Lifespan Competition Between Solid State Drives And Mechanical Hard Drives: Who Is More Durable? You'll Understand After Reading It

Recently, a friend is planning to upgrade an old computer, and is torn between whether to choose a faster solid-state drive or a larger-capacity and cheaper mechanical hard drive. He raised a rather practical question: "Everyone says solid-state is fast, but will it break down after a short period of use? Can mechanical hard drives really be passed down from family to family?" In fact, this question is very representative. Many people are confused by various opinions when purchasing hard drives. Today, we combine the mainstream PMR mechanical hard drives, SMR mechanical hard drives, TLC solid state drives, and MLC solid state drives on the market, and carefully break apart their true service life bit by bit, and then fully crush them bit by bit. We explain them clearly. After reading this, you will know how to choose.

Traditional PMR (CMR) mechanical hard drive: power-on time is the key

Let’s talk about the most “robust” mechanical hard drives in everyone’s mind. What we are talking about here are those models that use perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), that is, traditional magnetic recording (CMR). This type of hard drive leaves gaps between the tracks. When writing data, the magnetic head does not need to toss back and forth, and the interference is small. The performance is relatively stable after long-term use. Its life span depends on the power-on time. The design life of most household-grade CMR hard drives on the market is basically around 30,000 hours. Calculated based on eight hours of use a day, ten years of use is not a big problem. If you choose enterprise-class hard drives, such as Western Digital Ultrastar or Seagate Galaxy Exos series, and specially designed monitoring disks, the materials and firmware are more sophisticated, so the service life will be longer. Of course, the price is also there. For ordinary home users, 30,000 hours of use is completely enough. Many people have replaced their computers for two generations, and the hard drive is still rotating steadily.

SMR shingled mechanical hard drive: reading and writing habits determine lifespan

SMR tiled disk is a type that has been quite controversial in recent years. It is essentially an extension of PMR technology. In order to pack more data into the same size disk, the tracks are stacked like tiles. The benefits of this are increased capacity and reduced cost. However, its replacement The price is that the writing performance will decrease, especially when there is a large amount of data in the disk, and if you want to write new content, the magnetic head must repeatedly transport the data of adjacent tracks, and the operation time will be significantly longer. This characteristic will also have an impact on its life. In addition to the power-on time, the writing load has become a key factor. If an SMR disk is used as a system disk and undergoes frequent reading and writing activities every day, it will start to suffer from lag or bad sectors in about 3 years. However, if you just use it as a warehouse disk to store movies, photos and backup files, and the writing frequency is low, then its service life can be close to that of a CMR disk. Therefore, before purchasing a shingled plate, be sure to understand what kind of work it will do. Never let a "warehouse manager" do the job of a "courier".

SSD: The total amount of writes determines the “shelf life”

The working method of a solid-state drive is completely different from that of a mechanical hard drive. It has no mechanical structure, so there is no such thing as "power-on time". Its lifespan is determined by the number of times the flash memory particles are erased and written. Manufacturers generally use TBW (total number of bytes written) as the nominal name. For example, there is a solid state with a nominal 150TBW, which means that when tested at the factory, it is guaranteed to be able to withstand the amount of data written to 150TB. Although it doesn't sound like a lot, it's actually extremely durable. If you write up to 10GB per day, it is almost the same as downloading two high-definition movies every day. The write volume per year is about 3.7TB, and 150TBW is enough for 40 years of use. This is still under ideal conditions, and daily use is far from achieving such a high write volume. Of course, this premise is that there is no virtual standard phenomenon in the solid state, and the original positive film particles of TLC or MLC are used. Nowadays, most of the mainstream consumer-grade solid states use TLC particles. Their erase and write life ranges from hundreds to thousands of times, which varies. After conversion, it is enough to cover the normal use cycle.

Data Backup: A Habit More Important than Which Hard Drive to Choose

After talking about a lot of lifespan data, there is actually one point that is more important. No matter whether it is a mechanical hard drive or not, even a solid-state drive, no one can guarantee that it will never malfunction. I have seen mechanical hard drives that are still running after 70,000 hours of use, and I have also seen solid-state drives lose their disks within a few days of purchase. If the mechanical hard drive is broken, the operation will If you are quite good, you can also find a professional organization to open the disk and restore the data. However, the price is not cheap. Once the main control or particles in the solid-state drive have problems, the data is basically impossible to recover. So it can be said that instead of focusing on the theoretical life span of those few years, it is better to implement the backup of important data into practice. Don’t just store key files at work, photos and videos at home on one hard drive. Either buy a mobile hard drive and make regular copies, or use a network disk to make cloud backups. It’s not too much to store two or even three copies of important things.

All in all, the current hard drive technology is extremely mature. No matter which one you choose, it can basically withstand normal use for five or six years. If you choose a CMR mechanical disk, you are looking for large capacity and the possibility of data recovery; if you choose an SMR mechanical disk, you must accept its position as a warehouse disk; if you choose a solid-state hard drive, you will enjoy speed and quietness, but you need to develop the habit of backing up. Only by clearly identifying your own usage scenarios and not being dragged along by a single parameter can you purchase a disk that truly suits you.