Buying an external SSD (packaged vs enclosure + internal drive)?

agentmilo

I'd like to get an external SSD for general storage- wont be booting up very often. Maybe once a month or so. To be used with multiple devices.

I was looking into getting a Samsung T7 / Crucial X6 or similar, but then came across a forum thread that suggested getting an NVME with a USB C enclosure- for flexibility and better performance gains in general.

Which route is the better one? I don't have a budget per se, 1-1.5TB should be enough and I've noticed there are truckloads of different types of drives and too many options.

Then there's DRAM vs DRAM less drives- is the difference significant enough?

buzz88

HDDs have a longer offline shelf life span than SSDs do because of something called bitrot. Basically, you can expect an offline SSD to keep your data intact only for 1-3 months if it is not plugged in regularly. They are of course more reliable if they are plugged in a PC 24x7. So if you are expecting a lot of downtimes between two usage periods, get an external HDD.

If you are sure that you are going plug in regularly, either options will work for normal usecase. With an enclosure, you have flexibility to swap out drives. Normally the external SSDs are a bit pricer compared to internal ones, as they include that inbuilt enclosure in the price. DRAM is needed for speedier better performance in gaming and other such workloads. DRAM less will be budget friendly. Pick your requirement.

solo_wing

buzz88 said:
HDDs have a longer offline shelf life span than SSDs do because of something called bitrot. Basically, you can expect an offline SSD to keep your data intact only for 1-3 months if it is not plugged in regularly. They are of course more reliable if they are plugged in a PC 24x7. So if you are expecting a lot of downtimes between two usage periods, get an external HDD.

Wait a min.! if I have data stored on external ssd and i dont plugin for few months ...I could loose that data? thats what you are saying.
If true...this is bit shocking...I dont often plugin my ssd though once or twice in 2-3 months is normal but sometimes i dont need too for quite some time.

I might start transferring my data from ssd to maybe hdd/

agentmilo

buzz88 said:
HDDs have a longer offline shelf life span than SSDs do because of something called bitrot. Basically, you can expect an offline SSD to keep your data intact only for 1-3 months if it is not plugged in regularly. They are of course more reliable if they are plugged in a PC 24x7. So if you are expecting a lot of downtimes between two usage periods, get an external HDD.

If you are sure that you are going plug in regularly, either options will work for normal usecase. With an enclosure, you have flexibility to swap out drives. Normally the external SSDs are a bit pricer compared to internal ones, as they include that inbuilt enclosure in the price. DRAM is needed for speedier better performance in gaming and other such workloads. DRAM less will be budget friendly. Pick your requirement.

Thank you for your input. The 1-3 months bit is more along the line of a year apparently . Like a battery getting discharged from lack of use. Just what I've read, not from experience.

I did consider an HDD, but I wanted to get something I can keep in my bag all the time- meaning bumps and drops. SSD / NVME also makes it easy to be used with my non PC devices. So my choices are between those two.

My requirement is storing movies and just general personal backup.

buzz88

solo_wing said:
Wait a min.! if I have data stored on external ssd and i dont plugin for few months ...I could loose that data? thats what you are saying.
If true...this is bit shocking...I dont often plugin my ssd though once or twice in 2-3 months is normal but sometimes i dont need too for quite some time.

I might start transferring my data from ssd to maybe hdd/

Yes, check this out - https://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/jonathan/bitten-by-ssd-bit-rot/

agentmilo said:
Thank you for your input. The 1-3 months bit is more along the line of a year apparently . Like a battery getting discharged from lack of use. Just what I've read, not from experience.

I did consider an HDD, but I wanted to get something I can keep in my bag all the time- meaning bumps and drops. SSD / NVME also makes it easy to be used with my non PC devices. So my choices are between those two.

My requirement is storing movies and just general personal backup.

Apparently, older SSDs were a bit less prone to this. Newer, higher capacity SSDs could be more prone. And yeah, that 1-3 month period could be years in a real life experience. But do you want to take that chance with your data? Of course, with movies and such, replaceable data, it is fine. But for documents or family pics, this might not be safe as we want it to be.

agentmilo

You make a good point, and that article has me convinced- but in the authors case he had left the drives for 7-8 years without usage, which ties in with the science of the rot. Wondering if this could be as expected for 3-6 month periods? I have definitely gone 7-8 months without touching my drives.

buzz88

agentmilo said:
You make a good point, and that article has me convinced- but in the authors case he had left the drives for 7-8 years without usage, which ties in with the science of the rot. Wondering if this could be as expected for 3-6 month periods? I have definitely gone 7-8 months without touching my drives.

SSD tech changes rapidly. Older drives were based on SLC and were quite robust. As they kept increasing the capacity of drives, they used newer tech and thus capacity increased but overall age and data TBW became less in value or reliability. This is why people prefer TLC over QLC in current gen SSDs. Also, bit rot is not something that you can calculate with precision, it might happen in months or in years. But from a data hoarder's perspective, the lower limit is all that counts.