Not a valid comparison because HDDs have been here since the 80s, while SSDs are a relatively new thing.

For instance, my old retro-PC (1-core CPU etc., the PC is probably from the late 90s) has some very old HDD in it, no problems. Same with my ancient IBM ThinkPad T41 laptop, it has its original HDD inside, still working fine.

Yes I've had like three or so HDDs break down over the years (two were probably due to excessive heat (one was actually less than a year ago), and one I stupidly zapped myself with static electricity), but that's like since the early 90s. I must have had dozens of different HDDs over the years.

HDD is kinda pointless these days, the smaller sizes are getting more expensive.

It's only good for 1+TB now really.

If you're that fussed get an SSD with a 5 or 10 yr warranty.

I've had a Sandisk since August 2016 and it's still at "99% life remaining" it went down 1% last year, but it does have something like a 8+ year warranty.

But you can't go filthy cheap with SSD's, not like you could with HDD's, as rather than losing speed (HDD) you'll lose on it's lifetime instead, which is farless forgiving when all of a sudden it doesn't work and you lose all your data.


Bought any prebuilt system with a nasty and awfully slow 5200RPM HDD? now wonder what the equivelent of a filthy cheap SSD will be like..

So your retro-PC is still going strong even non HDD-wise? All PCs I've ever owned had something fail after 3-ish years. I suspect dust build up in the hear sinks that I didn't clean off quickly enough, ie heat damage, and the occasional brown out / voltage spike in the grid. But I'm not sure.

HDDs are really only good for data storage nowadays. Even though they're faster today than they ever were before, an SSD is several times faster.

They ideal setup, at least for me, is like this:

- a small (~256 GB) NVMe SSD as boot drive, holding your OS and all the non-game software you have

- a 1 TB SSD for your games; doesn't have to be NVMe or PCIe, a SATA drive is more than sufficient

- one or more large HDDs for all your music, videos, pictures, etc.

No, that's not what I am saying. (Also, please don't abbreviate my username that way.)

The only situations where the OS could be destroyed by the drive are if:
* The drive has worn out and is unable to copy the data. (In which case, time to get a new one.)
* The drive is defective. (Should be covered under warranty.)
* The firmware has a bug. (Time to update the drive's firmware, or return it under warranty if you can't.)

I would expect these sorts of failures to be rare, possibly rarer than with HDDs.

Regarding longevity:

- Type of SSD: 250 GB Crucial MX200
- Used for: OS and regular software like drivers, browser, office software, iTunes, game clients (not the games themselves), etc.
- Capacity used: 112,7 GB (48,6 %)
- Average workload: more than 2 boot-ups and 6-7 hours of operation a day
- Age: a little over 3 years (April 2016)
- Data written: 10,2 TB
- Current status: 95% health according CrystalDiskInfo, which means I have used up 5% its life expectancy

At this rate the SSD would still be at 75% health after 15 years. However this is not a strictly linear decline as the capacity used obviously affects how soon the SSD will be "unable to write" and redistribute data due to the amount of worn out blocks. That's why you should well clear of the maximum capacity of an SSD unless it is a pure storage drive with no writes necessary. Similarly, frequent writing of large amounts of new data (e.g. due to regularly setting up the entire system from scratch) will also increase wear and lower the life expectancy.

Nevertheless, if I keep my SSD around the same 50%ish capacity as it is now, I can expect another ~51 Years of similar use before it reaches 10% remaining life (CrystalDiskInfo only sets the health status to "Caution" if the remaining life drops to 10% or lower). Any regular HDD could be expected to crap out way before that due to mechanical wear alone. And with improved wear leveling, r/w cycles and increasingly larger capacities becoming affordable SSD longevity will only improve further.

tl;dr
For system drive purposes SSDs are already virtually risk free and an all around better choice than HDDs. Before long they will also be the better choice for mass storage. At this point the "oh my god, they will wear out, like, SOOOOO fast!" is only baseless fearmongering left over from the early days of SSDs...

In your opinion, how are modern SSDs for uses like these?
* Swap file usage, on a system that touches swap space.
* Database, on a high traffic web site that frequently both reads and writes to the SSD.

Some very good advices here, especially from Cavalary and AB2012. Now my two cents, things that I personally (would) do. Disable hibernation, files indexing and swap file. I had no problems without swap file on Windows 7 for 6 years now. If, for any reasons you need it, then at least make it smaller than the default 1.5 x RAM size, and move it on a mechanical drive.

Now to the SSDs themselves, I'll be talking only about 2.5 inch SATA drives. Don't see too many valid reasons for the regular PC user/gamer to use M.2 SATA and NVMe drives. Sure the NVMe are much faster, but it's not noticeable in the usual everyday usage. I've seen a few tests between 2.5 inch SATA and NVMe drives, for loading times of different games, and the difference was only 1 or 2 seconds.
They also run hotter and are usually placed between the CPU and graphics card or under the graphics card, thus probably having an undesirable effect on the GPU's thermals.

First, look for drives with 5 years warranty, such as Samsung Pro and Evo, Intel, ADATA SU900 and XPG SX950U, Kingston UV500, Crucial MX500. Keep in mind that even good brands have not so good models, like Kingston A400 and WD Green. They are cheap for a reason.

There are some good brands, like Intel, WD/Sandisk and Crucial, that I would personally not buy SSDs from, because of their software/SSD tools, which is the bloated type, so I rather look elsewhere. My SSD brands of choice are limited to Samsung, ADATA, Kingston/HyperX and Plextor, but it depends on the model, of course.

For OS I would go with a 256 GB drive, in this order: Samsung Pro, Samsung Evo, ADATA SU900, Plextor M8VC, Kingston UV500, ADATA SU800.

Sometime this autumn, after AMD launches its CPUs, GPUs and chipsets, I'll build myself a system and on the storage side, I already have a Samsung Pro 256 GB, which will be for OS and some games. Another 1 TB SSD (exclusively for games), probably Samsung Evo, which started to get relatively cheap lately, or the ADATA SU800 (cheap, yet still good drive). And a mechanical drive for storage: WD Blue 2TB 5400 RPM. No need for 7200 RPM, I prefer it cool and quiet.

It would be wise to avoid the cheapest drives (vast majority are DRAM-less), especially those with the Phison S11 controller, like Kingston A400, Toshiba TR200, Patriot Burst, Patriot Spark, GOODRAM CX300, Palit UVS and many more. These are prone to failure quite often. I don't know if it's the controller at fault, or the fact that was designed as a cheap controller (one core as opposed to the previous quad-core Phison S10 or Samsung's MJX triple-core) and gets paired with cheap NAND memory modules.

For those interested, here is a reddit thread with some good info (PDFs and spreadsheet).

SSD of course. With the price of SSD's being so cheap in comparison to conventional storage it almost makes sense to use only fast storage in any new or existing build.

You have to think logarithmically. Once the first segments fall apart the degradation accelerates. Expect your SSD to be 50% inoperable in the next 3-5 years.

Good post from ariaspi, i have some things to ask and to add.

This depends on the motherboard I think, but I could be wrong.

True, always get the stuff that is at least about 30 dollars more expensive than the cheaper SSDs.

I do recommend Samsung as they're probably better than even WD. A question though, do the HDD tools for WD also suffer from bloat? I heard that WD do make the best HDDs right now.

Not true, they launch in less than two weeks :>!

I think cheaper drives use a less sophisticated controller I think and are made so they break down sooner. I think its because its the core costumer segment which means most people buy from there. a lot of people don't mind buying a SSD on a regular basis, at least in some parts of the world.

For OP, as a rule of thumb, I recommend always buying at least the "middle class" of any type of hardware no matter what.

I'm still using a 80Gb with a lenovo m57 wich has probably 10y + of use.
On the raspi I use a IDE laptop 40gb HDD as a external drive.

But I also have a old 256 Micron c400 wich has probably 6-7 years old and still going strong wich has 100+ of Operating System install (I use it as a test drive nowadays).

My point was not to compare SSD vs HDD failure rate, but simply point fear of failure is not a reason to not get a SSD for general use.


I just remember some funny thing about SSD and gaming. Back when I played CS-GO I usually had the advantage of getting the color I want because I started the game faster than my friends, even with better pc specs and internet because I installed the game on a SSD. Since I am partial color blind, this was a huge factor for me.
Who ever said SSD doesn't matter on gaming doesn't know his stuff :D

Sorry for the off-topic.

I'm not so sure about that. Last year, autumn maybe, I've installed some of the SSD tools from major manufacturers in a virtual machine. The one from Crucial was a java application, consuming about 400 MB of RAM, with the installer being around 180 MB. The installer from WD was even bigger, something above 200 MB, so I didn't even bother with it.

Yup, I know that. :P But I'm also waiting for the B550 chipset on a micro-ATX motherboard and I've heard those will be available a bit later, probably August or September.

I think is has mostly to do with the silicon lottery. It's the same for NAND flash memory and anything produced on a wafer. So the lower quality modules are sold cheaper and automatically end up in cheap SSDs. Often times you'll see comments from people complaining their product failed within a year or even faster, and other people who are happily using the same product for many years without any issue.

Edit: If you're curios about more drives, check that reddit thread from my previous post. I was looking at the spreadsheet right now and they too say that WD Green is garbage, but the WD Blue 3D is good.

- Swap files: Personally, I don't see the use of a swap file for average users today. Invest in enough RAM instead. Still, unless you're moving ridiculously amounts of data it should not affect SSD life expectancy too much, though. You'd probably switch out the SSD for other reasons long before longevity becomes an issue anyway.
- High traffic database: No clue. Generally speaking it would just boil down to used capacity and write operations as mentioned before, but i have no idea about the exact numbers and how they would affect longevity.

From personal experience: Nope, with a capital 'N'. Even a brand spanking new, pristine OS on an HDD got absolutely nothing on a years old OS on an SSD in the speed department. SSD absolutely slaughters HDD. It's not even a competition.