7200rpm HD vs a 5400rpm Hybrid Drive

[lilelvis2000]

Upgrading the laptop to a 1TB unit as I'm managed to fill the present one up. (with VMs and databases before you get any dirty thoughts!)

I'm deciding between a HGST 7200rpm unit at £45, vs a Seagate SSHD at £65 which is a Hybrid drive with I think about 8GB of NAND flash in it.

I can see a Hybrid working for "normal" everyday usage - if all you do is use browsers and Office. Whereas I run many database and VMs depending on which client I'm working for this week. I've seen some stats on where a hybrid beats a standard HD..no idea what usage patterns they used to achieve those values however.


Anyone here used a hybrid HD and what was your experiences?

Thanks.

[Platypus]

I'd just comment that the Hitachi is likely to be much more reliable then the Seagate.

[Ticktock]

1TB SSDs are under £300 nowadays. Come on, you're a contractor!

[lilelvis2000]

1TB SSDs are under £300 nowadays. Come on, you're a contractor!

Its a nice idea, but I try and keep a tight lid on spending these days as work comes and goes for months at a time.

[Platypus]

1TB SSDs are under £300 nowadays. Come on, you're a contractor!

I was going to mention that too. I recently bought one myself and I'm very pleased with it.

Given that an SSD should outlive and will outperform an HDD, I think the cost can be justified as "future proofing".

[lilelvis2000]

Are SSDs that reliable now? I'd always thought that they could only handle so many read/write cycles before the memory stopped working. I should read more into this because having lightening speed will make part of my day go faster...everything slows to 2Mbps when I have to do anything over t'internet.

[Contreras]

I upgraded a laptop from 7200 Hitachi 320GB HDD --> Seagate 1TB SSHD. At the same time I migrated from WinXP to Linux. It was noticeably much faster. How much that had to do with the OS change is hard to say.

The Seagate is a ST1000LM014, 1TB disk, 8GB flash, 64MB cache. £70 from Dabs ~12months ago and it's still in service. Laptop is on pretty much 24/7. I have recently enabled disk spin-down during idle so it remains to be seen if that impacts on lifetime but apparently laptop drives are engineered to cope with the increased cycling.

All the brands have had their moments and scare stories. Generally I have gone for Seagate, the Hitachi was an 'acquired' drive.

[Platypus]

Are SSDs that reliable now? I'd always thought that they could only handle so many read/write cycles before the memory stopped working. I should read more into this because having lightening speed will make part of my day go faster...everything slows to 2Mbps when I have to do anything over t'internet.

Interesting:
SSD vs. HDD: Performance and Reliability - EnterpriseStorageForum.com

TL;DR ?

SSDs are clearly faster in performance... We find that SSD reliability is improving and is commensurate with, or moving slightly ahead of, HDDs...
The final score between NAND/DRAM SSDs and HDDs? ... Reliability is about the same. Performance is clearly faster, and should rule the final decision between SSD and HDD.

My comment:
Just among friends and family (where I get roped in to "fix my laptop") I see lots of HDD failures.

My advice: Buy a Samsung 1TB SSD

[sal]

Interesting:
SSD vs. HDD: Performance and Reliability - EnterpriseStorageForum.com

TL;DR ?

SSDs are clearly faster in performance... We find that SSD reliability is improving and is commensurate with, or moving slightly ahead of, HDDs...
The final score between NAND/DRAM SSDs and HDDs? ... Reliability is about the same. Performance is clearly faster, and should rule the final decision between SSD and HDD.

My comment:
Just among friends and family (where I get roped in to "fix my laptop") I see lots of HDD failures.

My advice: Buy a Samsung 1TB SSD

+1

Hybrids are half measure, if you find the price tag on the 1TB SSD too high go for 250/500MB and stick the old HDD in an external USB case or internal bay that replaces the optical drive if you have one, as most people are not using them these days both can be bought for like £10

Higher end Samsung SSDs are available with 5-10 years warranty, most HDDs are nowadays sold with 1-3 years.

The SSDs are designed so to keep a percentage of the raw capacity as spare, for when the active individual cells start failing they are isolated and some of the spares are brought in and the process is handled automatically by the SSD controller. When and if you reach a point where the SSD is so worn out that it starts failing you can sacrifice some of the available capacity for that buffer and keep using the SSD with reduced capacity in most cases. When HDD fails it's game over in most cases.

[lilelvis2000]

Another little twist is that the laptop max drive thickness is only 7mm. That kinda narrows the field. I think the only 1TB drives in that size are 5400rpm drives.

I think I read that Samsung storage division is actually owned by Seagate.

A friend told me that SSD are more susceptible to shock than a HDD. They "break" pretty easily if dropped.