SSD vs Mechanical data recovery

Mike78 · 23 Sep 2012 at 14:56

I was reading that other thread about SSD's just suddenly dieing, so I did a bit of googling and sure enough, someday you will power on your computer to find your SSD will be dead.. but that wont be for a good few years yet and chances are you will upgrade to a new drive long before that ever happens. So no real worries there.

But in the mean time we have all those other dilemma's that cause a drive to go bad, everything from dropping it (in the case of an external drive), kids, to it been in a house fire etc etc...

So from a data recovery point of view- which drive is most reliable.

Durzel · 23 Sep 2012 at 16:26

If I had to guess I'd say a mechanical drive is safer simply because the data is still on the platters even when the drive fails mechanically, which tends to be what causes regular HDDs to die.

A SSD on the other hand, if the NAND can't hold your data anymore for whatever reason - it's gone.

Jokester · 23 Sep 2012 at 16:33

You will still be able to read the data off the SSD if it fails due to it reaching it's max writes limit.

SSDs are subject to the same controller issues that HDD are subject to, but don't have the issues around mechanical failures such as head crashes, broken motors, platters being damaged.

Failure rates as far as I'm aware are broadly the same for SSD and HDD.

Mike78 · 23 Sep 2012 at 16:59

Ive been doing a bit of reading and I think you are right about the equal failure rate.

But the thing is, an SSD failure usually means guaranteed data loss, whereas mechanical drives have very high recovery rates. Some people actually go as far as saying mechanical drive data is only truly lost if you degauss the drive, everything else such as direct fire/water damage, broken platters etc is 100% recoverable if you have the right kind of money.....apparently.

I guess the moral of the story is if you arent gaming, the few extra seconds you save probably aren't worth the risk. But if you really insist on going SSD then you better make sure you take a lot of regular backups.

Jokester · 23 Sep 2012 at 17:13

Beyond swapping out the controller board, there's nothing else you can really do as an individual. It costs £100s as a minimum to recover data off an otherwise inoperable drive, if it can be recovered at all, so I don't think it's a real reason to choose a HDD over a SSD in terms of reliability.

Edit:
If your data is that important you shouldn't be using a single drive anyway.

Mike78 · 23 Sep 2012 at 17:22

Jokester said:
Beyond swapping out the controller board, there's nothing else you can really do as an individual. It costs £100s as a minimum to recover data off an otherwise inoperable drive, if it can be recovered at all, so I don't think it's a real reason to choose a HDD over a SSD in terms of reliability.

I hear what your saying Jokestar, but there will be always be times/cases when people would be only too happy to pay a €100 to get data back. If all you have is a few games/music/movies then you would just cut your losses and buy a new drive. But when you throw other data such as college work/photographs of loved ones etc then people will often pay whatever it takes.

Jokester · 23 Sep 2012 at 17:40

Maybe, but as I said before, if you care about it that much to use it as a selection criteria, you should be looking at protecting your data such that a drive death doesn't lose you it in the first place.

Mike78 · 23 Sep 2012 at 18:33

Yes your right and I agree with you 100%.

But the thing is, (just for the record I dont usually guess statistics like this) but Im willing to bet at least 90% of computer users have at least some vague understanding of backing up data and why it might be important.

So if thats the case- why are there so many data recovery companies around? Well the reason is because the vast majority of people dont think twice about backups until one day they lose everything.

If I was one of those people, Id would rather sacrifice the extra few seconds Id gain with an SSD and go mechanical.

Thats just my opinion on the whole thing anyway.

mikeo · 23 Sep 2012 at 21:16

Mike78 said:
...but Im willing to bet at least 90% of computer users have at least some vague understanding of backing up data and why it might be important.

.

I think you might be surprised at how few people actually do though ... and even fewer have any real/regular backup strategy

To quote one recent study :

When asked: “How often do you backup all the data on your computer?”

2012
Daily or more 10%
Weekly or more 20%
Monthly or more 36%

Other interesting statistics from the 2012 survey:
• 43% of computer owners backup less than once a year (or never.)
• Only 3% backup more frequently than once-per-day

So to a certain extent I think that answers "So if that's the case- why are there so many data recovery companies around"

Though I suppose a lot comes down to what you've actually got to protect.

Kotu · 23 Sep 2012 at 21:26

People need to know what a backup is as well, a lot of the time when I have asked someone if they have backups and they say yes, I usually ask where do they store it and the answer is nearly always in a folder on the same drive as the original (/facepalm).

Amraam · 24 Sep 2012 at 11:01

Mike78 said:
Yes your right and I agree with you 100%.

But the thing is, (just for the record I dont usually guess statistics like this) but Im willing to bet at least 90% of computer users have at least some vague understanding of backing up data and why it might be important.

So if thats the case- why are there so many data recovery companies around? Well the reason is because the vast majority of people dont think twice about backups until one day they lose everything.

If I was one of those people, Id would rather sacrifice the extra few seconds Id gain with an SSD and go mechanical.

Thats just my opinion on the whole thing anyway.

I work as an IT technician in public libraries, and unfortunately, I can tell you that's not the case. I would go the opposite and say 90% don't know where the "on button" is.

Sorry to sound snobby, but most 'non geek PC users' are ignorant and don't bother to learn the simplest of things.

mikeo · 24 Sep 2012 at 11:23

Amraam said:
I work as an IT technician in public libraries, and unfortunately, I can tell you that's not the case. I would go the opposite and say 90% don't know where the "on button" is.

Sorry to sound snobby, but most 'non geek PC users' are ignorant and don't bother to learn the simplest of things.

Indeed....

Easy to forget on a forum like this (IE. where most posters have some sort of grasp of what's going on), that to the vast majority of PC users... a laptop/PC is just really another piece of consumer electronics... and little thought is given until things go wrong.

As an example. A friend of mine who works as a senior AP for IBM Global Services (and she for God sake should know better), just lost 5 years worth of photos when her laptop got nicked. And yes, you've guessed it, no external backup/s.

PS. Bit of post drift going on here me thinks

Wucked · 25 Sep 2012 at 14:09

What is this "on button" you speak of? And where is the "any" key?

drunkenmaster · 25 Sep 2012 at 16:21

The vast majority of people have a single ssd for the OS and main applications and a hdd for storage. Simple fact is that 95% of stuff on your ssd like games, application, OS, are all things that don't need to be backed up, just reinstalled and with connections as fast as they are getting putting on 100gb's of games doesn't take very long anymore.

Then when you really crack down to important files, photo's and work... as ever you should back these up. Anything I want to work with, programming files or whatever are on my ssd though its really not particularly required for them to be, but I back up my work to an HDD and some of the more important stuff I put on a NAS also.

If the ssd dies, its on the hdd, if the hdd dies, its on the ssd, if the whole computer dies, its on the NAS. If an EMP bomb goes off somewhere in orbit as some manical evil dude decided Goldeneye was his favourite film, I'm screwed, but you'll also find all the data recovery people don't have a way to get your data back either

Pre ssd era, I'd still have my work backed up on another drive, and pre NAS I'd also have it backed up on some kind of circular optical storage write once media.

If your data back up plan consists of potentially spending thousands of pounds to get the single copy of crucial data off a now not working ssd or HDD, you've done it wrong.

SSD, HDD, external hdd of some kind, simple external drive/nas/internet storage, something, then a dvd/blu ray burner for some random stuff. Once every now and then I still burn important photo's to a dvd or now bluray and stick several blurays in a small fireproof safe. Some people, my rents included, also put their photo's on an external drive that is kept at my brothers place in a different city.

Ultimate rule is, if the data is important it shouldn't be on one drive, ever.

scotty365 · 26 Sep 2012 at 09:13

I remember there was a guy on here about 2 years ago and he quite cheaply got data off HDD's that had died. He offered no guarantee and didn't have an industry standard 'clean room' just some knowledge of what he was doing and reasonably clean method to do the work. I don't remember his name but he might be a useful fellow if he is still around - perhaps this post might jog memories. As for SSD, I never even looked to find out if it can be done...