Hybrid Vs SSD

[sal]

That just sounds similar to JIT compilers - code is slow the first time it is run but is then cached as a compiled version.I think your information on SSDs is rather behind the times. Not using your SSD in case you wear it out is like leaving the lights turned on in your house 24/7 to avoid blowing the bulb when you turn them on. They're designed to be used this way and unless you use the same disk for a decade it's not likely to be an issue.

If you think algorithms can only work based on prayer, I worry what kind of IT contractor you can be. This is not rocket science, they don't even need to be complicated algorithms.

When you consider data-centres rely 100% on algorithms and software to run efficiently, saying a disk can't optimise itself sensibly is crazy.

My information of the SSDs is quite current, don't worry. There is a reason why the software bundled with most SSDs advises you to turn off indexing service and about 10% of the raw SSD is reserved for swapping out failed segments. So form the typical 256GB SSD you get only 220ish GB. Segments of the SSD fail all the time, it's just that the user is oblivious to the fact as the data is re-allocated to the spare portion.

Yes modern SSDs come with 3 or 5 years of warranty, but that doesn't make them immortal - frequent writes will destroy your SSD fast, and you might loose data, yes the manufacturer will be happy to replace it, but you will still have to go through the trouble of restoring data / rebuilding your OS

And the problem with the algorithms is that they can't (for the most part) predict future. And in most cases they don't re-arrange data on the fly but at a pre-determined schedule or when the system is idle. They analyze the data since the last optimization and act based on what already happened, not what files you are going to use in the future.

So when you start working with files that are on the HDD, they might not be moved to the SSD by the time you are finished with them. The SSD portion of the Hybrid is not a substitute for cache or RAM.

[d000hg]

The fact they build in failure space is fine though - they are built to last a useful lifetime. In 10 years I won't be using that disk anyway. They've carefully worked out what margin of safety to build in.

And surely SSDs don't lose data, they lose the ability to write data?

[sal]

And surely SSDs don't lose data, they lose the ability to write data?

The individual memory blocks in the SSD degrade with each write. The SSD controller/Firmware is trying to distribute the wear and tear evenly but some blocks are just less durable than others, so they are flagged as "bad" and a new block is allocated from the hidden spare portion of the SSD in their place. Usually the firmware is capable of predicting the failure in advance and mark the "bad" blocks before they actually fail, but that's not always the case.

I'm sure that most of us have had a dead USB stick at one point in time.