mborn Loc: Massachusetts

My LR catalog is on an external SSD drive

Todd1959 Loc: Bluffton South Carolina

I have 4 SS hard drives. One for everyday file storage, all files. One for photos only and the other two are back up devices.

Nothing is stored on my PC hard drive but operating programs

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

I bought an OWC pci-e adapter for a 2 1/2 inch SSD that slips into a pci-e slot on the motherboard and it works great. It needs no software, you set your bios to boot to it, after you have transferred OS to it and it is fast, the PC boots up in about 10 secs. OWC also
makes them for M.2 ssds.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Is the PC hard drive an SSD, too? If not, you can speed up the entire system and all apps by switching to an SSD.

Todd1959 Loc: Bluffton South Carolina

All of them are ssd

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

One thing to consider.

Over a very long time, the magnetic hard drives are more reliable than solid state drives. At least that is what some factories say and they make both kind so it's not a matter of just selling their brand.

Todd1959 Loc: Bluffton South Carolina

I have had a lot of failed hard drives over the years. Not on SSD drive to date.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

With respect, I do not agree. Please post the source of your information. BTW, the top rated SSD manufacturers (Samsung, Intel) do not make HDs.

photoman43

I use both SSD and spinning external hard drives on my laptop and desktop, both of which have windows 10 Pro. All of the drives are USB 3.

My experience is that the transfer of files to and from the laptop or desktop is MUCH FASTER (approx 25%-30%) to and from SSD external drives than from my spinning drives.

If your computer is not demonstrating the faster transfer speeds the issue could be with a driver, the version of windows or other operating system on your pc or the USB 3 cable used to attach the SSD to the pc. These same three factors can affect transfer speeds on spinning drives too.

parmruss

Any process reading or writing large amounts of data will benefit from the speed of a SSD. I use an external on USB 3.1 for both photos and large VST music libraries, and the speed improvement is substantial.

jefflane

Much faster and more portable. My vote is for the ones I use for travel, Crucial 1 T M.2 for now about $95. Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD - CT1000P1SSD8 to which I would add a Startech case that will convert it from SATA to USB3. Although, when I look there is one from another company that is USB 3.1 if you have that on your computer. $18-$30. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Startech+M.2+case&i=electronics&ref=nb_sb_noss

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

I have both a HDD and a SSD that I use for backup. Just for comparison, it takes at least 1/3 the time for a complete backup on the SSD as the HHD. These are both older versions. Just pictures backed up. Over 8000 at the moment.

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

Like Mborn, I keep my Lr catalogue on an SSD, in my case a 2TB. I use the same catalog on my desktop and laptop systems. That makes it convenient to develop images and work in Lr when I travel. I also download all of my images taken during my trip onto the SSD. The one caveat is that I have to move the images onto my primary Drobo based storage system by using Lr, when I return home.

This works for me because many of my shoots are out of town. SSDs are more resistant to the bumps and shocks of traveling than HDDs, which rely upon a finely balanced platter spinning at speeds of 5400 rpms or more. Also, I read that SSD reliability in general is far greater than the mechanical HDDs, provided you use the SSDs on a consistent basis. SSD's are small. I particularly recommend SSDs for travel.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Rereading articles, it seems that I was incorrect, in a way.

Being that few "regular people" read and write as many times as the SSD's are rated, I guess the SSD do last. HDD are suppose to last forever but I would guess that the mechanical parts will go bad after a very long time.

For those who nearly fill their SSD, that tells me the unused portion will be used lots over and over again. That will wear the unfilled portion out much faster than is a much larger unused portion.

So to me that means either will store well enough for "us regular people", but not is the SSD is nearly filled to begin with.


Here are some quotes from the following articles:


1) https://www.exittechnologies.com/blog/it-tips/hard-drive-vs-ssd-vs-storage-system/

"HDD’s are more vulnerable to mechanical failure since they contain moving parts...
Usually, they will warn the user before failure as they start to make a lot of noise or load data slowly."

"Solid-state drives do not suffer from mechanical problems...
However, the electrical circuits that contain the data can wear out and fail. Writing data is harder on the drive than reading data.
One unique issue that SSDs have that hard drives don’t is electron wear.
When writing a 1 or a 0 to the same location repeatedly, that cell can begin to wear out. This is mitigated through a concept called wear leveling or provisioning.
Normally, an SSD fills up to 60 % and that data doesn’t change much, but the remaining 40% changes often as the user creates and deletes files.
Once a failure occurs in that overused 40%, the whole drive fails. The provisioning function reorganizes the information on the drive as needed. That way all sectors are being worked evenly, prolonging the life of the drive."


2) https://www.howtogeek.com/322856/how-long-do-solid-state-drives-really-last/

"A joint study between Google and the University of Toronto covering drive failure rates on data servers. The study concluded that the physical age of the SSD, rather than the amount or frequency of data written, is the prime determiner in probability of data retention errors. It also determined that SSD drives were replaced at Google data centers far less often than conventional hard drives, at about a one to four ratio. But it wasn’t all positive in favor of SSDs: they experienced higher uncorrectable errors and bad blocks at a much higher rate than hard drives over the four-year testing period. Conclusion: in a high-stress, fast-read environment, SSDs will last longer than hard drives, but be more susceptible to non-catastrophic data errors. Older SSDs are more prone to total failure regardless of TBW or DWPD."

photoman43

My experience with external HDD drives , 2 TB and 4 TB models , is not to rely on them after two years as failures can occur and have incurred for me. I try not to bang mine around, but I still have failures. And I try and never have any drive more than 75% full.