Oh how times have changed. The last time I wrote a big storage post like this, HDD prices were so low I was buying Samsung Spinpoints to use as paperweights. All it took was a little rain in Thailand and suddenly you could trade a 2TB HDD for ownership of an actual human being. Things have settled down significantly since then, but the rise in mechanical drive prices, coupled with a steep decline in the price of SSDs, has really altered the buying equation.
Hard Disk Drives: Expensive, but Still Necessary.
There's just no getting around the fact that, even on sale, most HDDs are at least $20 more expensive than they were before the floods in Thailand. They aren't as excessively expensive as they were immediately following the flooding in Thailand, but you will spend more to buy one today than you would have a year or so ago. Still, you'll want one, even if you only need it to hold your documents and media files so that your SSD doesn't have to. The factors you're looking at haven't changed much:
1. Spindle Speed: The RPM rating of a mechanical hard drive is the speed at which the spindle, and thus the platters (the magnetized disks holding data) inside the drive spin. The higher the RPM, the faster the drive. For a system drive you want at least a 7200 RPM drive, I'd probably also prefer 7200 RPM for the secondary drive to go with an SSD, just to ensure fairly quick response for documents and other data stored on the drive. Storage drives (and drives for a NAS/Server) can be of the slower 5400 RPM "Green" variety.
2. Capacity: 500GB drives are, in $/GB terms, a worse value than 1 and 2 TB drives. If you can find a good deal on a 1TB drive, that's probably the best drive deal available for a primary/secondary system disk. Still, 7200 RPM 2TB drives are more common and affordable now, and depending on sales and pricing can be better $/GB deals than 1TB drives. You shouldn't bother buying a storage disk in a capacity lower than 2TB.
3. Cache: I'd say that 16MB of cache is good for a 500GB drive, 32MB is good for 1TB, 64 is good for 2TB.
4. SATA III: Most newer drives indicate full SATA 6Gb/s compatibility, which is meaningless because they'll never manage to saturate 3Gb/s, much less 6, but it doesn't impact performance and there's virtually never a price premium associated with it. Basically, just don't buy a Hard Drive that runs on IDE or SATA 1.5Gb/s.
I still like the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB for a great value primary/secondary system drive. It's speedy, relatively inexpensive (and goes on sale frequently) and, in my experience, reliable. The newer ones are built by Seagate, but the drives are apparently unchanged (I own a pair of the new ones in addition to my older ones, and the controller PCB appears identical), the main difference appears to be where the drive components are sourced from. Per usual, Seagate's Barracuda drives and Western Digital's Black series of drives are both excellent options as well.
For storage drives you have a few options. Samsung's Spinpoint 2TB Green drives have had some pretty serious firmware issues in the past, but these appear to have been solved. Their performance isn't world-beating, by any means, but they are generally one of the cheaper available 2TB drives and they appear to go on sale frequently.. Western Digital's Green drives are solid enough, but they do lack TLER (for RAID usage) and the fairly frequent head parking can be an irritant. If you can find Seagate's 2TB 5900 RPM drive or Hitachi's 2 TB 5400 RPM drive at a reasonable price, those are both good buys. Western Digital has recently released a new Red series of drives, specifically tailored for use with NAS appliances. The stats in general for these drives look very good, so they'll probably be good storage options regardless of whether or not you use them "as intended."
Solid State Drives - Everyone Should Have an SSD. Seriously.
You can buy a quality 128GB drive for like $90.00. Yeah, let that wash over you. Less than a year ago I paid almost $300.00 for a 120GB SATA 3Gb/s SSD, and now I can kick that drive's ass for less than a third of that price. Admittedly, it's still not the best $/GB ratio around, but for the sheer performance of these drives, it's easily worth it. Larger capacities can be even better deals, 256GB drives have been known to go on sale for as little as $150.00! At those prices, you can't afford not to buy one, especially given the big performance jump over mechanical drives, lower power usage, smaller form-factor, and lack of any appreciable heat, noise, and vibration.
When choosing an SSD, buyers will want to look at price, along with 3 main factors that do the most to determine performance: NAND type, controller, and firmware. Generally speaking, there are 3 main types of NAND flash in use these days, Sychronous, Asynchronous, and Toggle. Each has some different performance characteristics, with Synchronous and Toggle NAND generally considered the highest performing overall, though Asynchronous NAND based SSDs can be significantly cheaper. I've noted the major current controllers (and firmware, where appropriate) below:
Sandforce - Ah, Sandforce. Performance, low prices, what more could you ask for? Frankly, stability. Sandforce became fairly notorious early in this SSD generation for the frequent, seemingly inexplicable BSODs that occured on drives using their SF-2281 controller. It took weeks for them to discover the cause of the error, and even longer for the firmware fix to make the rounds, and even now Sandforce drives are, relatively speaking, probably the least stable drives available. Intel's 330 and 520 series SSDs have custom-made firmware that makes them the most reliable of this generation of Sandforce drives. OCZ and Kingston have both developed more aggressively performance oriented Sandforce drives, with firmware to match. Generally speaking, the most recent firmware packages for these drives make them solid enough for "home" use (I own two Corsair-built Sandforce drives and virtually never have any issues when using the newest firmware) and they are often excellent values from a price/performance perspective. Whether or not you pick one of these drives over one based on another controller depends largely on your planned usage of the drive and whether or not the performance of the drive is worth the loss in stability.
Marvell - This generation of Marvell-based drives are considered very reliable, with competitive but not top-of-the-heap performance and excellent value. Many companies make Marvell-based drives, including Crucial's nearly ubiquitous M4, which is an excellent confluence of price, performance and stability (also available in a 7mm version). In addition to Crucial, Plextor has an excellent warranty policy and makes multiple excellent, performance focused Marvell-based SSDs and Corsair makes the Performance Pro, another performance oriented drive based on the Marvell controller. A new, higher performance generation of Marvell controller is about to be released into the wild, starting with the Plextor M5 Pro.
Samsung - Samsung has their own controller for their own SSD, the Samsung 830. Performance is excellent, and the drive is rock solid, just like its SATA 3Gb/s predecessor. The drives are also 7mm tall, perfect for those who have "picky" laptops that only support that form factor. In my experience, these drives are generally more expensive than comparable Sandforce and Marvel SSDs, but not excessively so, and I have seen them on sale.
OCZ/Indilinx Everest - The Everest controller is OCZ's first entry into using their own controllers (previously they had an agreement with Sandforce) and it's a pretty impressive "rookie" effort. Technically speaking the actual silicon is made by Marvell (possibly derived from the next-gen controller in the Plextor M5 Pro) along with custom firmware from OCZ. By some measures, these Everest based drives (right now just the OCZ Vertex 4) are the fastest around, and firmware revisions have kept them quick and reliable. They aren't generally cheap, though.
If I had a gun to my head and had to pick just one product line to recommend, I'd say you're always safe with a Crucial M4. As I mentioned above, they're some of the least expensive drives around, they frequently go on sale, they're available in multiple form factors, they perform well, and they're stable. Not to sound too hyperbolic, but there's definitely a part of me that believes the 128GB and 256GB M4 SSDs are the best buys in storage today.
Showing posts with label hard drives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hard drives. Show all posts
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Saturday, August 13, 2011
HDDs and SSDs: The Story of Storage
08-18-2012: A lot of this information is still useful in a general
capacity, but much of it is somewhat outdated. You can find a more
recent version of the post here.
Disclaimer: Flooding in Thailand has, until recently, been driving prices on mechanical Hard Drives stratospherically high. Recent price-checking seems to indicate a downward trajectory, which is nice, but it might still be advisable to postpone a purchase in this are until HDDs reach their pre-flood price levels.
Storage is (or at least was) profoundly un-sexy. For years, mechanical Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) had been the only reasonable consumer option for this kind of storage, and HDDs are old-school tech. That's not to say they haven't been improved over the many, many years they've been around, but at a certain point you just start taking them for granted. However, the relatively recent advent of Solid State Drives (SSDs) using NAND Flash has rather changed that dynamic. SSDs are faster, lighter, smaller, consume less power and are less fragile than mechanical HDDs. Apparently, the only thing they don't do is cook you breakfast, and that's because they already hired someone for that. You're welcome. Unfortunately for the average user, SSDs (and the technology they're based on) are still maturing, and prices are high. They just aren't feasible for many budgets at this point, especially with the current glut of fantastic 1TB HDDs. The following is intended to give you a rundown of some of the recent history of HDDs and SSDs, as well as some of the drives to look for.
Hard Disk Drives
Unless your PC building budget is roughly the same size as the GDP of Latvia, you're going to need at least 1 mechanical HDD, even if you're running an SSD alongside it. Solid State Drives simply haven't yet reached the capacity levels necessary for them to replace a good mechanical hard drive for mass storage. HDDs with eight times the storage capacity of a nice SSD can go for 1/4th the price. Hard drives are good for more than just mass storage, though. Admittedly, no HDD will beat an SSD in speed, but a solid HDD system drive will be more than fast enough for the vast majority of users.
So what should you be looking for in a system drive?
1. Spindle Speed: The RPM rating of a mechanical hard drive is the speed at which the spindle, and thus the platters (the magnetized disks holding data) inside the drive spin. The higher the RPM, the faster the drive. For a system drive you want at least a 7200 RPM drive.
2. Capacity: I'd say at least 500GB. 1TB is often the sweet spot, price-wise. Good 2TB 7200RPM drives do exist, but they're expensive.
3. Cache and Platter size: Most relatively recent 500GB and 1TB HDDs are single platter drives, which is good for performance. I'd say that 16MB of cache is good for a 500GB drive, 32MB is good for 1TB.
4. SATA II: I'm not sure HDDs using legacy interfaces like IDE and SATA I are still available, but if so avoid them. You also don't need SATA III compatibility, as no mechanical HDD can saturate the 3Gb/s link provided by SATA II, much less double that. You don't need to avoid SATA III HDDs, but often the SATA II models are less expensive and perform just as well.
My current favorite system drive HDD is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB. Other good options include the Western Digital Black 1TB drives, the Seagate 7200.12 1TB drives, and the Hitachi 7200 RPM Desktar 1TB drives.
When looking for a storage drive, things are simpler. Spindle speed can be lower (5400-5900 RPM) and higher capacity drive sizes (2TB) are more affordable. I'd look at the Hitachi 5K3000 2TB and the Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB.
Solid State Drives
SSDs are a whole other world. Rather than spinning disks, SSDs utilize solid state memory (most commonly NAND Flash, like the stuff in a USB memory stick, though NOR Flash or DRAM SSDs also exist largely in enterprise environments). Most NAND Flash drives consume significantly less power than mechanical hard drives, and without the need to accommodate platters and head mechanisms, they can be produced in significantly smaller form factors. SSDs are significantly lighter than desktop hard drives, and are entirely silent. Solid State Drives have no moving parts, and are thus significantly less fragile than hard drives. They can sustain shocks and movement while in operation without damage, and (for obvious reasons) do not sustain mechanical wear and tear. Manufacturing defects and poor materials can still result in premature drive death, but a lack of moving parts essentially eliminates mechanical failure. Read/Write speeds are significantly faster than mechanical drives, and random access/seek times and latency are extremely low by comparison to mechanical drives.
There are definite downsides to SSDs as well, though. Unlike mechanical drives, there is often a significant delta between read and write speeds for solid state storage. NAND Flash is also rated for a limited number of write/erase cycles (3,000 for the 20nm NAND used in current-gen SSDs). The Flash may continue to function beyond its rating, but it's only guaranteed to function reliably up to that point. Failure, in whole or in part, could occur on the 3001st cycle, or the 8000th. Current NAND Flash SSDs also experience issues with degradation in write performance over time. TRIM or good garbage collection can do a lot to alleviate these issues, but all overwrites (for instance, saving a new version of a document under the same name as the original, thus overwriting the original) will occur at lower than the rated write speed. These problems result from a disparity in the way NAND Flash writes and erases data.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument against SSDs, though, is the sheer expense associated with owning one, and the exceedingly poor ratio between the cost and capacity. It's expensive to own even a relatively small SSD. One large enough to store your OS and a few critical programs will cost you over $100, and you'll likely need a good 7200 RPM HDD for the rest of your programs anyway. Larger capacities are significantly more expensive.
Nevertheless, if you can afford an SSD, I'd say it's worth it, especially with this new generation of SATA III capable SSDs. If you're looking for a new SSD, there are quite a few options. The price/performance champions are Sandforce (SF-2200) based drives from any number of manufacturers (Intel, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, and more). These can come in asychronous NAND (OCZ Agility, for example) or synchronous NAND (OCZ Vertex 3, for example) flavors. Synchronous options have performance advantages.
Disclaimer: Flooding in Thailand has, until recently, been driving prices on mechanical Hard Drives stratospherically high. Recent price-checking seems to indicate a downward trajectory, which is nice, but it might still be advisable to postpone a purchase in this are until HDDs reach their pre-flood price levels.
Storage is (or at least was) profoundly un-sexy. For years, mechanical Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) had been the only reasonable consumer option for this kind of storage, and HDDs are old-school tech. That's not to say they haven't been improved over the many, many years they've been around, but at a certain point you just start taking them for granted. However, the relatively recent advent of Solid State Drives (SSDs) using NAND Flash has rather changed that dynamic. SSDs are faster, lighter, smaller, consume less power and are less fragile than mechanical HDDs. Apparently, the only thing they don't do is cook you breakfast, and that's because they already hired someone for that. You're welcome. Unfortunately for the average user, SSDs (and the technology they're based on) are still maturing, and prices are high. They just aren't feasible for many budgets at this point, especially with the current glut of fantastic 1TB HDDs. The following is intended to give you a rundown of some of the recent history of HDDs and SSDs, as well as some of the drives to look for.
Hard Disk Drives
Unless your PC building budget is roughly the same size as the GDP of Latvia, you're going to need at least 1 mechanical HDD, even if you're running an SSD alongside it. Solid State Drives simply haven't yet reached the capacity levels necessary for them to replace a good mechanical hard drive for mass storage. HDDs with eight times the storage capacity of a nice SSD can go for 1/4th the price. Hard drives are good for more than just mass storage, though. Admittedly, no HDD will beat an SSD in speed, but a solid HDD system drive will be more than fast enough for the vast majority of users.
So what should you be looking for in a system drive?
1. Spindle Speed: The RPM rating of a mechanical hard drive is the speed at which the spindle, and thus the platters (the magnetized disks holding data) inside the drive spin. The higher the RPM, the faster the drive. For a system drive you want at least a 7200 RPM drive.
2. Capacity: I'd say at least 500GB. 1TB is often the sweet spot, price-wise. Good 2TB 7200RPM drives do exist, but they're expensive.
3. Cache and Platter size: Most relatively recent 500GB and 1TB HDDs are single platter drives, which is good for performance. I'd say that 16MB of cache is good for a 500GB drive, 32MB is good for 1TB.
4. SATA II: I'm not sure HDDs using legacy interfaces like IDE and SATA I are still available, but if so avoid them. You also don't need SATA III compatibility, as no mechanical HDD can saturate the 3Gb/s link provided by SATA II, much less double that. You don't need to avoid SATA III HDDs, but often the SATA II models are less expensive and perform just as well.
My current favorite system drive HDD is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB. Other good options include the Western Digital Black 1TB drives, the Seagate 7200.12 1TB drives, and the Hitachi 7200 RPM Desktar 1TB drives.
When looking for a storage drive, things are simpler. Spindle speed can be lower (5400-5900 RPM) and higher capacity drive sizes (2TB) are more affordable. I'd look at the Hitachi 5K3000 2TB and the Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB.
Solid State Drives
SSDs are a whole other world. Rather than spinning disks, SSDs utilize solid state memory (most commonly NAND Flash, like the stuff in a USB memory stick, though NOR Flash or DRAM SSDs also exist largely in enterprise environments). Most NAND Flash drives consume significantly less power than mechanical hard drives, and without the need to accommodate platters and head mechanisms, they can be produced in significantly smaller form factors. SSDs are significantly lighter than desktop hard drives, and are entirely silent. Solid State Drives have no moving parts, and are thus significantly less fragile than hard drives. They can sustain shocks and movement while in operation without damage, and (for obvious reasons) do not sustain mechanical wear and tear. Manufacturing defects and poor materials can still result in premature drive death, but a lack of moving parts essentially eliminates mechanical failure. Read/Write speeds are significantly faster than mechanical drives, and random access/seek times and latency are extremely low by comparison to mechanical drives.
There are definite downsides to SSDs as well, though. Unlike mechanical drives, there is often a significant delta between read and write speeds for solid state storage. NAND Flash is also rated for a limited number of write/erase cycles (3,000 for the 20nm NAND used in current-gen SSDs). The Flash may continue to function beyond its rating, but it's only guaranteed to function reliably up to that point. Failure, in whole or in part, could occur on the 3001st cycle, or the 8000th. Current NAND Flash SSDs also experience issues with degradation in write performance over time. TRIM or good garbage collection can do a lot to alleviate these issues, but all overwrites (for instance, saving a new version of a document under the same name as the original, thus overwriting the original) will occur at lower than the rated write speed. These problems result from a disparity in the way NAND Flash writes and erases data.
Perhaps the most persuasive argument against SSDs, though, is the sheer expense associated with owning one, and the exceedingly poor ratio between the cost and capacity. It's expensive to own even a relatively small SSD. One large enough to store your OS and a few critical programs will cost you over $100, and you'll likely need a good 7200 RPM HDD for the rest of your programs anyway. Larger capacities are significantly more expensive.
Nevertheless, if you can afford an SSD, I'd say it's worth it, especially with this new generation of SATA III capable SSDs. If you're looking for a new SSD, there are quite a few options. The price/performance champions are Sandforce (SF-2200) based drives from any number of manufacturers (Intel, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, and more). These can come in asychronous NAND (OCZ Agility, for example) or synchronous NAND (OCZ Vertex 3, for example) flavors. Synchronous options have performance advantages.
Unfortunately, SF-2200 based drives have reliability issues. The most significant BSOD bug was recently addressed with a firmware fix, but most drives still have some stability issues. The exception to this are Intel's recent 520 series drives (codenamed "Cherryville") which are basically built from the ground up (from NAND selection and physical construction all the way through heavily tested custom firmware) to be eminently reliable as well as fast. From all appearances, Intel has succeeded.
Non-Sandforce options are numerous, and many are quite strong as well. Marvell controllers are used in many good drives, like Intel's 510 series and Crucial's M4. Samsung uses their own controller for the excellent Samsung 830. OCZ uses their own Everest controller in the solid Octane drives.
If I were to be forced to recommend one series of drives for a user who wanted the best compromise between price, reliability and speed, I would go with the Crucial M4. It has good firmware support from Crucial, has proven to be quite reliable, and is plenty zippy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)