For long-term unplugged storage, which technology is currently more durable overall? SSDs or HDDs? My greatest fear with this shift in storage technology is related to that.
As wrkingclass_hero stated, SSDs aren't particularly well suited to cold storage. HDDs are better, but not the "best". HDD cold storage should be suitable for personal use if a user stores it in appropriate conditions (ie: not next to electrical/magnetic fields, not in damp musty environments like an attic, etc.). Magnetic and optical media is probably the best in terms of longevity, but have slower read/write speeds and may require specialized interfaces, depending on the medium.
So yeah, if it's just personal long term cold storage, my advice is just 2 quality large enough HDDs, keep 1 at your place, 1 at a friend's house or PO box or other air conditioned area. Every month store your necessary backups to the encrypted HDD and swap it with your extra, taking the other one back home with you. You could alternatively use bluray media, but writing, write-checking, and data encryption on these is more cumbersome. In this way, backup data is always semi-recent, at most you've lost less than 2 months of important data, you're always checking the HDD every other month for failure, you have easy whole-drive encryption through software on your PC, so even if the drive is stolen, it's not easy to get your info, etc.
Alternatively, purchase cloud storage (dropbox, etc.) and just upload encrypted, password protected, compressed 7zip files to it on a periodic basis. I don't use cloud storage services, but some people might find the convenience better there. I visit my parents every month so this is just when I do my backup drive swap.
That's not an alternative, that's an addition. Cloud storage is one copy of data in one location.Best way to think of copies of data: If you have two, you have one. If you have one, you have none.
Not if you synchronize the data over multiple devices. I do that with OneDrive (albeit with relatively low volume of data). It is stored on Microsoft servers and on 6 PCs on different sites I use with different frequency. If anything happens to any of the computers or online storage, there are always semi-recent offline backups on places I use less regularly.
I would never use an SSD for long term unplugged storage. I read something a long time ago that if it's not powered for a longish period (~6 months) there can be data loss. I have experience transient malfunction of an SSD after it was unpowered for 3 months. Whether this was a result of being unpowered or not I don't know. It was fixable. Whether this is a problem with more modern SSDs I dunno and it was a long time ago when I read it.
What about for a media server? (which is all about I need storage for, non-critical) Is an SSD better long term? Powered, not cold. I always start to worry with HDDs once they get a few years in. Or start making more noise, etc. Aside from serving up said files faster, will an SSD have a longer lifespan? I feel like this isn't really addressed as SSD's advance so fast. Not even wear from writing, just storing data.
Yes after all these years that we've had SSDs the prices and the interface (SATA) are ridiculously high and outdated. Hopefully this news is a step in the right direction to fixing part of the problem.
SSD prices had been decreasing pretty steadily until the NAND shortage of the last two or so years... I paid like $200-ish for an 80GB X25-M G2, not much more than that for 128GB 830s (second one was on clearance but I forgot how much it was), $300 for a 500GB 840 EVO I gifted, $300-ish for each of my current 1TB 850 EVOs... Then it all grinded to a halt.
When I built by 6700K system (with a 256GB SM950 for the OS and the 850s for other stuff) I would've easily expected to be able to pay $300 for a 2TB SATA drive by now but prices stood still for much of last year and the better half of 2016. At least they seem to be dropping slightly again...
If you look at capacity and performance, prices have actually been dropping. Now, when you start to consider things like NVMe vs. SATA SSD prices, then you see that the new and faster are still expensive, but the older type has seen a significant price drop. A key that you may not have considered is also the performance of SATA SSD drives of today is faster than it was in the past, so you do end up with, "price isn't coming down much, but performance is better". This is typical of any technology. I remember back when a 14 inch black and white TV was $200, then a few years later, a 14 inch color TV was $200, then a 17 inch color TV was $200, then 20, then 25 inch, all at the same price. Beyond the 25 inch, you saw issues with the weight and shipping prices due to size, so things were stuck for a while before flat panels came out, then LED backlit, but there was the move from 720p to 1080p, then smart-TV. With storage, conventional hard drive prices came down very well, but with the move to SSDs, we see other issues.
I expect the next shift, once the initial novelty of SSD calms down will be unpowered longevity so that SSDs can be left unpowered for a few years and still retain their data.
Closing this site really does show how the shrinking market is biting. Depending on how much of the Bang Pa-In facility is devoted to making HDDs vs components, this is taking somewhere between 30 and 60% of their HDD assembly space out of service.
I suspect it's on the low end of the range, but even that suggests they probably have enough free space across their other locations to close out a few more locations and consolidate operations farther. I'd guess the manufacturing facilities at Irvine CA, and Novanakorn Thailand are most at risk since they're small sites whose manufactured product is also made at a second much larger location. After that probably either the Johor and Kuching locations in Malaysia since they're the only other pair of same product factories; but since they're equal size buildings it might take a 50% slump before one is able to carry the entire production load.
I only hope there won't be flooding this year. But given that the Wild Boars team got stuck in the cave because the rain comes early this year, it might be wise to be prepared. ...
I mean, the Thailand's Bang Pa-In is in one of the most flooding-risk area in the country (that's what I've been told, no evidence to back up though). The 2011 flooding causes global HDD outage if I'm not mistaken.
I still want a mechanical drive for my mass storage and especially my DVR drive.
I don't need massive sustained writes, 10MBps is probably my peak, but I'd rather not worry about using the drive killing the drive. There is a certain degree of writing on magnetic drives that keeps them up, of course with the newer writing technologies (MAMR springs to mind amongst others) that may not be the case any more.
The old guy in me wants to buy a bunch of old 1TB and smaller, standard old vanilla or at least perpendicular drives before they disappear.
I want an SSD for my OS, I'm okay with a fast spinner for my games (load time is *much* better without an OS on the same drive, always has been) but I want a huge mechanical drive that I can beat up with my DVR without worrying about killing it. It may not even be logical at this point with .3 WPD on a 1TB SSD, but it still bugs me.
Well, it's not like HDDs are going to disappear, even in the next few years. Just because the trend is downward doesn't mean that it's going to zero. I suspect HDDs will remain for a long time for very large, cheaper storage.
The last estimate I saw - from a few years ago - was predicting a mid 2020s crossover in TB/dollars. I'm not sure how much, or if the current supply shortage resulting in 'stuck' prices will impact that. Sooner or later capacity will finally catch up and flash prices should drop a lot and end up back on the track. Without illegal collusion there's no way for all the makers to increase production enough to sell more without ending up finally being able to meet demand and releasing the stuck prices again.
I am anticipating that my 2019 NAS will likely be my last HDD purchase. Even if the crossover shifts to the late 2020s, by the 2024-6 when I'm likely to be making another one the crossover will presumably be close enough that the cost delta won't be that large, and being able to drop to a router sized NAS instead of a small box of books to miniPC sized one with lower power consumption is worth paying slightly more up front for me.
i just worry that price parity will be reached by using PLC or HLC or something. I'm not really interested in TLC, never mind QLC. Hell I'd get SLC if I could, but even MLC is pretty damn scarce now :(
cheap to produce SSD article reads compared to HDD, yet pricing for consumer does not seem to agree with the statement either. Maybe one day we will have 1-2tb SSD that are $100 like HDD are ^.^
Yep, $45-50 for a 1TB HDD, $70-80 for 2TB. SSD's are $65+ for 250, $110+ for 500GB, $185 for 1TB Crucial MX500, & $400+ for most 2TB SSD's. I got a 1TB MX500 for $160 on prime day & 2 of the 250GB's for relatives at $105 for both.
They are definitely cheaper to assemble. Not accounting for price of flash chips. HDD is incredibly complex piece of fine engineering. An SSD is just few slabs of modified sand glued to a PCB.
All these past years we are told prices remained high for hard disk due to shortages and damage to plants from earthquakes and such, now the prices are still high so lets start decreasing supply.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
24 Comments
Back to Article
baka_toroi - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
For long-term unplugged storage, which technology is currently more durable overall? SSDs or HDDs? My greatest fear with this shift in storage technology is related to that.wrkingclass_hero - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
HDD, but film and magnetic tape last longer, and there is optical media that is advertised as lasting 100 years.JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
As wrkingclass_hero stated, SSDs aren't particularly well suited to cold storage. HDDs are better, but not the "best". HDD cold storage should be suitable for personal use if a user stores it in appropriate conditions (ie: not next to electrical/magnetic fields, not in damp musty environments like an attic, etc.). Magnetic and optical media is probably the best in terms of longevity, but have slower read/write speeds and may require specialized interfaces, depending on the medium.So yeah, if it's just personal long term cold storage, my advice is just 2 quality large enough HDDs, keep 1 at your place, 1 at a friend's house or PO box or other air conditioned area. Every month store your necessary backups to the encrypted HDD and swap it with your extra, taking the other one back home with you. You could alternatively use bluray media, but writing, write-checking, and data encryption on these is more cumbersome. In this way, backup data is always semi-recent, at most you've lost less than 2 months of important data, you're always checking the HDD every other month for failure, you have easy whole-drive encryption through software on your PC, so even if the drive is stolen, it's not easy to get your info, etc.
JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
Alternatively, purchase cloud storage (dropbox, etc.) and just upload encrypted, password protected, compressed 7zip files to it on a periodic basis. I don't use cloud storage services, but some people might find the convenience better there. I visit my parents every month so this is just when I do my backup drive swap.jordanclock - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
That's not an alternative, that's an addition. Cloud storage is one copy of data in one location.Best way to think of copies of data: If you have two, you have one. If you have one, you have none.Dodozoid - Sunday, July 22, 2018 - link
Not if you synchronize the data over multiple devices. I do that with OneDrive (albeit with relatively low volume of data). It is stored on Microsoft servers and on 6 PCs on different sites I use with different frequency. If anything happens to any of the computers or online storage, there are always semi-recent offline backups on places I use less regularly.philehidiot - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
I would never use an SSD for long term unplugged storage. I read something a long time ago that if it's not powered for a longish period (~6 months) there can be data loss. I have experience transient malfunction of an SSD after it was unpowered for 3 months. Whether this was a result of being unpowered or not I don't know. It was fixable. Whether this is a problem with more modern SSDs I dunno and it was a long time ago when I read it.EnzoFX - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
What about for a media server? (which is all about I need storage for, non-critical) Is an SSD better long term? Powered, not cold. I always start to worry with HDDs once they get a few years in. Or start making more noise, etc. Aside from serving up said files faster, will an SSD have a longer lifespan? I feel like this isn't really addressed as SSD's advance so fast. Not even wear from writing, just storing data.The Chill Blueberry - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
Magnetic tapes are still the best for this type of archiving IIRC.HStewart - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
Time has really change - I remember my 1st hard drive was a 5 1/4 in double height drive for IBM PC that was only 5Meg.I am all for switching the HDD to SSD, but I hope that they find a way to lower cost for large amount of storage Just a quick look on amazon
2TB SSD cheapest around $200
2TD HDD cheapest around $50.
The 4TB SSD come in over $1000 currently
The price of SSD's need to come down to truly compete with HDD if desire for extremely large amount of storage is required.
Magichands8 - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
Yes after all these years that we've had SSDs the prices and the interface (SATA) are ridiculously high and outdated. Hopefully this news is a step in the right direction to fixing part of the problem.Impulses - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
SSD prices had been decreasing pretty steadily until the NAND shortage of the last two or so years... I paid like $200-ish for an 80GB X25-M G2, not much more than that for 128GB 830s (second one was on clearance but I forgot how much it was), $300 for a 500GB 840 EVO I gifted, $300-ish for each of my current 1TB 850 EVOs... Then it all grinded to a halt.When I built by 6700K system (with a 256GB SM950 for the OS and the 850s for other stuff) I would've easily expected to be able to pay $300 for a 2TB SATA drive by now but prices stood still for much of last year and the better half of 2016. At least they seem to be dropping slightly again...
madwolfa - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
Crucial MX500 2TB was just slightly above $300 this Prime Day... I wish it was under 200 though.Targon - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
If you look at capacity and performance, prices have actually been dropping. Now, when you start to consider things like NVMe vs. SATA SSD prices, then you see that the new and faster are still expensive, but the older type has seen a significant price drop. A key that you may not have considered is also the performance of SATA SSD drives of today is faster than it was in the past, so you do end up with, "price isn't coming down much, but performance is better". This is typical of any technology. I remember back when a 14 inch black and white TV was $200, then a few years later, a 14 inch color TV was $200, then a 17 inch color TV was $200, then 20, then 25 inch, all at the same price. Beyond the 25 inch, you saw issues with the weight and shipping prices due to size, so things were stuck for a while before flat panels came out, then LED backlit, but there was the move from 720p to 1080p, then smart-TV. With storage, conventional hard drive prices came down very well, but with the move to SSDs, we see other issues.I expect the next shift, once the initial novelty of SSD calms down will be unpowered longevity so that SSDs can be left unpowered for a few years and still retain their data.
DanNeely - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
Closing this site really does show how the shrinking market is biting. Depending on how much of the Bang Pa-In facility is devoted to making HDDs vs components, this is taking somewhere between 30 and 60% of their HDD assembly space out of service.I suspect it's on the low end of the range, but even that suggests they probably have enough free space across their other locations to close out a few more locations and consolidate operations farther. I'd guess the manufacturing facilities at Irvine CA, and Novanakorn Thailand are most at risk since they're small sites whose manufactured product is also made at a second much larger location. After that probably either the Johor and Kuching locations in Malaysia since they're the only other pair of same product factories; but since they're equal size buildings it might take a 50% slump before one is able to carry the entire production load.
mr_tawan - Thursday, July 19, 2018 - link
I only hope there won't be flooding this year. But given that the Wild Boars team got stuck in the cave because the rain comes early this year, it might be wise to be prepared. ...I mean, the Thailand's Bang Pa-In is in one of the most flooding-risk area in the country (that's what I've been told, no evidence to back up though). The 2011 flooding causes global HDD outage if I'm not mistaken.
0ldman79 - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that.I still want a mechanical drive for my mass storage and especially my DVR drive.
I don't need massive sustained writes, 10MBps is probably my peak, but I'd rather not worry about using the drive killing the drive. There is a certain degree of writing on magnetic drives that keeps them up, of course with the newer writing technologies (MAMR springs to mind amongst others) that may not be the case any more.
The old guy in me wants to buy a bunch of old 1TB and smaller, standard old vanilla or at least perpendicular drives before they disappear.
I want an SSD for my OS, I'm okay with a fast spinner for my games (load time is *much* better without an OS on the same drive, always has been) but I want a huge mechanical drive that I can beat up with my DVR without worrying about killing it. It may not even be logical at this point with .3 WPD on a 1TB SSD, but it still bugs me.
jordanclock - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
Well, it's not like HDDs are going to disappear, even in the next few years. Just because the trend is downward doesn't mean that it's going to zero. I suspect HDDs will remain for a long time for very large, cheaper storage.DanNeely - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
The last estimate I saw - from a few years ago - was predicting a mid 2020s crossover in TB/dollars. I'm not sure how much, or if the current supply shortage resulting in 'stuck' prices will impact that. Sooner or later capacity will finally catch up and flash prices should drop a lot and end up back on the track. Without illegal collusion there's no way for all the makers to increase production enough to sell more without ending up finally being able to meet demand and releasing the stuck prices again.I am anticipating that my 2019 NAS will likely be my last HDD purchase. Even if the crossover shifts to the late 2020s, by the 2024-6 when I'm likely to be making another one the crossover will presumably be close enough that the cost delta won't be that large, and being able to drop to a router sized NAS instead of a small box of books to miniPC sized one with lower power consumption is worth paying slightly more up front for me.
MamiyaOtaru - Monday, July 23, 2018 - link
i just worry that price parity will be reached by using PLC or HLC or something. I'm not really interested in TLC, never mind QLC. Hell I'd get SLC if I could, but even MLC is pretty damn scarce now :(Dragonstongue - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
cheap to produce SSD article reads compared to HDD, yet pricing for consumer does not seem to agree with the statement either. Maybe one day we will have 1-2tb SSD that are $100 like HDD are ^.^Slyr762 - Saturday, July 21, 2018 - link
Yep, $45-50 for a 1TB HDD, $70-80 for 2TB.SSD's are $65+ for 250, $110+ for 500GB, $185 for 1TB Crucial MX500, & $400+ for most 2TB SSD's.
I got a 1TB MX500 for $160 on prime day & 2 of the 250GB's for relatives at $105 for both.
Dodozoid - Sunday, July 22, 2018 - link
They are definitely cheaper to assemble. Not accounting for price of flash chips. HDD is incredibly complex piece of fine engineering. An SSD is just few slabs of modified sand glued to a PCB.svan1971 - Friday, July 20, 2018 - link
All these past years we are told prices remained high for hard disk due to shortages and damage to plants from earthquakes and such, now the prices are still high so lets start decreasing supply.