SSD Thread: (its good, ignore the anime)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > SSD Thread: (its good, ignore the anime)

isndl: May 2, 2012; I WON A CONTEST IN TG AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CUSTOM TITLE

As far as I know, most drives have a 1 year power-off data retention according to manufacturer spec, and this number is likely on the conservative side given how accurate the maximum writes specs have held up in testing. Still a poor choice for offline backups, but saying you're hosed if you go six months without turning it on is a bit hyperbolic.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 11:10

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 09:52

Ugly In The Morning: Jul 1, 2010; Pillbug

Atomizer posted:

Assuming the latter means "2 TB 2.5" SSD" (because this is clearly not the boot drive and you might very well be interested in a 2 TB FireCuda for $60 just for games) how about an 860 QVO for $160?

Whoops, yep, meant 2.5 inch. Thanks for the suggestions everybody, probably gonna go with that NVMe mentioned upthread and this SATA one. Gonna have 5TB in my desktop and I have a pair of 1TB NVMe drives in enclosures as well. I have to stop buying computer parts when I�m bored working night shifts.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 15:54

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

BobHoward posted:

It's probably MLC, and could easily have worse retention. The era before 3D NAND saw planar MLC pushed to its practical limits. By the end of planar, the charge traps were so small they could hold only a handful of electrons, and insulation around them was quite thin. Leaky charge storage cells with little capacity isn't a great recipe for retention.

But an OCZ drive is from back in the 40 or 35nm days, when transistors were huge and electrons were weak. Heck, if it's an original OCZ, like the 20 GB first generation ones, it's probably 50nm! The drives of that era were hilariously under-specced and had way better potential number of writes and probably other things like data retention than they claimed.

Later on the sub-20nm stuff was much worse as you say, but ironically the specs for write cycles and everything else didn't go down all that much. They were just much closer to reality.

quote:

Not sure what you mean wrt usb drives, they use basically the same nand as anything else, it's just low grade. Whatever is cheapest per byte. So, these days, QLC. It's definitely not better at retention (see: low grade, QLC).

Ugh I had the impression that usb sticks and cards were still using floating gates not charge traps, but I guess that can't be right.

BobHoward posted:

The SSD itself has checksums from 7 years ago. Every block of user data on it is protected by ECC codes which let the SSD fix those 1- or 2-bit (or more) errors. If its firmware is any good it will report any failures to correct data in SMART attribute 187 (uncorrectable error count).

Just booting the OS isn't doing that though. You'd have to either leave the drive running to wait for it to find those on it's own, or force reads across all data. Then check the error count.

BobHoward posted:

All that said, I'm in full agreement with not using SSDs as offline backup.
Power-on still has fade, but the drives have background scrubber threads which find fading blocks and rewrite them before they degrade too far and become an uncorrectable error.

I think that the major problem with using an SSD that way is even if you plug the drive in every week to do your backups, it's not got enough powered time to do the scrubber. Old data will get more and more stale, unless the backup process is a dumb overwrite everything method.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 17:50

Geemer: Nov 4, 2010

Klyith posted:

Just booting the OS isn't doing that though. You'd have to either leave the drive running to wait for it to find those on it's own, or force reads across all data. Then check the error count.

So there's finally actually a use for chkdsk /r?
I can't believe we actually found one after floppy drives went out of vogue.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 18:21

redeyes: Sep 14, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Booting a SSD writes a million files so.. yeah its a decent test. Im not saying that you should archive stuff to SSDs. Im saying they don't seem to die as fast as common internet wisdom would have you think.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 19:16

WhyteRyce: Dec 30, 2001

It's not common internet wisdom it's the specs for the drive

# ? Feb 8, 2020 20:01

isndl: May 2, 2012; I WON A CONTEST IN TG AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CUSTOM TITLE

WhyteRyce posted:

It's not common internet wisdom it's the specs for the drive

I would like to see the spec sheets with six months data retention. I am honestly curious.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 20:27

Ika: Dec 30, 2004; Pure insanity

Geemer posted:

So there's finally actually a use for chkdsk /r?
I can't believe we actually found one after floppy drives went out of vogue.

I run that every 3 months on my offsite backup drives. Is there something wrong with that?

# ? Feb 8, 2020 20:47

WhyteRyce: Dec 30, 2001

isndl posted:

I would like to see the spec sheets with six months data retention. I am honestly curious.

A lot of it depends on the temperature you are storing it in (although for most consumers I doubt you're leaving a powered off drive in the attic on in your car in the summer). And if I remember correctly if the drive was already at it's max drive writes/EOL has something to do with it as well. And it's not like you're guaranteed to have all the data gone, the manufacturer just ain't guaranteeing poo poo if you go passed that.

# ? Feb 8, 2020 21:55

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

WhyteRyce posted:

And it's not like you're guaranteed to have all the data gone, the manufacturer just ain't guaranteeing poo poo if you go passed that.

Right but those specs are written conservatively and are generally at least 1 year, assuming the correct temperature conditions.

I think this is a thing much like the QLC performance discussion a few pages ago. In practice, most people don't use their PC in ways that experience the negatives of a QLC drive. In practice most people don't use expensive SSDs for backup drives, and if they did would be unlikely to have data loss. But in both cases, people should know the downsides exist and manage things accordingly.

Ika posted:

I run that every 3 months on my offsite backup drives. Is there something wrong with that?

Nothing wrong with it, but on cold storage HDDs it's not worth the time it takes to run. HDDs rarely develop bad sectors in operation. ("For hard drives, only 3.5 percent of them develop bad sectors in a 32-month period" source. Or just 1.1% of operational drives at backblaze.) Platters can have some bad sectors from production defects without affecting long-term reliability, but those mostly get caught and re-mapped in the factory and not logged in smart.

So in general developing bad sectors is bad news. That means you should scan even more, right? Well, writing data also tests the sector that the data goes into just as much. So if you do a backup and you don't have a sudden jump in reallocated sectors, running a chkdsk is pretty superfluous. Instead, I would rotate backup drives on vs offsite, and monitor the smart stats backblaze considers meaningful to remove potentially unreliable drives from your pool.

(On a SSD chkdsk /r is entirely pointless.)

# ? Feb 9, 2020 00:06

Ika: Dec 30, 2004; Pure insanity

Klyith posted:

Nothing wrong with it, but on cold storage HDDs it's not worth the time it takes to run. HDDs rarely develop bad sectors in operation. ("For hard drives, only 3.5 percent of them develop bad sectors in a 32-month period" source. Or just 1.1% of operational drives at backblaze.) Platters can have some bad sectors from production defects without affecting long-term reliability, but those mostly get caught and re-mapped in the factory and not logged in smart.

So in general developing bad sectors is bad news. That means you should scan even more, right? Well, writing data also tests the sector that the data goes into just as much. So if you do a backup and you don't have a sudden jump in reallocated sectors, running a chkdsk is pretty superfluous. Instead, I would rotate backup drives on vs offsite, and monitor the smart stats backblaze considers meaningful to remove potentially unreliable drives from your pool.

The drives are only updated via rsync, without verification of existing data contents (Except every 6 months or so via checksum verification). So in this case it does make sense.

I've got a stack of internal drives that have developed bad sectors, although many only after 5+ years or possibly a power outage (Home use, without massive data hoarding).

# ? Feb 9, 2020 13:02

sauer kraut: Oct 2, 2004

Behold the WD Black P50 Game Drive, the first external SSD on USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps, Type C plug only)

quote:

One of these tests involves copying a steam folder with a total of 395 GB capacity. And to the big surprise, the transfer failed after a few seconds with an error message indicating problems with the drive.
..
This behavior was not only observed on the system with MSI Creator TRX40, but also on a second thread ripper computer with Asus Zenith II Extreme and other Windows 10 installation.
..
All of these tests were performed while the drive was still operating with the default setting "Safe Operation" selected by Windows. Ie the write cache was not activated.
The "Better performance" mode with write cache is faster. And lo and behold: If the SSD was put into this mode, the error message no longer occurred. But problems remained.
Windows did not allow a switch back to "Safe Operation" after switching to "Better Performance". The drive would not offer this mode.
..
The fastest drives in the editorial team's test recently completed the 395 GB write test in under 10 minutes. The WD Black P50 takes over 50 minutes. The reason is that, according to Windows Explorer, the drive repeatedly writes the data with up to 1 GB before taking a break - the transfer rate drops to 0 bytes /s.

German https://www.computerbase.de/2020-02/wd-black-p50-game-drive-test/

# ? Feb 19, 2020 12:19

oohhboy: Jun 8, 2013; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

So buy Samsung?

What a joke of a product.

# ? Feb 19, 2020 21:07

DrDork: Dec 29, 2003; commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

At least it isn't choking itself to death due to RGB lighting bling.

Actually, this might be worse--you could at least kill the lights and stop the overheating.

# ? Feb 19, 2020 21:44

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

WD Product development is all "You know what PC gamers like is to copy their steam directory onto an external SSD for some reason?!!? Don't ask any engineers, just slap it together!"

# ? Feb 19, 2020 22:00

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

quote:

If the WD Black P50 is operated via USB 3.1 Gen 2 (USB 3.2 Gen 2), there is no error message.
It is not the file, however, because USB 3.1 works, not only with the WD Black P50, but also with two other drives.

I'm gonna say that review is completely inconclusive because there is an obvious possibility that the problems are with the USB controller. But the only USB 3.2 2x2 interface currently available is this one ASmedia chip, which is why they're using a threadripper system. So they've got no ability to determine what's at fault. (It would not shock me at all if the Asmedia chip is the problem.)

This much shorter review didn't see any problems like that, but they just used an X570 and normal USB 3.2.

oohhboy posted:

So buy Samsung?

What a joke of a product.

Don't buy stupid gamer-branded crap in general? WD pretty much came out and said that their strategy to deal with weak SSD prices is to fleece "price insensitive" gamers. (scroll down in that article, most of it is about cool advancements in spinny HD tech.)

And if you really need crazy-fast external storage right now, get a thunderbolt pcie card and thunderbolt drives, because Intel is way better at this stuff than asmedia.

# ? Feb 19, 2020 22:06

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Prices suck again

# ? Feb 19, 2020 22:55

oohhboy: Jun 8, 2013; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

"Don't buy gamer label stuff" is of course a given. Exceptions to the rule exists in ergonomics and functionality you won't find otherwise.

The article doesn't test it either, it makes an extrapolation which they make a determination on. It is very misleading. If you don't have the numbers, you don't have the numbers. Blame the controller all you want but those are the numbers until further tests can be done.

# ? Feb 19, 2020 22:59

Atomizer: Jun 24, 2007

Samsung 860 QVO 2 TB refurb back on sale at BB for $160.

# ? Feb 20, 2020 10:39

Ugly In The Morning: Jul 1, 2010; Pillbug

Atomizer posted:

Samsung 860 QVO 2 TB refurb back on sale at BB for $160.

Sold out already. :smith:

# ? Feb 20, 2020 20:54

Atomizer: Jun 24, 2007

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Sold out already.

Yeah, I saw that just now, sorry. :shrug:

I did buy one before it sold out though. Just do what I did, leave that page open in a tab and check it once a day, it seems like they're replenishing the stock of that occasionally.

# ? Feb 21, 2020 04:04

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

This auction just happened to have 3 minutes left and I watched it end, was it as good a deal as I think or is there a caveat besides SAS? I don't have $1k to drop at a moments notice anyway, just curious about Seagate Nytro stuff

https://www.ebay.com/itm/15TB-Seagate-Nytro-3131-SSD-SAS-2-5-Retail-NEW/143529652145?hash=item216b08afb1%3Ag%3AUC0AAOSwGnpeQewH&LH_Auction=1

# ? Feb 21, 2020 06:09

Malcolm XML: Aug 8, 2009; I always knew it would end like ｔｈｉｓ．

taqueso posted:

This auction just happened to have 3 minutes left and I watched it end, was it as good a deal as I think or is there a caveat besides SAS? I don't have $1k to drop at a moments notice anyway, just curious about Seagate Nytro stuff

https://www.ebay.com/itm/15TB-Seagate-Nytro-3131-SSD-SAS-2-5-Retail-NEW/143529652145?hash=item216b08afb1%3Ag%3AUC0AAOSwGnpeQewH&LH_Auction=1

Enterprise grade stuff, no consumer warranty

# ? Feb 22, 2020 00:51

Binary Badger: Oct 11, 2005; Trolling Link for a decade

Quick question, if I use Macrium Reflect to clone a working Windows 10 install on an old clunker Dell with a T9500 CPU (OEM license, 7200 RPM spinner) to a bog standard SATA SSD (SanDisk Ultra Plus) and then place the SSD into the Dell, will it ask for another Windows 10 license?

Edit: It's not the Dell OEM license because Dell doesn't support this machine for Windows 10. They support it up to Windows 7 64-bit, but for some reason the OEM license wouldn't get recognized for the Windows 10 update.

# ? Feb 24, 2020 17:34

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Binary Badger posted:

Quick question, if I use Macrium Reflect to clone a working Windows 10 install on an old clunker Dell with a T9500 CPU (OEM license, 7200 RPM spinner) to a bog standard SATA SSD (SanDisk Ultra Plus) and then place the SSD into the Dell, will it ask for another Windows 10 license?

Almost certainly no, Win10 looks at the CPU and mobo for the hardware and HDs can be changed at will.

# ? Feb 24, 2020 17:38

Binary Badger: Oct 11, 2005; Trolling Link for a decade

One more question, do I need to clone over all the partitions including the one with the supposed diagnostics or can I get away with just cloning the main partition?

# ? Feb 24, 2020 17:44

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Binary Badger posted:

One more question, do I need to clone over all the partitions including the one with the supposed diagnostics or can I get away with just cloning the main partition?

Efi & recovery partitions created by windows need to be copied. These will be less than 1 GB and tend to be at the front of the drive.

Recovery partitions made by Dell (or whoever made the PC), which have an image of the original OS plus all the crapware, do not. These will be several GB and tend to be at the back of the drive.

# ? Feb 24, 2020 18:12

Palladium: May 8, 2012; Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

DrDork posted:

At least it isn't choking itself to death due to RGB lighting bling.

Actually, this might be worse--you could at least kill the lights and stop the overheating.

I just saw a no-name reviewer bashing RGBs on everything but yet he has no problem defending Samsung Pro SSDs which are hideously overpriced for 99.9% of users because "TLC sux".

# ? Feb 25, 2020 03:42

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

If the driver generates an event log entry you can hook something onto that

# ? Feb 25, 2020 15:56

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Sorry everyone, I need someone to talk to me like I'm a small child.

I recently bought a WD M.2. SSD to add to my system. My motherboard is an Asus Maximus Ranger VIII and I already have 2 SATA SSD drives in the Sata 1 and 2 slots. The manual says to me that if I put the M.2 drive into SATA mode then it will use the first 2 SATA slots. It is silent on what happens if its in PCIE mode. It is also silent on where these settings are.

Anyone know what my path forwards to turning the thing on is?

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:32

Fantastic Foreskin: Jan 6, 2013; A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Alchenar posted:

Sorry everyone, I need someone to talk to me like I'm a small child.

I recently bought a WD M.2. SSD to add to my system. My motherboard is an Asus Maximus Ranger VIII and I already have 2 SATA SSD drives in the Sata 1 and 2 slots. The manual says to me that if I put the M.2 drive into SATA mode then it will use the first 2 SATA slots. It is silent on what happens if its in PCIE mode. It is also silent on where these settings are.

Anyone know what my path forwards to turning the thing on is?

E: misread, is it an NVMe or SATA M.2 drive? If it's NVMe see below, if it's SATA just change which ports your existing drives are plugged into.

If it's in PCIe mode it won't gently caress with your SATA slots since it's not using them, and it should autoconfigure since it's an NVMe (which is PCIe) not a SATA drive.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:36

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

ItBreathes posted:

E: misread, is it an NVMe or SATA M.2 drive? If it's NVMe see below, if it's SATA just change which ports your existing drives are plugged into.

If it's in PCIe mode it won't gently caress with your SATA slots since it's not using them, and it should autoconfigure since it's an NVMe (which is PCIe) not a SATA drive.

It's NVMe (this one), but I'm not seeing it in windows or in any bios option.

e: it is entirely possible I am an idiot who didn't physically slot the card in properly.

Alchenar fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Mar 5, 2020

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:44

Fantastic Foreskin: Jan 6, 2013; A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

They're tricky little buggers. So worth it to ditch the two cables but why they've got the world's tiniest screw and only a half a screwhole I'll never know.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:48

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

This is a little optional upgrade that's the groundwork for a potential entirely new system later in the year so I'm not fussed at all if I can't get it to work.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:49

Fantastic Foreskin: Jan 6, 2013; A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

I mean if it's not showing up at all a. check that the M.2 slot you have it in supports NVMe, some of them don't, and b. if you're sure it's in right and in the right slot and it's still not showing return it.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:55

Dogen: May 5, 2002; Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride

On my board I really had to secure the dang thing with a screw or it would have been ejected. Quite unlike ram or a pcie expansion card.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 21:57

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

ItBreathes posted:

I mean if it's not showing up at all a. check that the M.2 slot you have it in supports NVMe, some of them don't, and b. if you're sure it's in right and in the right slot and it's still not showing return it.

Ah, from the Asus page:

"1 x M.2 Socket 3, , with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)*1"

Probably not actually NVMe. And the BIOS only supports AHCI mode. Little unsure what 'PCIE mode' is supposed to be here but I'm content not to waste hours of my life on this.

e: I'm also content not to swapping out the sata controllers on my other hard drives to clear space for the M.2 sata interface given there's a great big graphics card that was hell to get into place blocking the way. It's an instalment on future PC.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 22:02

DrDork: Dec 29, 2003; commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

Alchenar posted:

Ah, from the Asus page:

"1 x M.2 Socket 3, , with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)*1"

Probably not actually NVMe. And the BIOS only supports AHCI mode. Little unsure what 'PCIE mode' is supposed to be here but I'm content not to waste hours of my life on this.

e: I'm also content not to swapping out the sata controllers on my other hard drives to clear space for the M.2 sata interface given there's a great big graphics card that was hell to get into place blocking the way. It's an instalment on future PC.

M-key slots are for NVMe drives, so it should support it. They also typically can fall back to SATA if you plug a M+B keyed SATA drive in, but since that's not what you bought, you should ignore that.

I would see if your motherboard has any available BIOS updates out: NVMe support on older boards has always been iffy, but it should work for yours. Try the other M.2 slot if you haven't already. AHCI is a SATA-only thing, so if it's being detected right that shouldn't even be an option.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 22:10

Fantastic Foreskin: Jan 6, 2013; A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Alchenar posted:

Ah, from the Asus page:

"1 x M.2 Socket 3, , with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)*1"

Probably not actually NVMe. And the BIOS only supports AHCI mode. Little unsure what 'PCIE mode' is supposed to be here but I'm content not to waste hours of my life on this.

e: I'm also content not to swapping out the sata controllers on my other hard drives to clear space for the M.2 sata interface given there's a great big graphics card that was hell to get into place blocking the way. It's an instalment on future PC.

NVMe is a spec for attaching storage over PCIe, NVMe and PCIe are the same thing for this purpose. The slot supports both NVMe and SATA drives, but it'll switch over depending on what kind of drive is put into it, an NVMe drive doesn't have the hardware to connect via SATA and vice versa.

Ultimately what I'm saying is don't get stuck with a DoA drive outside of your return window here.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 22:16

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 09:52

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Wait have I missed something important: https://documents.westerndigital.co...ck-nvme-ssd.pdf

Does the M.2 drive have to be the boot drive? The installation instructions imply it should be.

# ? Mar 5, 2020 22:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > SSD Thread: (its good, ignore the anime)

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