Seeking advice in selecting Solid state drives to store music (external drives)

[venkatcr]

You are automating your backup system. Since I have a small amount of data that need to be protected, I manage the backing up manually.

RAID duplicates your back up, thereby reducing the chances of failure. I duplicate my backup manually every week on different drives, or even on the same drive using a crude incremental back up methodology - this week - last week, or, current-previous.

We are both doing the same - reducing failure rates.

All I am saying is that using HDD is not as dangerous as it is made out to be. With the right amount SOP for their usage, they can work for you quite well.

 

[avtar2008]

Please provide us a link to one or more reliable sights where this claim of yours can be substantiated

that is easy calculation. in short, even if you read/write hdd at full speed 24/7, any hdd will easily run 10 years, before its total life cycle expires. I am using my 10 years old 2tb hdd + 128gb ssd and they still show 97% health and they are heavy used for initial 7 years. So, if you can prevent your hdd from shaking while in usage, they will last longer than you need.

Although ssd are more reliable but it come at a cost.

 

[OM_2K19]

Please provide us a link to one or more reliable sights where this claim of yours can be substantiated.

Check their product/sales page, if I remember correctly, they specifically mention the MTBW for their Gold class of drives.

 

[firearm12]

There is no so called reliable ssd or hdd. simplest Way is to backup important data in another hard drive. normal person would not be having dynamic data that changes every minute e.g. he would just be having some music files or video files or even important documents. if the data nature is such static;, better to keep a separate copy of it on another hard drive and regularly copying. Raid is for those who need business critical data redundancy and is expensive. Failure rate of harddisks is not related to how much you use them. They can fail anytime anywhere.

 

[venkatcr]

Check their product/sales page, if I remember correctly, they specifically mention the MTBW for their Gold class of drives.

The only information I could get after looking at all pages are the following:

WD Gold: 2.5M Hours (Some ridiculous 248 years!)
WD Green: 300,000 cycles of read/write that should last for 40 years! (Power down 20 times a day, 365 days a year)
WD Red: 600,000 cycles of read/write that should last for 80 years! (Power down 20 times a day, 365 days a year)

Here is a link for Green and Red drives. Anyone can search for data on Gold drives.

Your 4/5 years data is either very old or completely incorrect.

Cheers

 

[Analogous]

I lost track of what my original post was for a moment !!!!

Nothing is as simple as it seems at the beginning; The more I learn/explore/investigate in depth, more my bewilderment. (This is just my path, as a non techie)

I am feeling like there are so many truths, opinions, facts, alternate facts, even in the realm of electronic storage devices. This is what makes our little reality show so fascinating and addictive.

Looking forward to more insights and opinions (But let us also not forget to keep it good natured and fun for all).

 

[OM_2K19]

The only information I could get after looking at all pages are the following:

WD Gold: 2.5M Hours (Some ridiculous 248 years!)
WD Green: 300,000 cycles of read/write that should last for 40 years! (Power down 20 times a day, 365 days a year)
WD Red: 600,000 cycles of read/write that should last for 80 years! (Power down 20 times a day, 365 days a year)

Here is a link for Green and Red drives. Anyone can search for data on Gold drives.

Your 4/5 years data is either very old or completely incorrect.

Cheers

Hi Mate, a 2.5M hours of MTBF doesn't mean that the drive will continue to work for 248 years. In simple words, MTBF is the probability of failure (different vendors have different benchmarks) if X no of drivers run for Y hours (generally Warranty Period) before they hit Z errors/failure. So, a high MTBF means less probability of getting a drive bad within the Warranty period. It's just an indicator of reliability/robustness. At any point in time, you are capped by the Warranty Period. This no way means that the drive will fail after the warranty period. But it's a good indicator that it's time to move. Hope this clarifies the confusion.

Additional Read:-
Hard disk drive reliability and MTBF / AFR | Seagate Support India

 

[Yogesh]

@Goldenears I understand your main reason to opt for SSD is fear of losing music files. In that case you could use two options..

1. Keep two sets of HDDs with periodical sync for back up.
2. Use One set of HDDs as storage. Use some cheap cloud storage for backup.

Both these options seems practical and economical. Going for SSD would be too costly without significant improvement in reliability. For the cost of an SSD, you could get triple number of same capacity HDDs.

 

[venkatcr]

Hi Mate, a 2.5M hours of MTBF doesn't mean that the drive will continue to work for 248 years. In simple words, MTBF is the probability of failure (different vendors have different benchmarks) if X no of drivers run for Y hours (generally Warranty Period) before they hit Z errors/failure. So, a high MTBF means less probability of getting a drive bad within the Warranty period. It's just an indicator of reliability/robustness. At any point in time, you are capped by the Warranty Period. This no way means that the drive will fail after the warranty period. But it's a good indicator that it's time to move. Hope this clarifies the confusion.

Additional Read:-
Hard disk drive reliability and MTBF / AFR | Seagate Support India

There is no confusion in my mind. MTBF is calculated by manufacturers based on production run, usage, and returns over a period of time. When they see a particular production run having high failure rate, they analyze what they have done wrong there, and correct it for subsequent runs. Today, some of the drives have 5 year warranty.

What I was trying to point out is that, used properly, a HDD would last for 10-15 years easily. Saying that the life of a HDD is 4-5 years is incorrect.

I have already mentioned about Seagate switching to AFR. Today WD is also using read/write cycles. Whichever way you look at it - MTBF, AFR of read/write, most good quality HDDs can last quite a long time.

 

[rsjaurr]

I lost track of what my original post was for a moment !!!!

Nothing is as simple as it seems at the beginning; The more I learn/explore/investigate in depth, more my bewilderment. (This is just my path, as a non techie)

I am feeling like there are so many truths, opinions, facts, alternate facts, even in the realm of electronic storage devices. This is what makes our little reality show so fascinating and addictive.

Looking forward to more insights and opinions (But let us also not forget to keep it good natured and fun for all).

lol. yeah...This thread has taken a weird direction.

All you need to do is that depending on the size of your music collection buy an external HDD and connect it to your streamer. Buy one more external HDD for backup. Buying a SSD will be overkill especially if the library size is more than 1TB due to the high price of SSDs.

 

[Analogous]

Thank you @rsjaurr and @Yogesh. I will get another HDD as a back up.
It dawned on me that the answer/solution is so simple and obvious that no one else had this question. The path to the answer was interesting and entertaining. Grateful to everyone who patiently chipped in, explained and shared their knowledge, experience, opinions and more so generously.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Who’d have imagined that a thread on external drives would go into four pages and 75 posts (including this, nice round figure) and so many opinions and repeat opinions!

If that’s not enough let me add another choice to the melange - something like the Bluesound Vault - a hard drive, CD ripper and streamer rolled into one!

VAULT 2i - Bluesound

The VAULT 2 Network Streamer. Rip, store and stream your entire digital music collection in lossless formats without a computer!

www.bluesound.com

 

[jigarpatel]

Buddy, don't loose your sleep in details of technology. Remember "There is a DEVIL in DETAILS"

Just gets regular external HDD + Regular Backup HDD, Have good backup strategy in place.

By the time your HDD or SSD will show any hint of failure, there would be better technology available in market.

It might happen that cloud technology become so popular that we don't even need local storage.

 

[dazoy]

If you are worried about reliability, perhaps an SSD might not be as good an option as a simple RAID. Music files aren't that large and don't need high speed transfer. I would rather look for a simple NAS or a even an automated cloud backup of your external HHD.

 

[Analogous]

Thank you @dazoy. Similar suggestions have also been made by a few FMs.
NAS or not, an external HDD as a back up seems to be the best choice considering cost and reliability at this time.

 

[dazoy]

Thank you @dazoy. Similar suggestions have also been made by a few FMs.
NAS or not, an external HDD as a back up seems to be the best choice considering cost and reliability at this time.

Yes, Ill agree. Keep it simple and don't fall into the rabbit hole. External backup HDD seems to be the best solution for what you need.

 

[chander]

Lots of great advice and arguments (strictly from a constructive point of view) here. SSDs, HDs, Raids, Cloud - all have their advantages and disadvantages. Having used all options, I would say, all work very well and none works perfectly. From a reliability point of view nothing beats the cloud , from a cost point of view, nothing beats the HD. Depends on what is convenient for you, how much time you are fine dedicating to the solution you opt for. I have had, RAID/NAS, HD and SSD fail on me. Losing tons of DATA. So nothing is bullet proof. Cloud perhaps is, but has a plethora of limitations and pain points there too.

I love the SSDs - though your streamer might be the limitation, RAID/NAS "can be" inconvenient (please do not shoot me, but it isn't for everyone), but can be one of the best solutions for local media. If you are lucky, nothing goes wrong, if you aren't; well then hell is the limit. HDs can work out best bang for the buck and can be solid performers too - but reliability in comparison, is perhaps lower. I have no LAB tests to prove it only experience.

From a solution point of view and strictly my opinion - when I was running everything locally (don't ask where the media was from) - I had a NAS on my LAN, and everything else was being run through that. Later came in Cloud (commercially feasible) and SSDs and the photos went on cloud and all HDs were replaced internal and external with SSDs, simply for the speed and that "reliability". NAS still went on for some more time. Still I have a bunch of HDs as the local back up and storage - mirroring each other - connected to two separate USB ports of the same PC. I have been 4 times bitten - now always shy. I have moved to streaming - it is a little quite expensive, but a lot more hassle free. So in your case MAYBE, get an SSD (if your streamer supports), ALSO have it all on cloud if that is an option, or atleast have 1 or 2 massive external HDs just sitting pretty with all the data in auto backups (there are multiple services doing that) and pray every day.

 

[Analogous]

Lots of great advice and arguments (strictly from a constructive point of view) here. SSDs, HDs, Raids, Cloud - all have their advantages and disadvantages. Having used all options, I would say, all work very well and none works perfectly. From a reliability point of view nothing beats the cloud , from a cost point of view, nothing beats the HD. Depends on what is convenient for you, how much time you are fine dedicating to the solution you opt for. I have had, RAID/NAS, HD and SSD fail on me. Losing tons of DATA. So nothing is bullet proof. Cloud perhaps is, but has a plethora of limitations and pain points there too.

I love the SSDs - though your streamer might be the limitation, RAID/NAS "can be" inconvenient (please do not shoot me, but it isn't for everyone), but can be one of the best solutions for local media. If you are lucky, nothing goes wrong, if you aren't; well then hell is the limit. HDs can work out best bang for the buck and can be solid performers too - but reliability in comparison, is perhaps lower. I have no LAB tests to prove it only experience.

From a solution point of view and strictly my opinion - when I was running everything locally (don't ask where the media was from) - I had a NAS on my LAN, and everything else was being run through that. Later came in Cloud (commercially feasible) and SSDs and the photos went on cloud and all HDs were replaced internal and external with SSDs, simply for the speed and that "reliability". NAS still went on for some more time. Still I have a bunch of HDs as the local back up and storage - mirroring each other - connected to two separate USB ports of the same PC. I have been 4 times bitten - now always shy. I have moved to streaming - it is a little quite expensive, but a lot more hassle free. So in your case MAYBE, get an SSD (if your streamer supports), ALSO have it all on cloud if that is an option, or atleast have 1 or 2 massive external HDs just sitting pretty with all the data in auto backups (there are multiple services doing that) and pray every day.

Hi Chander,
Thanks for sharing your experience and for the suggestions. Lots of good for thought.
I am leaning towards the HDD back up solution.
I am somewhat more mistrustful of cloud storage as I am dependent upon someone else to maintain the service and also on uninterrupted connectivity services. But that’s just me and my paranoia.

 

[CryptBala]

I have a lacie professional 4tb hdd

STHA4000800​

I have used it like anything lot of heavy work went into this (just trying to keep is without jargons) but this drive is gold it has survived all the workload and the abuse I have put into it. So I would suggest you go for this. If you want I can even sell one to you which is used one time at an unbelievable cost. you can confirm the used time by using a software call HDD sentinel. reason for sale is I have got too many and now in cash crunch

 

[venkatcr]

So in your case MAYBE, get an SSD (if your streamer supports), ALSO have it all on cloud if that is an option, or atleast have 1 or 2 massive external HDs just sitting pretty with all the data in auto backups (there are multiple services doing that) and pray every day.

My god, you make this sound like a doomsday scenario!

Here is what GoldenEars started with. 'I am looking to buy a External SSD to store my music and connect to my streamer.'.

All he is looking for is to get a drive to store his music in. SSD or HDD is something he has to make up his mind on and also depends upon how thick his purse is. For something like music files, SSD is not going to provide any great advantage. Most audio playing software today load and store the next song in the memory doing away with whatever advantage an SSD provides. Irrespective of all that, the 2-3 minutes that a song takes is more that enough time for the software/hardware to use the cache and buffers available to ensure the song plays perfectly.

Coming to back up, again, I am not sure using a cloud makes too much sense in terms of costs. Look at the following costs

2TB - 800 per month
2TB - 9600 per year
Internet - 1000 per year (rough allocation for backup)
Total Costs per year 10,600, say 11,000

For this you can buy a 4TB HDD or a 1TB SSD and set up a simple back up system at home. NAS's start at around 20,000 (including one disk) and run to lakhs of rupees.

The question is - are music files this critical?

I still think HDD with a simple backup system is the most appropriate solution. If you can configure a PC properly, internal drives are cheaper, and you can use one disk as a backup.

Cheers