Forum: Author Hangout

SSD vs HDD

Switch Blayde 🚫

I'm back with another technical question since there are so many qualified technical people here.

My wife's external hard drive on her MacBook Pro went. We replaced the cable but it still randomly disconnects from the computer. We even reinstalled the OS and the Apple Tech guy had us do something with Time Machine to disconnect the drive and connect it again. So we think the drive itself has gone bad.

We need a new one. SSD or HDD? Remember, this is for backup so speed isn't important. An Apple Tech Support person said to go with SSD. A senior Tech Support person said to go with HDD. He said SSD is more expensive and it's rumored that you can only write so many times on it.

So what's your opinion for a backup drive — SSD or HDD?

Thanks.

Replies: bk69 Keet awnlee jawking Not_a_ID Gauthier

bk69 🚫

@Switch Blayde

SSD. More commonly available as external backup.

Keet 🚫

@Switch Blayde

As with many things, it depends.
SSD's are more expensive than HDD's but they have some very good advantages over HDD's, even if speed is not important. Don't worry about the "limited" write times, you will never reach it, at least not faster than you would wear out a HDD.
You say it's for backup so I assume that you want to store the backup away from the machine, preferably off-site. SSD is much more compact and weighs much less than an external HDD drive. I have two Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD's. They weigh almost nothing (79gr) and can hold 2TB each. I switch them after each backup and slip one in my pocket to go with me and I never notice I carry it around. They are even IP55 certified for water and dust protection. That would be impossible with an external HDD, too bulky and too heavy. But, for the same money I could have two 5 or 6 TB external HDD's. So if you need A LOT of store space, you go for HDD because it would be too expensive with SSD's.
Only if money is really tight go for a HDD, otherwise SSD is almost always the better choice.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

He said SSD is more expensive and it's rumored that you can only write so many times on it.

SSD is more expensive, sure, but I find it hard to believe computer manufacturers would use it as the principal storage for a computer if it had a very limited life expectancy.

The one criticism I have heard is that if a HDD crashes, some of the data may be recoverable. But if a SSD dies, all the data is a write-off. But I'm not sure that's a significant issue for home users.

AJ

Replies: Switch Blayde Keet Dominions Son

Switch Blayde 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I find it hard to believe computer manufacturers would use it as the principal storage for a computer if it had a very limited life expectancy.

From PC Mag:

it is true that SSDs wear out over time (each cell in a flash-memory bank can be written to and erased a limited number of times, measured by SSD makers as a "terabytes written" or TBW rating)

Right now my wife has Time Machine scheduling a full backup every hour. That's a lot of writing to the backup drive. I'm trying to convince her that's overkill, but we'll see.

As of now, I'm leaning toward HDD. A 1 TB HDD external drive is around $80 while an SSD one is upward of $200.

Replies: REP LupusDei Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster) StarFleet Carl Grant Argon

REP 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Right now my wife has Time Machine scheduling a full backup every hour. That's a lot of writing to the backup drive. I'm trying to convince her that's overkill, but we'll see.

I don't understand what critical changes are being backed up that would warrant hourly backups. If the changes aren't critical, daily or weekly backups should suffice.

Replies: rustyken

rustyken 🚫

@REP

I believe the hourly backup is only those items that have been changed since the last full backup.

Replies: REP

REP 🚫

@rustyken

I'm not a MAC user and have no idea what Time Machine does. Lazeez said it only backs up files that have been changed during the prior hour.

Unless files are critical, I feel hourly backups are overkill. When I work on a story, I may change and save multiple files every hour. The probability of my HD failing is remote.

I have had an HDs go out on me once in my life. After installing a new disk, I opened the damaged disk. The read/write head had broken off of the arm. The arm dropped down to the disk surface and removed the magnetic medium from the platter. I had all but that day's work backed up to external disk.

Replies: Switch Blayde Keet

Switch Blayde 🚫

@REP

I have had an HDs go out on me once in my life.

You don't need a disk failure to require a backup.

I had a keyboard problem with my MacBook Pro. Apple replaced it (and the battery that was attached to it - which was good because it was swollen). After they did that the power didn't work so they changed other parts. By the time they were done, my laptop was brand new other than the monitor.

Anyway, when they changed the power and other stuff that went along with it, they must have replaced the SSD hard drive. When I got it back the OS was installed and nothing else.

While I was at the Apple store, we downloaded MS Office and installed it. When I got home I had to copy all my data from my external backup hard drive. So even though I didn't have a disk failure, per se, I needed to get the data from my backup disk. (This is why my wife's external drive is so important now. Her battery was recalled but we don't want to bring it to Apple without a Time Machine backup that we know we'll be able to access.)

And since I only backed up data, I lost applications like Calibre and GIMP. Those were easy to re-download and install. But I lost a Photo Viewer I had gotten for free in the Apple store. It was no longer there so I lost that. I also forgot to back up my Calibre files (which I back up now) so I had to recreate my ebooks (no big deal).

That's what Time Machine is for. It backs everything up, even the OS. I can't use Time Machine because my external HD is very old from my old Del PC and isn't large enough to use with Time Machine.

Keet 🚫

@REP

I'm not a MAC user and have no idea what Time Machine does. Lazeez said it only backs up files that have been changed during the prior hour.

Time Machine makes incremental backups like rsync on Linux can do and most of the available backup programs for Windows can do the same. In essence you keep the first full copy and after that the program only backups the changes. The first full copy combined with the changes represents an up-to-date backup with the latest changes.
If done right (not sure if TM does it that way) this is not backing up only the files that have changed. It's on a lower level where only the changes IN a file are saved. This means that if a 100MB file has just a few bytes changed that only those few bytes are copied, not the full 100MB file. If after that again a few bytes are changed, again only those few bytes are copied. The original 100MB file combined with the saved sets of changes represent the full latest version. Needles to say that this saves a huge amount of needed storage space, especially with large files that only change a little.

LupusDei 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

Right now my wife has Time Machine scheduling a full backup every hour. That's a lot of writing to the backup drive. I'm trying to convince her that's overkill, but we'll see.

Hourly backups, I would say, that's quite close to a range where speed may emerge as a decisive advantage. Then, for an external drive, the connection may actually be the limiting factor.

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@Switch Blayde

Right now my wife has Time Machine scheduling a full backup every hour. That's a lot of writing to the backup drive.

Time Machine doesn't create a fresh new copy of everything your hard drive every hour.

Time machine backs up changed files. That's much less data. For example, right now, on my mac's hard drive there is about 700GB of data. The hourly backup from time machine is about 500 MB (I sync the servers' data to my Mac hourly). The next day, time machine keeps only the last copy of the day for 7 days and then the last of these 7 days as the monthly copy. And remember, those aren't full copies. Only the first backup is a full copy and the subsequent ones are the differences.

So, if you have a 500GB drive with 300GB of data on it, and you modify about 100 MB every hour, then your back drive need to be about 1TB to hold two years' worth of backups.

StarFleet Carl 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Right now my wife has Time Machine scheduling a full backup every hour.

Good Lord, why?

If she's a musical composer or is a graphic designer, then having the program she's USING do saves often is needed. I have all of the copies of Open Office set to automatically save every ten minutes.

Is she running a web hosting site, where people are storing and continually changing their information?

If so, then great. Otherwise, that's not just overkill, that's OVERKILL!!!! She's actually wasting system resources doing something that could be done overnight, when no one is using the computer. And realistically, maybe once a week is typically enough for back-ups.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@StarFleet Carl

that's OVERKILL!!!!

Even more so because most of her data is in the cloud (whereas all my data is on my internal hard drive).

But if you are married, you know that offering reasonalbe arguments doesn't always work. Sort of like in this Forum. :D

Replies: Torsian

Torsian 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I was unaware reasonable arguments ever worked on any internet forum.

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Torsian

I was unaware reasonable arguments ever worked on any internet forum.

Reasonable arguments are extremely rare on the Internet. However, friendly discussions are a lot more common than most people would realise. The big difference between them is how wedded the people are to any opinions that are presented as against the proven facts presented.

Grant 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Right now my wife has Time Machine scheduling a full backup every hour. That's a lot of writing to the backup drive. I'm trying to convince her that's overkill, but we'll see.

As others have pointed out, only any data that has changed in that period will be backed up.

If the backup is configured correctly, things like the internet cache & temporary files won't be backed up- only system updates (if any occurred during that period) and whatever files were being actively worked on. ie email (if locally stored), word processing, video or photo files being edited etc.

There is only one reason to buy a HDD these days- capacity. If you need more than 2TB of storage then a HDD is the way to go. If you need 2TB of storage, and can't afford a SSD, still buy the SSD. If you really can't afford the SSD then get the fastest HDD you can. Anything less than 2TB- don't consider anything other than a SSD.
A HDD that is low on free space runs like a 1 legged dog, so too an SSD (and it will hasten it's end of life). Make sure to buy a drive that will have at least 40% free space after 5 or so years of use.

As for writing killing an SSD- yes, they do have a limited number of writes before they die. And when they die, they (should) become write only- they can still be read from. But it's not unheard of them to no longer be readable. In some case not even detectable by the OS or even hardware.
But the fact is it takes a lot of writing to kill even the cheapest of SSDs. As in a stupidly massive amount, every day, day after day, for months on end. Drives are rated in the number of drive writes per day they can sustain as a fraction of their capacity. Even the most basic drives can handle 0.3 DWPD (30% of their rated capacity, every day, day after day) to their rated limit (generally in the hundreds of Terrabytes written).

A tech website did a test on several different SSDs to see just what it would take for them to fail, and how long it would take. It took 18 months for the last drive to finally die. These were generally available consumer drives, not high endurance enterprise drives. And they did this 5 years ago. Even though TLC drives are now the standard, wear levelling algorithms have progressed quite a bit over the least 5 years as have the manufacturing processes & the results today would be similar, if not even better.
Some drives were rated for 20TBW, none died till after they had gone well over 600TBW. The winner made it to 2.4PB after 18 months of abuse before it died.

https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/

Argon 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I love SSDs as primary drives in our computers, but my backups are all done on HDDs. External backup drives must be reliable. In my personal experience of the last 8 years, 4 SSDs (3 Samsungs and one Intenso) of perhaps 30 crapped out on me without so much as a single warning sound. Complete data losses, but for the backups we had on HDDs. To be honest, most of the rest were SanDisk, and so far they have held out just fine. Still, SSDs die without warning, while HDDs may warn you with funny noises towards the end of their life.
Another drawback of SSDs: no safe delete. You cannot overwrite a sector that held a sensitive file.
As against that, of the more than 150 HDDs in our use since 1992, only four crashed in use, the last ones a pair of 4 GB Seagate drives around the turn of the century. Wiping HDDs and overwriting them with multiple passes of random I/0 is easy enough, so they can can be passed down to other users without compromising security.
My current favourites for laptop backups are the Western Digital WD Elements Portable series. I don't know the dollar price, but in the German Amazon store, the 1 TB version runs at € 49 including sales tax; 17 € more gets you the 2 TB version.
I am also leery of Time Machine. You cannot manually remove selected files from the backup. I invested a few Euros in a Carbon Copy Cloner license. It does automated backup, too, but you can fiddle with the backup manually, and the settings are more adaptable. It's much faster, too, and you can monitor the progress easily. An added boon: CCC backups are bootable, i.e. you can boot from the copy and keep working.
If your wife wants her projects really safe, let her get a DropBox account and store the work files there. You cannot match their data redundancy.

Replies: Switch Blayde BlueEyedGuy

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Argon

I love SSDs as primary drives in our computers, but my backups are all done on HDDs.

That's what I've decided. Our MacBook Pros have SSD and I'll use HDD for the backup.

But I'm still trying to determine if the current drive is bad. I've had it plugged into my laptop and it's not disconnecting. I'm not writing to it, but I bring up Finder every once in a while and it can read it and it doesn't disconnect. I plugged a thumb drive into my wife's laptop and it hasn't disconnected. But she's not writing to it either.

Next I'll plug the G-Drive back into her laptop and turn off auto Time Machine updating. Maybe Time Machine with Big Sur (new OS) is doing something funny.

Thanks for the advice on which HDD to get. One problem is her MacBook Pro has USB 3.0 ports. Not USB-C like mine. So when we look at the specs, many don't have the USB 3.0 connection.

Thanks again for all the info.

Replies: Argon

Argon 🚫

@Switch Blayde

"One problem is her MacBook Pro has USB 3.0 ports. Not USB-C like mine."

Yes, but the USB-A-type external drives are the cheaper ones, and USB-A to USB-C adapters cost only pennies. You do not need USB-C for 5,400 rpm HDDs, you can max out their speed with USB-3.1. Don't use a cheapo connector cable, and you should be fine.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Argon

USB-A to USB-C adapters cost only pennies.

On mine, I go the other way. When I bought my Mac I bought an adapter. The USB-C side is plugged into my Mac and the USB-? is plugged into a 4-port USB-? hub. Plugged into that hub is my external hard drive which I had with my Del PC, a thumb drive, and the thingie for my wireless mouse. When I tested my wife's external G-Drive on my computer I plugged it into the 4th port on the hub.

Replies: Grant

Grant 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

When I tested my wife's external G-Drive on my computer I plugged it into the 4th port on the hub.

Unfortunately USB hubs are probably one of the biggest causes of issues with USB devices there are.
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/2019/9/18/warning-your-usb-hub-may-be-harming-your-drives-and-you-may-lose-valuable-studio-work-heres-how-to-fix-it

One of my mantras in life is that profit is what you don't spend. In other words it pays to be smart when spending money and only spend what you need and when you have to. However, when it comes to USB hubs I tried to do it on the cheap and it cost me dearly.
The hub was, to be frank, a cheap Amazon POS, I should have known better.

Indicators that I should have taken more notice of were;
Drives kept dropping off my Mac and then remounting.
Transfer speeds were super slow.
My Mac would hang on boot unless the hub was unplugged during startup.

As I said, I should have known better but didn't really deal with it until a Lacie 2TB drive died on me, I'm guessing the constant dropping mid spin screwed the platters. Then a second drive from a different brand failed at which point I thought I couldn't be that unlucky so I decided to investigate what could possibly be causing all these issues.

Replies: Switch Blayde Ernest Bywater

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Grant

Drives kept dropping off my Mac and then remounting.

I've never had a problem with my hub. It's a DYNEX.

My MacBook Pro only has 2 USB-C ports (there's an ethernet and power on the other side). My hub uses one of them and has 3 things plugged into it at all times. So I have 3 things and only 2 USBs. That doesn't work without the hub.

But "Drives kept dropping off my Mac and then remounting" is the problem my wife's G-Drive is having plugged directly into her MacBook Pro's USB3.0 port.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Grant

Unfortunately USB hubs are probably one of the biggest causes of issues with USB devices there are.

It's been my experience that there are three things that can cause issues with USB hubs:

1. The power needs of the devices attached to it.

If the total power drain of the attached devices exceeds that of what the USB header or cable can handle then an unpowered hub will split the amount of power over all of the attached devices. Sometimes this can be resolved by removing the other devices, other times you need to take the hub out of the link and just attach the device you wish to use.

This can easily be overcome by using a USB hub with and external power source. I've 3 USB hubs I've bought over the years and use. One has a wall plug for its own power and it supplies all of the power to the device plug into it. Without the power on it won't start up a device, that's the way it's made and thus there's no way it will every try to make a USB device work with too little power. Another relies solely on the power drawn from the computer. This works well with small power use items like the USB drives often called 'thumb drives' and peripherals like a mouse and a keyboard; but it has issues with most of the external platter hard drives due to insufficient power if other devices are plugged in. Remember, most external platter hard drive units have a higher power demand than most other USB devices. The third unit has an extra power option but will work as an unpowered hub as well; it also works as card readers and that's what I mostly use it as.

NB: The power demands of the different USB types also varies, so sometimes you can't get a USB 3 device to work off a USB 1 or USB 2 header, cable, or hub - some will work at reduced power and some won't.

2. The operation of the USB header / driver of the computer the hub is connected to.

Some USB headers will establish a full-time link until such time as the device is unplugged. Other headers will disable the link if there isn't any communication between your system and the device within certain time limits. This is very common on mobile devices as it's done to save power.

If the header is one that disables after a certain period of non-use it can cause problems with the device due to it being turned on and off at a high frequency. However, in some devices the power saving turn will register as an improper disconnect and it will need to be unplugged and then plugged back in to fully boot up again.

3. The operating parameters of the device attached to the hub.

This is a rare event, but can happen. The few times I've seen this cause issues it came down to the device having issues sharing the link with other devices on the hub and taking it off the hub for a direct cable access resolves the issue.

Of these the first 2 cause 98% of the issues anyone is likely to come across.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

This can easily be overcome by using a USB hub with and external power source.

This might solve my wife's problem. Her G-Drive does not connect to an electrical outlet. It gets its power from the computer. Someone said earlier that that is one of the reasons devices get disconnected. If it's not the G-Drive but a power issue, instead of buying a new HDD drive we can buy a hub with its own power. If it really is the drive, we can still use the new hub. All the external drives my wife researched that have her Mac specs (and small enough to carry with the laptop) don't have their own power supply.

BlueEyedGuy 🚫

@Argon

Some Samsung drives have a concept known as "lifetime writes".
Essentially, it's how many gigabytes/terabytes of "writes" a drive will allow before it becomes unwriteable.

(from https://www.ontrack.com/en-gb/blog/how-long-do-ssds-really-last)

Samsung states that their Samsung SSD 850 PRO SATA, with a capacity of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 or 1 TB, is "built to handle 150 terabytes written (TBW), which equates to a 40 GB daily read/write workload over a ten-year period." Samsung even promises that the product is "withstanding up to 600 terabytes written (TBW)." A normal office user writes approximately between 10 and 35 GB on a normal day. Even if one raises this amount up to 40 GB, it means that they could write (and only write) more than almost 5 years until they reach the 70 TBW limit.

Replies: nmlss2004

nmlss2004 🚫

@BlueEyedGuy

All SSDs have the concept, it's the way flash media works. Samsung is just better than others at making the data public.
In any case, as a general rule: any drive that is past 60 months from its production date (not in service date...) is suspect, spinning or flash alike. And I wouldn't recommend testing the limits of the TBW ratings, either.
Data abundantly available online for those with a CS or engineering bent. Backblaze has some of the most recent and complete.

Keet 🚫

@awnlee jawking

The one criticism I have heard is that if a HDD crashes, some of the data may be recoverable. But if a SSD dies, all the data is a write-off. But I'm not sure that's a significant issue for home users.

Nowadays every SSD/HDD has what is called SMART data. It keeps an extensive list of the status of your drive so you can almost predict if it's about to fail. Not 100%, there are still sudden crashes, but not very likely. If it happens it's mostly in first weeks/months of usage because there was something wrong with the drive. Besides, that's what backups are for, three if you are doing it right.
(3-2-1 backup strategy: at least 3 copies, on at least 2 different media, and at least 1 off site.)

Dominions Son 🚫

@awnlee jawking

The one criticism I have heard is that if a HDD crashes, some of the data may be recoverable.

That depends on the nature of the crash.

In an extreme case, you may be looking at having the drive shipped to a clean room so the drive can be opned and the disk platters removed so they can be installed in a different housing.

The cost of this would be beyond any home user.

LupusDei 🚫

SSD is more expensive and it's rumored that you can only write so many times on it.

It's sort of true... but the actual number is astronomical and they use software to avoid continuous single cell rewriting to further decrease this risk that might be relevant to server solutions but not so much a backup drive -- unless you backup data comparable to the drive's capacity every few minutes or some such. Even so, it should live many years, and by remarks that speed is not an perceived advantage, I guess not to be the case.

SSD is, or should be, mechanically more durable, there's no moving parts, no fragile mechanisms, just a pile of microchips. On the other hand they may be more prone to electrical and software failures. Thus, the expected time till failure is better for SSD on paper, but statistically comparable in practice.

In case of catastrophic failure possibility of total data loss is actually higher for SSD. As you experience, HDD dies relatively slowly while SDD may have none or few and relatively hard to notice signs of imminent failure (unless you're lucky and it goes into read-only mode first). Wile there's still the elusive and expensive option to dismount physical magnetic plates of a HDD to attempt scanning them on another device, dead SSD may become completely inaccessible or even lose all prior all data while may still be sound for further usage after recovery -- unlike damaged HDD that is decidedly unreliable as damage is often progressive.

SSD is smaller, lighter, uses less energy, and is dead silent, but may produce more heat.

SSD is a no-brainer for the primary system disk, but for usage purely as a data backup, I would say, it depends on use case. If you routinely move it around in daily use, it's probably still better be SSD; if it's in a permanent, relatively protected position for most of it's life, there's still few arguments against a HDD.

In either case, backup your backups. Yes, it's turtles all the way down, and never completely safe.

palamedes 🚫

SSD might cost a little more per GB but they do last longer and are more reliable over time. Your real question is how big do you need and what can you afford 2 GB or less stick with SSD but over 2 GB yes the price is extreme so go with HDD.

As to hourly back-up you never said what she does or reasons for the back-up, but I know Tax agencies, Hospital Data entry that do Hourly back-up, and Day Traders I've heard of doing 10-20 min back-ups. It all depends on how you use the system look at my parents PC 6+ years old and never backed up once as it is pretty much used as a $1200.00 deck of cards and saving my Moms score in tripeaks just isn't worth it.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@palamedes

what can you afford 2 GB or less stick

She needs 1 TB for Mac's Time Machine backups.

No, she doesn't need to back up every hour. It's overkill.

I just plugged her G-Drive into my Mac. Finder recognized it as being connected. I won't write to it, but Finder listed her backup folders so it's reading it.

The last time the G-Drive was connected to her Mac it went two days before being disconnected (no longer viewable in Finder and Time Machine backups not happening). So I'll see if it stays connected to my Mac for two-plus days. If it does, it may not be the drive (or new cable).

I also plugged a thumb drive into her USB port. Finder sees it. If it disappears, it means it's her computer. I don't think the USB port because we had the problem with her other one too. But maybe it's a software or driver problem. That's why we reinstalled the OS. The problem may have started when she upgraded the OS to Big Sur.

But I don't want to buy a new external drive only to find out it's not the drive that's the problem.

Replies: Keet palamedes

Keet 🚫

@Switch Blayde

She needs 1 TB for Mac's Time Machine backups.

Does that mean she actually has 1TB data to backup? If that is true then you need a SSD drive bigger than 1TB. SSD drives need free space to work properly. An almost full drive will slow down and the wear can no longer be spread intelligently. Some drive manufacturers have an over-provision for this, I think Samsung has an over-provisioning of 7% for some drives. For maximum use of the SSD advantages keep at least 10-15% of the drive empty, more if there is no over-provisioning.
In normal circumstances this shouldn't be a problem because if you reach that amount of data it's most likely time to buy another drive anyway.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Keet

Does that mean she actually has 1TB data to backup?

Nowhere near that. She has backups on the drive from 2016.

palamedes 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Sorry I meant TB instead of GB. My brain is fried from trying to make sense of Government paper work.

Not_a_ID 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

My wife's external hard drive on her MacBook Pro went. We replaced the cable but it still randomly disconnects from the computer. We even reinstalled the OS and the Apple Tech guy had us do something with Time Machine to disconnect the drive and connect it again. So we think the drive itself has gone bad.

Could be a bad header on the port you're using, either on the device itself or on the computer. I know my badly abused Laptop has USB ports that are very temperamental about being disturbed in any way because of some of the use and abuse they were subjected to.

As others have said, depends on the use case.

For Bulk storage/backup, HDD is cheaper all the way around.

For mobility the SSD is a better choice, as it is going to be able to shrug off a lot of things(in particular shock) that could crater a HDD's spinning platters.

For use as a system drive? SSD hands down.

Early SSD's ten years ago were pretty limited on the number of write cycles they could go through per sector. But the newer ones should be able to endure hundreds of thousands if not millions of such cycles. Even a dedicated professional user would likely take years of dedicated 24/7 use in order to wear down a SSD at this point. A more typical home computer user is likely to have moved on to another computer/Hard Drive before the SSD fails in that matter.

Replies: Grant Ernest Bywater Switch Blayde

Grant 🚫

@Not_a_ID

Early SSD's ten years ago were pretty limited on the number of write cycles they could go through per sector. But the newer ones should be able to endure hundreds of thousands if not millions of such cycles.

Actually the endurance of each successive NAND memory type the PE cycles (Programme Erase- think of them as write) is less than the previous one.

For Planar/2D NAND
SLC (Single-level Cell) 50,000-100,000 PE cycles
MLC (Multi-level cell) 3,000 (Enterprise grade 10,000) PE cycles
TLC (Triple-level Cell) 300-1,000 PE cycles

For 3D NAND
MLC (Multi-level cell) 30,000-35,000 PE Cycles
TLC (Triple-level Cell) 1,500-3,000 PE cycles
QLC (Quadruple-level Cell) 150-1,000 PE cycles

However Error correction, Overprovisioning, Wear levelling, reductions in Write Amplification and the huge increases in capacity from the increases in cell density make it possible for the technologies with lower levels of endurance to actually match earlier technologies drives DWPD and TBW capabilities.

https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/write-cycle#:~:text=The%20endurance%20of%20SSDs%20that,maximum%20of%201%2C000%20write%20cycles.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Not_a_ID

Could be a bad header on the port you're using, either on the device itself or on the computer.

While it's rare, you can sometimes get issues with older devices using USB not being as fully compatible as they should be. This can happen with the device at either end or the cable. I've one USB 1 cable that will not work properly if the item on either end is USB 2 or USB 3. I also have a USB pair of connectors on a case that connects to the USB 1 / 2 header on the motherboard which will not work with a USB 3 cable or USB 3 device. Yet thee is nothing faulty with any of the devices or cables; as long as I stay within the discovered limits all works well.

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@Not_a_ID

Could be a bad header on the port you're using, either on the device itself or on the computer.

We tried both USB 3.0 ports on my wife's laptop. We had the problem on both.

I now connected the G-Drive to my laptop. So far it is still connected. But the last time it disconnected from my wife's it was good for 2 days running.

Now I'm not reading or writing to the drive (other than Finder reading it to display the folders).

So if it stays connected on my laptop for 3 days or more I would have to guess it's something on her computer and not the drive or cable.

Oh, and I plugged a thumb drive in her laptop. Right now Finder says it's connected. We'll see if it disconnects.

Gauthier 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Always use two backup drive, either SSD or HDD preferably one of each. If you are hit with ransomware, it will attack when the backup is reachable. It can erase the SDD in 0.5 sec, it takes longer on the HDD.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Gauthier

If you are hit with ransomware, it will attack when the backup is reachable.

On my computer, I have a thumb drive plugged in and back up to it often, like every time I change a spreadsheet and very often when writing a novel. But my main backups are on an external hard drive. That drive is only turned on when I'm backing up, which isn't too frequent. So it's not accessible if my computer is attacked.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Switch Blayde

On my computer, I have a thumb drive plugged in and back up to it often, like every time I change a spreadsheet and very often when writing a novel.

Be aware that USB thumb drives are not very reliable, certainly not when used heavily. They are not designed for heavy use and can crash without notice.
There are new types of thumb drives which are essentially mini SSD drives which don't have that problem but they are of course much more expensive.
My advise would be to switch 2 thumb drives over the day and replace both when one of them fails. Or use a small, cheap real SSD drive instead.

Kidder74 🚫

Apologies if someone already mentioned this earlier.

If the drive appears to be fine on your computer and isn't disconnecting, but disconnects after a while on her computer, it's quite possible that the drive is fine (as you've seen) but her USB ports are turning off after a period of inactivity to conserve power. I've seen that before on Windows-based computers in my business. Not sure about configuring the USB ports' power settings on your Mac, as I've only got a couple Mac users and they have a different support channel for most stuff, so I don't touch them after their initial purchase.

Replies: Switch Blayde Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Kidder74

USB ports are turning off after a period of inactivity to conserve power

That's interesting. I'll research that.

When I moved her G-Drive back to her MacBook Pro and plugged it into the USB 3.0 port it has always been in, it did not connect. So I thought I'd try the USB on the other side. I found that there are two on that side, one we never used (she uses the other one on that side to charge her mouse). It worked.

So now we simply wait to see if it disconnects.

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@Kidder74

but her USB ports are turning off after a period of inactivity to conserve power

I found this on the Apple support site:

Drives, cameras, keyboards, hubs, and other devices that plug into your USB-A, USB-C, or Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port can request a limited amount of power from your Mac.

Symptoms such as these could mean that a device connected to the USB-A , USB-C , or Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port on your Mac isn't getting enough power:

…or USB devices are disabled until you unplug the device using too much power.

Solutions

Use your device as a self-powered device or connect it to a powered USB or Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) hub if possible.

Self-powered devices get power from an electrical outlet or their own battery. Bus-powered devices get power from the device they're plugged into, such as your Mac.

Her G-Drive external drive is not connected to an AC outlet. It gets its power from the computer. Maybe that's it.

Switch Blayde 🚫

As to Time Machine, there are no settings like when to schedule backups. You either have automatic backup on or off, and if it's off there are no backups taken. So what my wife is doing isn't overkill. I owe her an apology.

Goldfisherman 🚫

I have 15 computers. I have laptops and desktops. I have replaced all of the main drives with SSD's. Primarily 500GB. The whole family use them. I bought the batch of the drives (all Samsung) for $40 each. I have never had any problem with any of them. They are all running Linux. any backups I do to large USB flash Drives (256 GB or external 2 TB drives that are unpowered when not connected to the computer but have external power. There are also 2 Apple MacBook 1 laptop computers running current Linux mint 19.3 with the 500 GB SSD. These I wore out the original HDD a couple of years ago. Backups I run only about once a year. never had a failure.

Replies: DBActive

DBActive 🚫

@Goldfisherman

My 5 year old Dell laptop has a 1tb ssd drive. I started getting "no boot device" errors on startup. I wasn't concerned because I have a Crash plan backup and run a full backup to a hard drive every week.
Finally ran chkdsk on the drive and have been error free for about 6 months.

Replies: palamedes

palamedes 🚫

@DBActive

You where not the only one that had similar problems. If you check the Microsoft Community Windows 10 had an update that just made the drive unreadable. Microsoft has fixed the error or so they say.

Switch Blayde 🚫

Well, I bought a hub with it's own power supply and the G-Drive is connected to that. It hasn't disconnected once.

However, my wife panicked and moved all her data to the iCloud so there's no data for Time Machine to back up now.

Replies: palamedes Grant Ernest Bywater

palamedes 🚫

@Switch Blayde

You should talk your wife into letting it still back up to the G-Drive as it never hurt to have more then one back-up.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@palamedes

You should talk your wife into letting it still back up to the G-Drive

She can't.

I called Apple Tech Support and asked if Time Machine could access the iCloud like a device. It can't.

Replies: palamedes palamedes

palamedes 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Time Machine can handle the local back-up and then just set what ever program you choose to then handle the back-up to the iCloud.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@palamedes

and then just set what ever program you choose to then handle the back-up to the iCloud.

I don't think the iCloud works that way. You can't back up to it from your hard drive. Or use your hard drive to back up the data in the iCloud. You read and write from it from your applications. But you can't get at it like a drive.

At least that's my understanding.

I believe what it was created for was to access your data from multiple devices. My wife always had her photos in iCloud. She's a glass artist and she can show people her art on her iPad or iPhone.

So all Time Machine is backing up on her computer, I believe, is changes to the OS and application software. She has no applicaton data on her Mac.

palamedes 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Time Machine can handle the local back-up and then just set what ever program you choose to then handle the back-up to the iCloud.

Grant 🚫

@Switch Blayde

However, my wife panicked and moved all her data to the iCloud

I personally will never rely on someone else to keep my data for me.
Yeah, i'll use them as part of my backup strategy, but given the number of net connected products that no longer work due companies going broke, changing hands, or just changing their terms of service and removing support for older products there is no way i would give my data to someone else.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Switch Blayde

However, my wife panicked and moved all her data to the iCloud so there's no data for Time Machine to back up now.

She needs to use both. I know a lot of people who had all of their data out in the cloud and they lost it in well there was trouble with the cloud servers. On the flip side, when the gestapo walked off with all of my computing gear they destroyed all of my data because they were to stupid and too lazy to check it out and the courts went in their favour. The only data I was able to recover was what little had been out in the cloud and with my editors. - I now use local USB back up, local hard drive back up, and dropbox.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

She needs to use both.

From what I got from talking to Apple, she can't. It's one or the other.

She can't have it on her Mac's SSD and back it up to the iCloud. They said iCloud is not for backups. And she can't back up from her iCloud to her SSD. There's no mechanism to do that. It's not like an external drive (in Finder you can't drag files from iCloud to your hard drive).

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Switch Blayde

From what I got from talking to Apple, she can't. It's one or the other.

And thus we learn Apple have degraded the capabilities of the basic software it works on. This has to be something with the way Apple have set their software up to make them that way.

Depending on the software you choose, you can have your data backed up to multiple devices in multiple ways. Or you can do it manually.

A local has two pieces of data management software running on both their tablet and their PC. One synchronizes their tablet data to their PC and it also synchronizes changes to their PC data to their cloud account while the other synchronizes their PC data to their external hard drive which also runs a daily and a weekly back up.

Replies: bk69

bk69 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Apple have degraded the capabilities

...and this is a surprise to who, exactly?

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@bk69

Apple have degraded the capabilities

...and this is a surprise to who, exactly?

98% of Apple product buyers.

Replies: bk69

bk69 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

I would've also accepted "nobody with a brain" but that works.

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@bk69

I would've also accepted "nobody with a brain" but that works.

same data set, just expressed differently and your's is slightly bigger.

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

For anyone interested, ever since we connected her external drive to a hub with its own power supply (rather than connecting it directly to the Mac and using its power supply) it has never dropped the connection.

So whoever brought that up, thanks. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the drive.

One caveat though. Her data is now in the Cloud so there's not much being backed up.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Switch Blayde

One caveat though. Her data is now in the Cloud so there's not much being backed up.

Remember, "the Cloud" is synonym to "Someone else's computer" which can be gone tomorrow. Make sure you have local backups because the cloud is very convenient but not very safe.

Replies: Ernest Bywater Switch Blayde

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Keet

Remember, "the Cloud" is synonym to "Someone else's computer" which can be gone tomorrow. Make sure you have local backups because the cloud is very convenient but not very safe.

As has happened with 2 major cloud storage companies in the past where they went off-line at short notice and millions of people lost all of their their data.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Keet

Make sure you have local backups because the cloud is very convenient but not very safe.

I haven't figured out how to back up onto her hard drive (either on the Mac or her external one) from the Cloud. And her data is only on the Cloud.

So if she creates a file in Numbers and saves it, it's in the Cloud. She can access it, like to read or change it, but she can't copy it to her hard drive, like with Finder.

Replies: rustyken Keet

rustyken 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I had a similar problem sometime back with cloud storage. To copy the cloud back to my HD, I had to create a new folder then copy the files from the cloud to the new folder. On my HD a folder named "LocDoc" was created, then the files were copied to it.

Hope this helps..

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@rustyken

To copy the cloud back to my HD, I had to create a new folder then copy the files from the cloud to the new folder

How did you copy from the Cloud to your HD? On a Mac, there's a utility called Finder (like Explorer in Windows). But Finder copies from one device to another. The Cloud is not a device.

Replies: Dominions Son Ernest Bywater rustyken

Dominions Son 🚫

@Switch Blayde

How did you copy from the Cloud to your HD? On a Mac, there's a utility called Finder (like Explorer in Windows). But Finder copies from one device to another. The Cloud is not a device.

Windows explorer can copy from one directory to another within a single drive, it's copy function is NOT strictly device to device.

That sounds like a good reason to get away from whatever cloud storage solution she is currently using.

In any case it's a bit more work, but what about opening the files in the appropriate program and doing a save as to local storage?

Replies: Switch Blayde Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Dominions Son

Windows explorer can copy from one directory to another within a single drive, it's copy function is NOT strictly device to device.

Yes, Finder can do that do. I was keeping the example simple for backing up to another drive.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Dominions Son

In any case it's a bit more work, but what about opening the files in the appropriate program and doing a save as to local storage?

That was suggested in a private message. She could save the file into the cloud and then do a "save as" onto her HD. That's actually good because then Time Machine will automatically back it up to the external HD.

She'd have 3 copies. One in the cloud. One on her Mac's HD. One on her external HD. And the external HD will have many versions of the file.

I already asked her if she'd do that. She asked, "What if I forget?" My answer was that she'd be no worse off than she is now, but when she remembers she'll have backup copies.

Replies: Grant

Grant 🚫

@Switch Blayde

She could save the file into the cloud and then do a "save as" onto her HD. That's actually good because then Time Machine will automatically back it up to the external HD.
....

I already asked her if she'd do that. She asked, "What if I forget?" My answer was that she'd be no worse off than she is now, but when she remembers she'll have backup copies.

An auto macro every x minutes or similar?

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Switch Blayde

How did you copy from the Cloud to your HD?

For most cloud services you simple log into the cloud service select the file or folder you want, and select the download option to download copies to your system.

For most systems to copy to both your hard drive and the cloud the cloud service has an app available to synchronise with your back-up drive on either a regular basis or each time you save a file. Not sure how you do it on a Mac but I know I can do that on my Linux system with my Dropbox account if I want to set it up that way.

rustyken 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Well for me my current iCloud path is:
Macintosh HD/Users/UserID/iCloud Drive

Also that in System Preferences/Apple ID/Apps using iCloud that the iCloud Drive is unchecked. I can still copy files to the iCloud drive if I want to.

Since it has been some time since all this occurred, the details are a bit fuzzy. You might want to do a internet search on "how do I move my files from iCloud to local hard drive" or something similar.

Cheers

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@rustyken

do a internet search on "how do I move my files from iCloud to local hard drive"

Found this:

Copy files from iCloud Drive to your Mac

1. Click iCloud Drive in the sidebar of any Finder window.

2. Press and hold the Option key and drag the file to a new location.

Keet 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I haven't figured out how to back up onto her hard drive (either on the Mac or her external one) from the Cloud. And her data is only on the Cloud.

My personal solution is simple: Don't use the cloud, never, not for any reason. The conveniences I 'loose' are solved by using my own server to sync with multiple devices but I gladly accept the extra work and costs to keep control over my own data. Where it is, where it goes, when and what I backup, and who has access to it.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Keet

Don't use the cloud, never, not for any reason.

She's always used the cloud for photos. She's a glass artist and with the photos in the cloud she can show someone her work anywhere on any device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) wherever she is.

If the cloud goes away? Unfortunately, her portfolio would end up being her prints.

I don't know why data can't be copied from the cloud to a HD.

Replies: Keet Grant

Keet 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I don't know why data can't be copied from the cloud to a HD.

I don't know anything about the Apple cloud but you better find a way to have local digital copies. The risk is just to high to loose all that. I can't imagine there's no way to do that. Maybe what rustyken suggested works.

Grant 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I don't know why data can't be copied from the cloud to a HD.

It has to be possible- the whole point of backing up to the cloud is that you can restore from the cloud if necessary.

It's possible that data that has been backed up to the cloud can only be restored from the cloud, not copied per file from the cloud.

But if files are being saved individually there, they can/should be able to be copied individually.
That's how Windows OneDrive behaves- it's treated the same as just another drive on your system. You can copy/cut/paste files between OneDrive and any local or network drives you have permission to do so on.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@Grant

It has to be possible- the whole point of backing up to the cloud is that you can restore from the cloud if necessary.

There are two different type of cloud storage providers.

There are cloud backup services, but there are also cloud storage providers who aren't providing backup services, they want to be your primary storage.

It's the later type that SB's wife is using. She's not backing up to the cloud, the cloud is her primary storage. Still, it ought to be possible to create a local backup.

They need to talk to Apple's cloud support. If Apple is doing something to deliberately block copying files back to local storage, they need to get away from that. If not, Apple's support should be able to point them to a solution.

Freyrs_stories 🚫

The standard business motto for backups in at least 3 copies in 2 different locations on 2 different media.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

The standard business motto for backups in at least 3 copies in 2 different locations on 2 different media.

321: 3 copies, on at least 2 different media, keep at least 1 off-site.

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SSD vs HDD

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