| 1 |
> So, before I find a SDD to buy, what are some things I should look for |
| 2 |
> it to have and what are things I should avoid? |
| 3 |
|
| 4 |
I think the single most important thing is buying stuff from a reputable |
| 5 |
brand (there's quite a number of those by now). Look at reviews. |
| 6 |
Top-tier performance probably isn't going to matter much for daily use, |
| 7 |
but I'd still look for a drive with a good warranty and a high write |
| 8 |
endurance rating, even if it commands a premium. |
| 9 |
|
| 10 |
Avoid drives based on QLC flash (they still have reliability and |
| 11 |
performance issues, and frankly prices aren't that great either). |
| 12 |
|
| 13 |
Most NVMe drives can only be booted from in UEFI mode (*), so if for any |
| 14 |
reason you still need to boot from an SSD in legacy BIOS mode -- stay |
| 15 |
safe and go for SATA or be sure to buy from a place with a good return |
| 16 |
policy. |
| 17 |
|
| 18 |
(*) boot-time NVMe access relies on a boot ROM carried on the drive, and |
| 19 |
most (all?) drives only have a UEFI ROM. While some UEFI firmwares claim |
| 20 |
to have a "universal NVMe driver", my experience with those has not been |
| 21 |
good. |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
> While at it, if I look for a NAS type HDD, would all those be PMR |
| 24 |
> instead of SMR? |
| 25 |
|
| 26 |
I would expect any SMR drives sold at retail (i.e. not in USB boxes or |
| 27 |
the like) to be clearly marked as such, since they are a niche product |
| 28 |
with abysmal performance on common workloads. |
| 29 |
|
| 30 |
You're not going to silently get SMR drives in a NAS product line. |
| 31 |
|
| 32 |
> From my understanding that should be correct. Mostly I |
| 33 |
> buy WD, Seagate and Samsung. I've had a WD fail, I've had a Seagate |
| 34 |
> fail. I'm not looking for a HDD flame up. O_o I'm starting to look at |
| 35 |
> HGST. I think I got the spelling correct. Never had one tho. |
| 36 |
|
| 37 |
While Seagate seems to be the current leader in selling crap, I've had |
| 38 |
all kind of drives die on me. Most notable are a couple of high-end WDs |
| 39 |
literally going up in smoke some years ago, and an HGST going belly up |
| 40 |
with a good impression of a machine gun just the other day. |
| 41 |
|
| 42 |
In general I've had good luck with 3TB HGST and Toshiba drives, though |
| 43 |
the Toshibas I have are really HGST drives rebranded following a round |
| 44 |
of company mergers and subsequent antitrust-driven spinoffs. |
| 45 |
|
| 46 |
WD Enterprise drives are quite good, but they do command a sizable premium. |
| 47 |
|
| 48 |
I've not had any experience with "NAS" drives, nor with modern |
| 49 |
helium-filled high-capacity drives. Apart from the unit price, I don't |
| 50 |
need that much space and I'm not particularly keen on having that much |
| 51 |
data go poof if a single device decides to stop working. |
| 52 |
|
| 53 |
andrea |
Archives