SSD portable: I hear more and more people talking about the SSD drives and I was wondering if there are any negative reports on their use?

redlegfrog

I hear more and more people talking about the SSD drives and I was wondering if there are any negative reports on their use?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

redlegfrog wrote:

I hear more and more people talking about the SSD drives and I was wondering if there are any negative reports on their use?

Benefits far outweigh costs. Normal backup routines neutralize any issues.

I just bought a 2TB USB C 3.2 Samsung T7. It’s tiny. It’s fast — twice as fast as the 2TB SSD I put in my iMac in 2019. It’s going with me wherever my M1 MacBook Air will be.

redlegfrog

Thanks, thats what I'm looking for except portable. Not knowing anything about them, I was wondering about how tough they are. Being built to be portable and I have a tendency to drop things just how long is the expected longevity.

luvmypets Loc: Born & raised Texan living in Fayetteville NC

If you will check Steve Perry's website or his YouTube channel he just did a video a week ago about not losing your photos. He talks about how he backs up his photos and talks about the advantages of SSD drives vs regular hard drives including their durability.

You can try contacting him either here on UHH or on his website if you have any questions that aren't answered by the video.

Dodie

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Any negative reports date back to the introduction of SSDs and are very old news. Backblaze’s latest report shows them as 6x more reliable than conventional HDs and still 2X when normalized for long term use. They are 5-20x the speed of HDs and have an access time in microseconds as compared to milliseconds for conventional HDs. They are small, tough and low power/heat. In actual use, they can make a BIG difference in performance as many/most computer operations are I/O, not compute bound. If you purchase from an experienced company with a long track record such as Intel, or more recently, Samsung, the only downside is that at this moment, they are still more expensive in terms of $/TB than conventional HDs, but with capacity/$ doubling roughly every year, that won’t be true much longer. For an external drive, the Samsung T5 and T7 USB interface drives are an excellent choice.

ELNikkor

If you've ever dropped a flash drive, you've dropped the equivalent of an SSD. Nothing in there to get shaken loose; it is a Solid State Drive. There are even "tough" ones with rubberized shells to protect them even more.

george19

burkphoto wrote:

Benefits far outweigh costs. Normal backup routines neutralize any issues.

I just bought a 2TB USB C 3.2 Samsung T7. It’s tiny. It’s fast — twice as fast as the 2TB SSD I put in my iMac in 2019. It’s going with me wherever my M1 MacBook Air will be.

I have the 1T version, part of my 4 drive backup scheme. No issues.

redlegfrog

Thanks all for the good info!

tom

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

I have been using a 2TB SSD for my Lightroom catalog for 3 or 4 years. I bring it with me when I travel so I cn work on my photos. I also download my travel photos onto it for eventual transfer to my home machine. That was i can work on the images. When on the road, I synchronize to a second SSD. They have been more dependable, more durable, smaller, lighter and far better than the portable mechanical drives I had been using previously

Irwin.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

TriX wrote:

Any negative reports date back to the introduction... (show quote)

Yeah, just bought a T7… 2TB, for my new M1 MacBook Air (arriving Monday).

gwilliams6

I have six of the portable Sandisk SSDs and love them for backup and for storing images when I travel. They are water resistant, dustproof and virtually shockproof and easy to carry. When I travel, like Steve Perry says in his recent video, I backup to at least two external SSDs each night and carry one on my person. Sadly just recently a photographer had all her gear along with thousands of photos stolen from a locked hotel room while on safari in Africa.

SSDs are great for added, compact storage and are virtually "bulletproof", nothing spinning inside to break or wear out. I buy the best ones when they are on sale and they are worth the price IMHO.

Cheers

photoman43

I use SSD external drives with no problems at all.

Instead of buying one enclosed in plastic or some similar material, buy the SSD separately and install it yourself in a SSD enclosure case made from aluminum. If you can fill a salt shaker with salt you can install a SSD in an SSD enclosure. It is very easy!

If you decide to go this route, buy the fastest SDSs, either 1 TB or 2 TB, and make sure the enclosure case has fast ports like USB3.1. Also make sure that the ports on the enclosure match the ports on your computer. You have to review the specs carefully. Or buy an adapter plug or cord too.

My first SSD came out of an old laptop. I took it out and installed it in a USB 3 case.

More modern versions:

https://www.newegg.com/wavlink-st238c-enclosure/p/0VN-0069-00029?Description=usb3%20ssd%20enclosure&cm_re=usb3_ssd%20enclosure-_-9SIA6PFD3H4098-_-Product

https://www.newegg.com/orico-2588us3-rd-enclosure/p/0VN-0003-000M2?Description=usb%20ssd%20enclosure&cm_re=usb_ssd%20enclosure-_-9SIA1DS14F8921-_-Product

sroc

redlegfrog wrote:

I hear more and more people talking about the SSD drives and I was wondering if there are any negative reports on their use?

I have a 1 TB Sandisk Extreme SSD. I have used it last month on an eight day Iceland cruise and am currently half way through a 20 day Med cruise. The drive is fast and flawless and only 3 inches by 1.5 inches and thin.

Sinewsworn Loc: Port Orchard, WA

redlegfrog wrote:

I hear more and more people talking about the SSD drives and I was wondering if there are any negative reports on their use?

I have two Sandisk SSDs-a 1 TB and a @ TB. Both died after a short time. Use was a not regular-only used them as back-ups. I now have a Samsung T5 2 TB as a portable back-up. Has not failed yet. I have 1 TB SSD installed in my MacBook Pro-no issues so far. Do not trust SSDs alone for long-term storage. I use both platten drives and SSDs for back-up. My main back-up is a RAID 5 OWC unit.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Sinewsworn wrote:

I have two Sandisk SSDs-a 1 TB and a @ TB. Both died after a short time. Use was a not regular-only used them as back-ups. I now have a Samsung T5 2 TB as a portable back-up. Has not failed yet. I have 1 TB SSD installed in my MacBook Pro-no issues so far. Do not trust SSDs alone for long-term storage. I use both platten drives and SSDs for back-up. My main back-up is a RAID 5 OWC unit.

Do not trust a single copy of your data to ANY type of storage device. 3 copies - working, backup and off-site disaster recovery copy.

SanDisk has been producing excellent memory cards for a long time and are my go to supplier, but even though the basic technology is the same (NAND Flash), they are new to the SSD game and there are more devices in an SSD than just the flash. Samsung has a good reputation and very popular now, but Intel has been making SSDs fo almost a decade and traditionally have the lowest failure rate (when was the last time you saw an Intel CPU fail?). I have half a dozen Intel’s in service, several of which have run 24x7 for over 8 years with zero failures.