You were warned so don't get mad at me. - Page 2

Hyndis · #11 03-09-2010, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Quoth Chromatix

Why yes, there's this wonderful new technology they're introducing now called the Solid State Drive. It never gets bad sectors AND it's much faster than a normal hard drive. Would you like me to upgrade you to one of those?

Oh by the way, say hi to €250 for a 128GB drive, and that's on the cheap end. You get what you pay for.

LOL

Data security? On an SSD?

Hope you have a RAID5.

(Yes, I work with SSD's on a daily basis. They are far, far less reliable than a mechanical HDD. They seem to be about as reliable as a USB flash drive, which means, not very reliable.)

Hyndis · #12 03-09-2010, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Quoth Geek King

So, should I ask what happens when the USB drive fails?

At least two copies on different drives. Always.

Agreed.

A USB flash drive is the modern version of a floppy diskette. Its about as reliable too. A USB flash drive is designed for being portable, not being secure.

For the best data security you want the data to be mirrored on at least two physically different devices. Odds are you are not going to have both devices fail at the same time unless something catastrophic happens like a fire.

Best form of data security is to have the data mirrored on at least two different devices that are stored in different buildings.

If the data is not very important then fine, don't bother mirroring it, just don't throw a tantrum when you lose everything. Not if, but when. It happens. Components fail. If its just a bunch of random porn and games on your computer, no need to mirror it.

If its business archives then yes you definitely need to mirror that thing. RAID5 it preferably.

technical.angel · #13 03-09-2010, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Quoth draggar

Of course, now the user is pissed at me and escalates to my boss (like emailing them will make me able to copy the data?).

I had a similar case yesterday.

Unfortunately for the luser, my boss was out of the office, so when HER boss called, I picked up my boss's phone!!!!!

A recruiter, out in the middle of gods know where, got hit with a fake anitvirus program.

I told her how to get to safe mode, and sent her links to MBAM and SUPER. (SUPER's my new best friend.) and added a note in the email to let me know how it went.

Well, she never called back. I figured she hadn't got to it, and promptly forgot about it, until said phone call.

The first thing out of luser's boss's mouth was "Can we send Luser's laptop to Geek Squad?"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From what her boss was saying, I could tell she wasn't getting to safe mode, so I told her boss how to get to safe mode, and she said she'd just have (luser) call me back.

And she did.

I talked her into safe mode. And, unfortunately, the fake av populated into safe mode once the browser hit the webs. She started FREAKING OUT! It took all my mighty power to convince her that her computer wasn't infected with 400 and something viruses, that it was fake, bad, but not THAT bad. The browser rallied and managed to load one page, and then gave up to the fake av. Not that I had any hope of MBAM loading, but it made the luser feel better to be doing SOMETHING.

So, finally, as I was trying to figure out how to word it to have the luser leave the machine the crap alone, she announced she was shutting it down, and forgetting about it until Monday. I managed to keep from applauding.

Now, let's hope I don't get another call from Luser's boss.

earl colby pottinger · #14 03-09-2010, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Quoth Chromatix

Oh by the way, say hi to €250 for a 128GB drive, and that's on the cheap end. You get what you pay for.

My Intel 80GB was $300 plus taxes, it works great but then SCs will complain about storage space for their Games or ten years of Email with all the spam and attachments still in there.

earl colby pottinger · #15 03-09-2010, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Quoth Hyndis

(Yes, I work with SSD's on a daily basis. They are far, far less reliable than a mechanical HDD. They seem to be about as reliable as a USB flash drive, which means, not very reliable.)

Stop buying cheap SSDs! I read all the reviews before I bought mine, there is a HUGE difference between the quality of the better drives vs the cheap ones.

Check out these reviews first:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531
and the updated follow-up at:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631

There are a lot of things wrong with the real cheap drives and the above reviews names the names and tells you what to avoid and why. One thing made clear from the follow-up review is that most SSDs from more than a year ago were junk! Since then there has been a massive improvement by most companies as they were losing so much business to Intel's better products. And note even Intel has made major improvements to stay ahead of the pack.

I ended up buying:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=3403

Additional reviews at:
http://ssd-reviews.com/
http://hothardware.com/News/OCZ-Vert...ed-SSD-Review/
http://hothardware.com/News/OCZ-Tech...d-State-Drive/
http://hothardware.com/News/Plextor-...ons-Available/
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3747
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3751
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702

Chromatix · #16 03-10-2010, 01:20 AM

I agree on the limited space. I recently bought a 30GB OCZ and a 64GB Kingston just to play with - the one machine that really needs the performance is the Windows box, and that is rapidly approaching half a terabyte with all the games and crap that I keep on it.

I did test installs of both Windows and Linux to see whether the performance was really there - and it is, though Windows likes to insert pauses for the hell of it, no matter how fast the disk is.

However, I do see that there are beginning to appear "booster" units, to which you attach a normal hard disk and an SSD. The booster then caches part of the hard disk to the SSD, and thus gains a pile of performance without losing the capacity. The one I've seen on sale isn't very sophisticated, but I'm sure that will improve, especially if someone tinkers with it.

I also strongly agree that you must go for quality. The biggest trick is to find out which controller is used. Outside of the Intel drives, the Indilinx controller is the one to go for in general, but the new JMicron 61x series (which my Kingston uses) is perfectly respectable. The Kingston drives are remarkably cheap at about €2 per GB, the Indilinx-based drives are about twice that.

The Samsung and the old JMicron 602 controllers are to be avoided. So is the Toshiba controller, which is a rebadged 602 with tweaked firmware. The Samsung is apparently reliable, but a very poor performer.

The Sandforce and Crucial/Micron controllers are as yet unproven, so avoid them for the next few months if you like reliability, but they should be excellent choices for performance once they've worked the bugs out.

earl colby pottinger · #17 03-10-2010, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Quoth Chromatix

I recently bought a 30GB OCZ and a 64GB Kingston

How long ago were they made? Even six(6) months makes a big difference in the firmware used inside the drive.
Please read: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531 and http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631 if you have not before.

Quote:

Windows likes to insert pauses for the hell of it, no matter how fast the disk is.

The pauses are probably because the type of SSDs/firmware you use, it is explained why in the above reviews and how to avoid the problems.

Quote:

beginning to appear "booster" units, to which you attach a normal hard disk and an SSD.

I think it is better to have a good SSD as your boot drive and a good fast Hard Drive as your data/work drive, if one fails the other is untouched.

Quote:

I also strongly agree that you must go for quality. The biggest trick is to find out which controller is used. Outside of the Intel drives, the Indilinx controller is the one to go for in general, but the new JMicron 61x series (which my Kingston uses) is perfectly respectable. The Kingston drives are remarkably cheap at about €2 per GB, the Indilinx-based drives are about twice that.

The Samsung and the old JMicron 602 controllers are to be avoided. So is the Toshiba controller, which is a rebadged 602 with tweaked firmware. The Samsung is apparently reliable, but a very poor performer.

The Sandforce and Crucial/Micron controllers are as yet unproven, so avoid them for the next few months if you like reliability, but they should be excellent choices for performance once they've worked the bugs out.

Oh, did you read the reviews already? The above suggests you already know what I was trying to point out. But the pauses you see with windows should not be there if your drives handles small writes properly.

Hyndis · #18 03-10-2010, 03:15 PM

When I mentioned I work with SSD's, I don't buy them.

I build them.

I work for one of the companies mentioned above. I'm not going to say which one though.

And I would not personally use an SSD. At least not yet. Give it a couple years for the technology to mature, then I'll be all over them. Its still in the very early stages for that technology. In terms of reliability a HDD is far beyond an SSD, with a vastly lower failure rate.

SSD failure rates are in the double digits, by the way. HDD's? Maybe 1-2%.

earl colby pottinger · #19 03-10-2010, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Quoth Hyndis

When I mentioned I work with SSD's, I don't buy them.

I build them.

I work for one of the companies mentioned above.
SSD failure rates are in the double digits, by the way. HDD's? Maybe 1-2%.

Just because you work for a company that does not build good SSDs does not mean you have to buy your SSDs from them. Get a good one from one of your competitors.

Bet you can't find a URL showing the failure rates you claim for any of the better models.

page 3 of http://download.intel.com/it/pdf/Ent...ate_Drives.pdf is of interest here.

PS. While we are getting off-topic I really would like to see an URL to high failure (double digits) as I never seen any given for the Intel drive I bought.

Hyndis · #20 03-11-2010, 01:26 AM

You won't find it widely published. Its the dirty little secret of SSD's.

Yes, the MTBF is extremely high, but the actual failure rates tend to be far higher due to issues with the controller chips and/or firmware failures.

With a HDD you usually get some warning if there is mechanical failure, such as the infamous clicking noise. When an SSD goes there is almost never any warning. Its just gone. Everything on it gone unless you have a backup.