External SSD vs External HDD

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Hitchcock

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I am looking at buying either a 512GB or 1TB external drive SSD drive. I will mainly be using the drive to store my software, which I use quite a lot to install on other PCs. However, the 512GB external SSD will cost me around US$220 and the 1TB around $500. Now this is a lot more than a normal HDD, but my question is, do you think it is better to use an SSD drive for this purpose (I do not have the problem to spend the money), or would you rather go for a normal external drive?
 
For storage purpose its a waste to use SSD, but if you don't have a problem spending the money, go for it
 
beans100 said:
For storage purpose its a waste to use SSD, but if you don't have a problem spending the money, go for it
Click to expand...

What bothers me the most, currently, is the way I use my current external. I just though that the SSD could be a more safer option when it comes to protection of my data, especially when the drive gets dropped. But, I could be wrong.
 
You might have a point with the dropping thing, but SSD's life dwindles the more you write to it. So both will die eventually. I'd suggest you backup documents and photos online, like google drive. (PS. Google drive, unlimited photos storage if you let them resize)
Movies and tv shows is all over the net, so loosing those won't hurt.
 
Get a hard drive for now. Unless you're using USB 3.1, or a particular Asmedia USB 3.0 controller in the external, the SSD will be bottlenecked by the very low queue depth on USB controllers and if you plug it into a USB 2.0 port it will only max out at around 28MB/s, although it will hit 28MB/s in both reads and writes pretty much all the time.

Also, for the current prices its just not worth it. If you need the speed and store less than 128GB of stuff on there, go find a cheap 128GB SSD second-hand. Even the models from 2012 are plenty fast for what you want to do. If prices for new drives were much lower to the point where R900 buys you a 256GB drive, then I'd say its a potential buy.
 
What about the hard drive speed receiving the files? Will that bottleneck the copying process or is that ssd as well?

There are hard shell cases to prevent serious damage to portables.
 
CataclysmZA said:
Get a hard drive for now. Unless you're using USB 3.1, or a particular Asmedia USB 3.0 controller in the external, the SSD will be bottlenecked by the very low queue depth on USB controllers and if you plug it into a USB 2.0 port it will only max out at around 28MB/s, although it will hit 28MB/s in both reads and writes pretty much all the time.

Also, for the current prices its just not worth it. If you need the speed and store less than 128GB of stuff on there, go find a cheap 128GB SSD second-hand. Even the models from 2012 are plenty fast for what you want to do. If prices for new drives were much lower to the point where R900 buys you a 256GB drive, then I'd say its a potential buy.
Click to expand...

Totally disagree. R1400 now gets you a 256GB SSD so they are affordable right now.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I see you mentioned that writing to the SSD will also wear it down, which naturally leads me to my last question. What is the life span of both devices? Is the HDD or SDD more likely to go first due to normal usage?
 
Hitchcock said:
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I see you mentioned that writing to the SSD will also wear it down, which naturally leads me to my last question. What is the life span of both devices? Is the HDD or SDD more likely to go first due to normal usage?
Click to expand...
Life span for an ssd is really not an issue , you'll end up replacing it due to other issues long before write wearing down becomes a problem. I'm using an ssd as my main drive and it has to handle downloads from usenet, thus writing the rar files then writing the extracted file. By the time it wears out I'll probably be able to get a 2tb drive for half the price
 
Chevron said:
Then go for the SSD.
Click to expand...
You will get about 30MB/s more, most new external HDDs have about 120MB/s read/write (My experience when copying files onto/off external). Not worth it if the machines you are copying to are not HDDs.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2039427/how-fast-is-usb-3-0-really-.html
Chevron said:
Totally disagree. R1400 now gets you a 256GB SSD so they are affordable right now.
Click to expand...
I think we all have a different view on affordable, we don't all earn the same amount of money.
Hitchcock said:
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I see you mentioned that writing to the SSD will also wear it down, which naturally leads me to my last question. What is the life span of both devices? Is the HDD or SDD more likely to go first due to normal usage?
Click to expand...

Some user posted a test, was in the hundreds of thousands of write/read counts in a lab. Normal usage should be at least 10 years +.
 
Chevron said:
Totally disagree. R1400 now gets you a 256GB SSD so they are affordable right now.
Click to expand...

It's a storage drive, R1400 will get you a 3TB spinner...

On usb3 a 7200rpm hdd will perform at about 3/5 of ssd speed, at usb2 speeds they will be the same.

The only major benefit the ssd provides is if say he drops the thing. I would rather get a 3tb hdd for storage.
 
Chevron said:
Totally disagree. R1400 now gets you a 256GB SSD so they are affordable right now.
Click to expand...

R1400 also buys you a very large spinny disk that will run pretty fast on USB 3.0 anyway. Or it could buy you several 1TB drives if there's a special going on. At R5.46 per GB, its still not good compared to a 2TB external offering up to R0.70 per GB.
 
Hitchcock said:
Yes, they do have USB 3.
Click to expand...

Can you assume that your computers you will be using will have have USB 3.


Honestly, I think you will get the speed you need just from the USB3, the SSD in an external will be wasted.
Half the speed of the SSD comes from the OS performance so I think its way better to use for something like that.
 
Nerfherder said:
Can you assume that your computers you will be using will have have USB 3.


Honestly, I think you will get the speed you need just from the USB3, the SSD in an external will be wasted.
Half the speed of the SSD comes from the OS performance so I think its way better to use for something like that.
Click to expand...

Hey Nerfherder

Thanks, and yes, I agree, but my problem is quiet a bit different. I have around 480GB software. I travel with my current external HDD and I am very rough on it. In fact, I had to replace it twice before due to falling and damaging the drive, hence why I asked about the durability of the SSD earlier.

Since I will be reading from the drive more than writing to it, I think I will get much more life out of it. Also, the protection of my data is very important. When I replaced my previous drives, I had less than 90GB of data. Things have changed and I now have much more.

It was just my opinion that the SSD would serve me better in the end, as an external storage device, and was worth paying the extra money. The smaller drive will also work better for me, which I use on a daily basis for work.
 
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