't burn down but one system dies I still have a live backup. All systems here are hooked up to a UPS so I can finish off a clean shutdown as long as I am around and the power grid can send out spikes and my machines will survive.

I also have that data in irregular backups on my laptop, server and PC at home.

SSD lifetime count so far:
-Intel disk bought used (roughly a year of normal household use), added roughly 1 year
-Corsair: not a clue, still runs but I perform very little writes on the thing (on 24/7 since about 5 months) - Looking at the SMART data more closely it COULD be that the Jmicron controller in there is reporting 48% life left..
-Agility 3: Have booked 4 months of on-hours with about 750gigabytes worth of reads and 150 of writes

All in all I would say I will probably be able to use the Agility for 4 years before I feel it needs to be replaced (if only because of much stronger hardware becoming available, it will run 6 I think). The Corsair one will be in the server for the duration I suppose, knowing full well it could die this or next year as I have 0 indication of it's use. The intel disk... the system doesn't run that much so it will probably last me a long time to come, but will see it's use shift from the gaming rig at home to the server here.

Currently if you are data hungry HDD >> SSD and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future. As for backups: any backup is as good as your system. Count on it to fail at least on one level. If your data is needed for taxes or w/e be ready to keep it REAL secure (for example, on HDD and on tapes, on different locations). Added advantage, old data does not change.
 

gifi4

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I don't know about America but here in AUS, since HDD prices have gone up so much (Thai floods) SSD prices have come down a fair bit. My current SSD, bought a short while back (before floods) is a Corsair Force GT 120GB (SATA 3) cost me $250 IIRC, the current price for that is $190 (checked a few sites).
So in terms of good time to buy them, it would be now. After HDD prices come down, SSD prices will go up.

Anyway, I see the stability has improved. I suppose that's good.

That's not quite true anymore. SSDs are more stable than they used to be, and it took a lot of firmware updates to get that far. Even the Sandforce 2200 controlled SSDs no longer have the chronic blue screen syndrome from before. As for my Vertex 3, its holding up well so far.

Also, I schedule backups for every Sunday.
With the backups, if you backup on an external HDD, that isn't plugged in when the backup is scheduled, does anything go wrong or does it just skip that backup and do the backup next time, same with if the computer is turned off?
 

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here's an article from tom's hardware on ssd reliability:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html

This graph which aggregates results from different studies is interesting as it shows initial failure rate to be higher in ssd but in the long term, ssd are more reliable.

,4-T-302141-3.png
 
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juggernaut911

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snipple like a nipple
Thanks for the actual useful post with a source.

Anyways, until SSD capacity increases, I'm betting their failure rates will remain low. Upon the day that they hold a TB or so, I don't think their failure rate will be much affected. I believe no moving parts makes a huge difference.
 
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Zetta_x

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Since your @marcus134 doesn't want to work:


@marcus134
1. Projections (dotted lines) assume constant failure rates and are provided for illustrative purposes only. There is no reason to believe that SSDs model a constant failure rate. While the graph is entertaining, they specifically say the SSD lines are probably inaccurate; there is not enough data to compare HDD's and SSDs. Even with the current data, nearly all SSD's have a higher failure rate then HDD's except for the purple lined HDD's which I'm going to guess is Seagate.

@[member='Scorpei']
What data do you have that's so important that it cannot be lost?
 

Majorami

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Modern SSD's that have been commercially semi-affordable in 128 GB models or above haven't really existed for the 10 years. Ones that are +10 years old shouldn't be compared to newer models.

Besides, computer parts failing are a way of life. My Seagate HD had a Lifetime warranty of 5 years, and its been 8. Getting new equipment that often breaks well-before warranty is up is often a fluke. If you're hesitant about SSD dependability, just take warranty periods into consideration. Electronics have the knack of failing just-outside of warranty, or not fail at all. And if you do have one that fails in warranty, then you'll get a replacement I'm sure.
 

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My really important data (the manuscripts and research material for my books) I keep on DropBox. Instantly uploaded to be shared across all my computers/laptops/tablet, and it's online, so it's relatively safe.
My scheduled backups are sent to an internally stored HDD. My unscheduled backups are to external HDD. Eventually I'll set up my NAS (it has 2TB inside) but I don't know why I never got round to it.
If you schedule a backup to an external and it's not plugged in, my guess is that it won't do the backup until you plug it in. Even then, it may do nothing unless it's plugged in at the scheduled time. I don't know specifically because I don't like scheduling anything to external storage.
More importantly, if my SSD ever dies on me, I won't lose anything important because I only keep OS and application files on there, whilst I've redirected all my savegame and user data to my HDDs. Not that my SSD will ever die on me in its effective lifespan - I take good care of my hardware.
Modern SSD's that have been commercially semi-affordable in 128 GB models or above haven't really existed for the 10 years. Ones that are +10 years old shouldn't be compared to newer models.

Besides, computer parts failing are a way of life. My Seagate HD had a Lifetime warranty of 5 years, and its been 8. Getting new equipment that often breaks well-before warranty is up is often a fluke. If you're hesitant about SSD dependability, just take warranty periods into consideration. Electronics have the knack of failing just-outside of warranty, or not fail at all. And if you do have one that fails in warranty, then you'll get a replacement I'm sure.
I'm sorry, I've seen too many Seagate drives die within the first year to believe it's a fluke. Warranties are all well and good, but the issue is data loss (and to a lesser extent reliability). What good is a new Seagate drive if you still lost the data from the old one? And what use is a new Seagate drive if it too dies in the first year?
 

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My really important data (the manuscripts and research material for my books) I keep on DropBox. Instantly uploaded to be shared across all my computers/laptops/tablet, and it's online, so it's relatively safe.
My scheduled backups are sent to an internally stored HDD. My unscheduled backups are to external HDD. Eventually I'll set up my NAS (it has 2TB inside) but I don't know why I never got round to it.
If you schedule a backup to an external and it's not plugged in, my guess is that it won't do the backup until you plug it in. Even then, it may do nothing unless it's plugged in at the scheduled time. I don't know specifically because I don't like scheduling anything to external storage.
More importantly, if my SSD ever dies on me, I won't lose anything important because I only keep OS and application files on there, whilst I've redirected all my savegame and user data to my HDDs. Not that my SSD will ever die on me in its effective lifespan - I take good care of my hardware.
Modern SSD's that have been commercially semi-affordable in 128 GB models or above haven't really existed for the 10 years. Ones that are +10 years old shouldn't be compared to newer models.

Besides, computer parts failing are a way of life. My Seagate HD had a Lifetime warranty of 5 years, and its been 8. Getting new equipment that often breaks well-before warranty is up is often a fluke. If you're hesitant about SSD dependability, just take warranty periods into consideration. Electronics have the knack of failing just-outside of warranty, or not fail at all. And if you do have one that fails in warranty, then you'll get a replacement I'm sure.
I'm sorry, I've seen too many Seagate drives die within the first year to believe it's a fluke. Warranties are all well and good, but the issue is data loss (and to a lesser extent reliability). What good is a new Seagate drive if you still lost the data from the old one? And what use is a new Seagate drive if it too dies in the first year?
Maybe I'm the fluke.
 

Zetta_x

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When you have mass production of things, the amount of years it takes for a failure rate is approximately normally distributed with some mean and variance (by the central limit theorem). A more exact distribution would be the exponential distribution (or if you have a number of them) the poisson distribution with rate lambda. In either case, there is still some non-zero possibility for any harddrive of any brand to last very long. Not to mention, there are a lot of variables effecting the lifespan of a harddrive (as in temperatures, etc..) that would give different distributions.
 

Scorpei

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Well, if your SSD dies, if it simply runs of of writes you still have the current state allowing you to take off all data. Regardless at the question directed at me:
"My really important data (the manuscripts and research material for my books)" - Originality
That pretty much covers it together with taxes and various contracts, although books is in my case thesēs. Also my pictures are quite important to me so those are sent over that way too. As far as stuff that is on my raid, that is the same stuff together with pretty much all installs, less important works, video files and etc..
 
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Zetta_x

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I should be backing up some of the things I have been researching; the only thing I have that is digitally stored is a ton of SAS/R code I have been building for a while. However, some of my earlier stuff is when I first started so I wouldn't mind re-doing some of it
 

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