# SSD Solid State Hard drive versus conventional type



## Boris Karloff (Oct 23, 2020)

*
*
I am in the market for a new Dell 15" laptop for my Gal and want to buy it around Xmas.

Now I see Best Buy has 6 models of them from $700 to $3000 ( never knew you could spend that much on one ) and they all have SSD hard drives.

Is there any drawbacks to them? They seem to hold half as many GB as other brands using conventional ones and other brands are using half SSD and conventional I see. More storage for the same money so why get less?

I heard that like flash drives SSD can lose data accuracy eventually unlike a written standard drive? True and is that a issue?


----------



## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

At this point stability and durability of drives is about equal. Price is only slightly dependent on storage. RAM, CPU GPU etc. not only affect price , but are also performance indicators. When looking at Dell, XPS is a much better choice over Inspiron. Alienware overpriced.


----------



## oscer1 (Jan 27, 2010)

i would recommend xps also


----------



## Boris Karloff (Oct 23, 2020)

Corday said:


> At this point stability and durability of drives is about equal. Price is only slightly dependent on storage. RAM, CPU GPU etc. not only affect price , but are also performance indicators. When looking at Dell, XPS is a much better choice over Inspiron. Alienware overpriced.


I am mainly concerned about her pictures lasting 6-7 yrs with no loss in quality. I do back them up on flash drives and try to convince her to get a external drive but she does not like to spend money on them or understand why. Oy Vey.


----------



## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Flash drivers are undependable for long term storage. They (pictures) could be saved to the cloud.


----------



## Boris Karloff (Oct 23, 2020)

Corday said:


> Flash drivers are undependable for long term storage. They (pictures) could be saved to the cloud.


Yeah I will get some better long term storage. Cloud storage is easy to get now.


----------



## harrymartin_53 (Oct 15, 2020)

Boris Karloff said:


> Yeah I will get some better long term storage. Cloud storage is easy to get now.


Hi, can you share any technique that help me to recover my data from SSD. can I recovery Data from a fail SSD?


----------



## Boris Karloff (Oct 23, 2020)

harrymartin_53 said:


> Hi, can you share any technique that help me to recover my data from SSD. can I recovery Data from a fail SSD?


I am not a tech expert but maybe some of the other posters may know how. I am just learning about SSDs.

Good question though.


----------



## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

There are many 3rd party recovery apps. The longer you use a bad SSD, the harder the recovery. If apps don't work, recovery becomes very expensive.


----------



## harrymartin_53 (Oct 15, 2020)

Corday said:


> There are many 3rd party recovery apps. The longer you use a bad SSD, the harder the recovery. If apps don't work, recovery becomes very expensive.


its not showing up when I put it in pc as external disk.


----------



## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

This thread is going in too many directions. Perhaps your disc is totally ruined. Let's stick to Boris's problem and Harry can start a new thread in Hard Drive or
Removable Media Drives.


----------



## jGecko (Oct 27, 2020)

Original problem...
I disagree that SSD and HDD are "about equal" now. HDDs have the potential to last a LOT longer than SSD. That said, quality has started varying a lot in the last decade. If you get and HDD that is reliable for the first few months it is almost certain to last longer than an SSD by a matter of years. I have HDDs from over 20 years ago that are still 100% functional. I have yet to have bought an SSD that lasts longer than about 5 years...although newer generations are improving. With an SSD I also ALWAYS set aside a decent percentage of the specified storage for *additional *OverProvisioning. which means longer drive life, but less storage capacity for the user.
(see SSD Over-Provisioning And Its Benefits | Seagate US )

I have also determined that some HDDs actually take LESS power than SSDs. When I replaced the Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200rpm HDD (not a hybrid) I had added in my notebook with an Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD my battery life per charge was immediately and significantly reduced. Swapped back in the HDD and battery life went back up. The specs revealed the drive power requirements were about equal (and very low) WHEN THEY WERE ASLEEP..but when operating the SSD actually took more power.
Of course the big tradeoff is speed. SSD blasts way past the HDD.


----------



## djbillyd (Jul 25, 2010)

Boris Karloff said:


> I am mainly concerned about her pictures lasting 6-7 yrs with no loss in quality. I do back them up on flash drives and try to convince her to get a external drive but she does not like to spend money on them or understand why. Oy Vey.


I would recommend almost anybody other than DELL. They are highly overpriced, and are poorly made. At my place of worship, we bought two DELL desktops. One was new, the other was a refurb. The refurb died completely, and the way they build their systems, replacing major hardware, like a motherboard, and PSU, you MUST buy a DELL replacement, and they stick it to you without the courtesy of a lube job! So, I had another case, as the mobo went KERPLUNK on that thing, so I had to also buy a PSU, as the only mobo the DELL PSU fits is a DELL mfg mobo. 
After that, about 6 months later, the new one just went bonkers. I was able o save it, and reinstall Windows, as the DELL OEM would no longer boot. I have had DELLs before they got all proprietary with their H/W. They were just as flaky. That's why I started building my own.


----------



## oscer1 (Jan 27, 2010)

I have not had an issue with my dell XPS 9100 and power supply is a standard power supply which I changed out when got computer in 2008 still going strong.


----------



## djbillyd (Jul 25, 2010)

oscer1 said:


> I have not had an issue with my dell XPS 9100 and power supply is a standard power supply which I changed out when got computer in 2008 still going strong.


Well, good. My personal choice would be anything but DELL. They are, to me, like APPLE. I don't like cookie cutter, and it's just my personal choice. If yours is working, from 2008, good. The systems I mentioned were from 2016!


----------



## rodmanb (Nov 22, 2008)

Boris Karloff said:


> I am in the market for a new Dell 15" laptop for my Gal and want to buy it around Xmas.
> 
> Now I see Best Buy has 6 models of them from $700 to $3000 ( never knew you could spend that much on one ) and they all have SSD hard drives.
> 
> ...


As for the SSD. You want to by a SSD twice the size of what you expected use. Because a SSD is somewhat self healing. It's speed compared to a HDD is incomparable. Kind of like a Porsche to a Beetle. However, you need to by an external HDD for long term storage. If she doesn't want it then buy it yourself for backups of not only her stuff but yours as well. You can put it in the cloud but don't be surprised when it shows up on Facebook because the cloud company didn't know they were hacked. Like the old saying goes, if you want it done right do it yourself. But I digress. Get the SSD, they last about 10 years, and they are cheep now. Backup regularly to the HDD, preferably a disk image, so if the SSD craps out you can restore to a new SSD.


----------



## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

One advantage (in my view ) that HDDs have over SSDs is that if the controller fails, you have a fair to good chance to recover the data even if it means having the platters removed and read separately. That has to be done in a special facility. Sometimes, you can just install them in another computer as an additional drive and read the data.

I'm not really sure how data is recovered from an SSD.

I've switched to two SSD in this notebook after the HDD failed. No problems after a few years. I keep full backups now though.


----------

