I think NAND durability is important even for just reads. Like for example, what if you wanted to store your music on an SSD that's never gonna receive power for multiple years. Do you store your data on a Samsung SSD or put it on AliExpress SSD (Ex: KingSpec).
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Should I use an SSD cache?
- Thread starter Digby
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There are probably better mediums for that kind of storage scenario.
True but I wouldn't put data on a hard drive and leave it on a bookshelf collecting dust. I used to majorly backup to Blu-ray but laziness has gotten me.
NAND flash endurance is typically measured in program/erase cycles, AKA writes. However, you are correct in thinking that data degradation can also be a concern. My understanding is that the gate technology, cell density and operating temperature are the primary factors influencing the risk of data loss i.e. not the company that assembles the drives, although you would obviously tend to favour the larger manufacturers, especially those that manufacture NAND flash, over the smaller players that just assemble drives.
I think nowadays, another major factor in data loss is firmware bugs
That too. Drives health losing SMART health too quickly (for no reason) sounds like hell.I think nowadays, another major factor in data loss is firmware bugs
I've used Primocache both as a RAM supplemental cache for Windows and it can also be set to use SSD space for a cache also. It works, but software cache programs use the CPU instead of controller chips on the mainboard when it's a RAM cache. It'll just consume your CPU clock ticks and performance unless it's a dedicated server anyway. Using Primocache with a cheap SSD drive worked better, but the hit rate takes quite a while to build (days).
PC Magazine did torture tests and one Kingston SSD was over 1 terabyte of writes and no problems, only the first generation was really bad about drive life. I've never even heard of anything like a fifth generation drive failing from being written too much. Amazon has the Lexar NS100 2TB SSD for $60 on sale, at that price it's hard to go wrong.
PC Magazine did torture tests and one Kingston SSD was over 1 terabyte of writes and no problems, only the first generation was really bad about drive life. I've never even heard of anything like a fifth generation drive failing from being written too much. Amazon has the Lexar NS100 2TB SSD for $60 on sale, at that price it's hard to go wrong.
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Interesting little box with plenty of grunt for media serving duties...
liliputing.com
N1 Pro is a compact PC (or server) with Ryzen 5 5500U and four storage devices - Liliputing
N1 Pro is a compact PC (or server) with Ryzen 5 5500U and four storage devices
liliputing.com
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This looks pretty much perfect for my use case scenario presently. I'd just need to shell out for two large capacity SATAs...Wondering how much they will drop in price in the near future...Interesting little box with plenty of grunt for media serving duties...
N1 Pro is a compact PC (or server) with Ryzen 5 5500U and four storage devices - Liliputing
N1 Pro is a compact PC (or server) with Ryzen 5 5500U and four storage devices
Hmm, tempting!
The
T-Bao R3 mini appears to be the same box...
www.geekbuying.com
T-Bao R3 mini appears to be the same box...
T-bao R3 Mini PC
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I think I paid way over 100€ for my first 64gb SATA SSD. So getting a 2 TB WD x850 Nvme SSD recently for 120€ ish was kinda ridiculous to me.
That thing is online since 3400 hours , running as roon Library in a external Thunderbolt enclosure. Drive health is still 100%.
I figured if I end up getting a drive with more storage space I will at least the option to put the 2 TB drive in my Ps5 .
But even my 2 TB Sata SSD from 2019 is still going strong as backup drive.
Can't imagine going back to HDDs.
Do you have a lot of DSDs or ridiculously high bitrate vinyl rips?
I have almost 2,000 albums on FLAC, with a fair chunk of them being Hi-Res, and my collection is just over 1TB.
1 tb on my roon drive are around 8000 files (cd, hires, DSD). So you have around 150-200k songs?
(Last time someone showed me their 20tb of music on cloud drives it turned out to be vinyl rips from the internet archive with a good chunk being torrent downloads where mp3s where converted to flac with roughly 3-5 duplicates of some albums)
I bought my first SSD (for personal use, I was already using flash drives at work) in 2010. It's a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2E and is still working (in an external enclosure now), but doesn't get a lot of use give it's capacity. It was £100 in 2010 and almost maxed out a SATA 1 connection: Item: OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read = 285MB/s, Write = 275MB/s 50,000 IOPS
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Yes, got a fair few vinyl rips. (Mostly obscure new wave from my youth). Some DSD- just to try it out. Primarily FLACs. A few duplicates no doubt. Fell into the habit of downloading lots of remasters too. Not so much now I have read about the frequently dubious quality here. As mentioned elsewhere: storage is cheap. Not sure when I will switch to entirely SSD though...
Prana Ferox
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I would never use a spinning HDD for anything again consumer-based except a NAS that needed 10+ terabyte capacity, and then I'd keep it somewhere where the noise and cooling profile worked, i.e. not my living room.
If you think you need that much local capacity (at least for something that isn't, like, a really bloated Steam library) perhaps you need to look at your network capacity. Often times people are let down by their network because they're depending on WiFi (especially mesh) when really what they need is wired backhaul. I redid my apartment network backend in 10Gbps fiber a while ago but if you have copper, going to 2.5gps is cheap and easy.
If you think you need that much local capacity (at least for something that isn't, like, a really bloated Steam library) perhaps you need to look at your network capacity. Often times people are let down by their network because they're depending on WiFi (especially mesh) when really what they need is wired backhaul. I redid my apartment network backend in 10Gbps fiber a while ago but if you have copper, going to 2.5gps is cheap and easy.
I couldn't agree more. My primary NAS is in the garage and the secondary is in the attic (both 16TB capacity). Everything else in the house is NVMe SSD - no SATA apart from some old drives in external enclosures. Both the attic and garage can get a bit toasty in the summer, I keep an eye on both with remote temperature and humidity monitors - I have contemplated automating some extraction fans, but it's not been necessary so far.
- Thread Starter
- #79
Why? I understand if we're talking about 3.5" drives, the most modern ones (helium) seem to be too noisy to live in the same room as audio equipment, but 2.5" hdds are very quiet. OK, people will talk about the write life, but if it is mostly for reads, what is the problem? Still less than half as expensive as SSD and seems to work well enough for most media (90mbps transfer speed on 3/4 full drive). My problem (latency) seemed to be one of Windows power management - everything is pretty snappy now I turned the spinning down off.
Obviously an SSD is a must for the OS or anything that needs large throughput, but how much stuff is that? I like the idea of not wasting money and feel that for uses like media, SSD is still too expensive.
That does seem a huge size, have you considered trying to 'double blind' some 320kbps mp3 or similar compressed formats? Sounds like you might have a lot of 24bit/96khz stuff too - I think that stuff just tends to hog drive space, not sure if there is any audible improvement, especially when for much music I personally find I can't tell much, if any, difference between a 320kbps mp3 and wav....ymmv, of course.
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Only for larger capacities. For 2TB drives, they are about the same. For example:
2TB WD Blue: £57.99
2TB Silicon Power SSD: £57.99
Obviously I have cherry picked those examples, some might consider SP to be a lesser brand to WD, but the point remains that at 2TB the technologies are roughly equal cost.
This does change significantly for 4TB drives, HDDs are around £80 and SSDs are still up at £160.
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