bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"comments from those of you who have had ACUTAL EXPERIENCE with both."

That's going to be hard. Long term actual experience with 8TB external SSDs is going to hard because the current crop of those have only a short term history. If you have one, it won't be an old one.

Your student is only repeating long term traditional experience. Laptops equipped with internal SSDs were considered risky for a long time. Try to find one now that doesn't have one built in. And, they are not failing.

Burkley Loc: Park City

SSD’s do not have moving parts. Makes sense that they are more reliable. Still imperfect but more reliable. I keep my SSD drives to 4 Tb. Lacie is great and so are Samsung SSDs—a decent value.

goldstar46 Loc: Tampa, Fl

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Toby...

In your post, you said:
..... "I would like to hear comments from those of you who have had ACTUAL EXPERIENCE with both."

Hers is my 2¢ - I have had all and experienced 'failure' on many, including RAID, and IDE..

My current situation is:
1 - 1TB M.2 SSD which is C: Drive with OS and all EXE only
2 - 4TB M.2 SSD which is I: Drive for 'Interim' data - i.e. Current Images only 2020-2024
3 - 12TB IDE Drive which is H: Drive for 'Historical' data - i.e. Older Images before 2020

4 - 18TB External USB which is used to have a 'backup' of all of the above
5 - 25TB External NAS via home network - which is used to have 2nd backup of all of the above
6 - Cloud Storage via BackBlaze - which is used to have a 3rd backup of all of the above...

In closing -- I have 'Backups' and I have backups... ha ha ha ha...
..... And, when I lost my first RAID NAS some 7 years ago,
..... Brand is NOT critical, as long as you have 'multiple backups' AND, I do.
..... I swore I would never be caught with my backup down (and dead)

Any questions, let me know -- Hard Drives are 'cheap insurance' these days compare to 'trying to recover'

YES... I know there are many other ways it can be done, my thought is everyone is responsible for their own... and what you choose is "OK" for you...

Cheers
Goldstar46
George Veazey
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MJPerini

There are lots of reliable drives out there
The best combination of speed and reliability I have found are the OWC drives they make lots of models with incredible speed in actual use. They are heavily used in the video & movie industries and are cross platform . Mine is indistinguishable in use from my internal

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

I have a pair of 4 TB SanDisk drives. I also have a 2TB Samsung drive. I prefer the Sandisk drives as they are not so easy to lose in a pack.

ricardo00

There have been a number of reports of SanDisk failures by various photographers. Obviously still a "small" percent failure rate, but something to think about before buying more.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

Mine has been great!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

“Young computer science student” are the key words here. As we accumulate data, it’s becoming obvious that good quality SSDs are more reliable than spinning disk. At this point in time, they are more expensive per TB than spinning disk and the price is dropping in half every year. But in terms of performance/TB, there is no comparison. In terms of data recovery after a failure, consider: (1) you should have 3 copies of your data so it shouldn’t matter, and (2) the cost of data recovery from spinning disk is so high, that it’s rarely done. MY actual experience is 25+ years specializing in data storage for the largest storage companies in existence, and I have used SSDs for everything for 10+ years AND a keep a DR copy of my data in the Amazon S3 cloud. On the other hand, if you have MANY TB of data to back up, an ENTERPRISE quality HD might be the best choice, but I’d probably mirror it.

Toby

Home Brewer, I apologize as I did want to hijack your post just try to get a little more focus from some comments, I recently heard that I thought you might be interested.

Also, thanks to everyone who responded to my questions, particularly to those who have actual experience with both HD and SDD's. What I took from your advice is that I should probably get at least 1 SDD because of speed particularly if I have a large amount of data. Second, I should buy multiple HD's for BU (several times).
My only experience with trying to get lost data from a HD was years ago when I sent the drive to a business recommended by my computer repairman. I was quoted a price of about $1000. After about 1 month they sent it back and said they could not recover it.
Thanks everyone

goldstar46 Loc: Tampa, Fl

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Hi Toby, I got your PM & Thanks so much...

Also, in your above post, you spoke about: .... "... lost data from a HD was years ago"... & You were quoted a price of about $1000. After about 1 month they sent it back and said they could not recover it...."


That is EXACTLY what happened to me over 7 years ago... when I had a set of "Raided" hard drives both 'go bad' and I sent them off with a quote of $1,2000... They send them back, and I still have those 'bad' drives to this day...... ha ha ha ha..

The above made me so 'anal' about my backup system, and I have multiple backups... The bottom line is I don't favor anyone "National Brand" over another... the KEY is plenty of Backups

There Is an old saying... Not "If" your hard drive fails, but "When" you had drive fails...

The above is how I look at the situation, and I do NOT take a chance...



Cheers my Friend
George
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jonyrot

I bought a 2 tb Samsung T7 during the Christmas season, so far so good.