Any SSHD experiences

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Anyone ever try one these? Observations?

http://www.seagate.com/solutions/solid-state-hybrid/

[Shooshie]

No, but I read about them a few months ago, and it seemed like you had to be wary of what you get. Basically, it's like a hard drive with a huge buffer. When the contents are few, you get the operation of that buffer, and it feels fast like a SSD. Then, as the content fills up, it transfers storage (data you have used the least) to the hard drive part, so when you want to retrieve it, you still have to wait on it.

Then, when the whole thing is full, it has little room for moving things around in the background, and you're stuck with a disk that's part SSD and part spinner, and it can't really keep moving things around to keep the more accessed files in the SSD part. At that point it's an unpredictably slow drive.

THAT was the assessment I read in one of the places like Ars Tecnica, or some other. I read a few articles, in fact, and they all seemed to be in agreement, but it seems like there was something that made them attractive. Maybe it's simply if you keep the content at a fraction of the capacity, it can still be useful.

I think a better solution might be to get a Solid State Drive and a big spinner for backup, and chain them together in a mirror RAID. No... that would be slow, because the SSD would always be waiting on the platters to write. Maybe the best is just the plain-old SSD with HD backup.

OF course, I'm talking about things I know little-to-nothing about. But you asked!

Shooshie

[bayswater]

A friend put one in a MBP some time ago, not wanting to pay the high price (at the time) of an SSD. It gives a noticeable improvement in general speed, and has lasted at least 3 years, maybe longer, and its performance does not appear to have degraded, which was a concern at the time.

He's glad he got it, but with the price drop for SSDs, I wouldn't think it's still worth it.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thanks guys. One thing I liked was the 3.5" drive could go into a dock. Since the nMP has one internal SSD, all storage has to be external. There are some very nice options if you want to spend a couple of grand. I have other priorities at the moment so I'm still looking but a TB or USB3 external SSD option would be nice. I just thought the SSHD could drop into the existing docks.

I like this...



http://www.tapeandmedia.com/G-SPEED-12T ... bolt-2.asp

[Shooshie]

That looks like a good deal, with 12 TB for $2200, but I just looked at my current drive situation, and I've got 25TB online right now. (there's something wrong with this picture. NO way I should need that much space) The same company has a 24TB box for $3000, just $800 more.

http://www.tapeandmedia.com/G-SPEED-25T ... bolt-2.asp

Then again, if you're buying it to put SSDs in there, then you're paying for drives you won't be using, unless they sell the case alone.

It seems pricy. But again, I don't know much about those things.

Shooshie

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I wish they sold just the case. They don't according to my local dealer.

[HCMarkus]

I don't see the SSHD as being particularly useful, at least for me. 8 gigs of SSD is a paltry amount. A Fusion Drive setup (melding an SSD and HD via Mac OS) seems like a better solution for DAW users, as a much larger SSD can be married with the hard drive. You can roll your own Fusion Drive with any SSD and HD.

That said, a Fusion Drive is fine for general purpose computing (I have been fine with Fusion in my laptop) but my studio machine is SSD for everything except backup, where the HD's lower cost per megabyte pays off.

PS: I just re-read my post and cringed at the "paltry" remark. Historically speaking, that's a lot of storage.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I don't even consider new drives under 2TB now and 3-4TB or more is more like it. The average project folder rarely comes in under 10GB and a feature can easily run 60-80GB if one retains all versions of a film and the various cues, etc.

[mikehalloran]

I don't know anyone who uses or recommends SSHD for external storage. It doesn't make sense.

If you need speed, there's RAID 5. It allows one drive parity -- if one drive goes down your data is still intact. RAID 0 is fastest but if you lose a disk, you lose everything. Other types of RAID have advantages and disadvantages.

With 1T SSDs hovering around the $300 mark, it bugs me that you can't just buy empty TB drive enclosures to put them in. I was looking for one for my wife's iMac last December.

[Gravity Jim]

I've seen Thunderbolt enclosures for SSDs that handle, 1, 2, 4, or 8 drives... Akiti, LaCie, others, at NewEgg and OWC. Am I missing something? Will they not accept 1TB drives?

I just bought a 1TB SSD (a Crucial) and it was hovering, alright... $370. Cheapest reliable brand I found.

[BKK-OZ]

If you need speed, there's RAID 5. It allows one drive parity -- if one drive goes down your data is still intact. RAID 0 is fastest but if you lose a disk, you lose everything. Other types of RAID have advantages and disadvantages.

I am happy with my Pegasus R4, configured as RAID 5.
Lost a drive a few weeks ago, it all kept humming along until I was able to slot in a new drive. Very snappy.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Promise% ... P2R4HD8US/

[mikehalloran]

I've seen Thunderbolt enclosures for SSDs that handle, 1, 2, 4, or 8 drives... Akiti, LaCie, others, at NewEgg and OWC. Am I missing something? Will they not accept 1TB drives?

If it will not accept 2.5" drives without an adapter, then really, no.

I did say that I was looking in December. Back then there was nothing. I do see a few now. OWC has this 4-bay one:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB4MJB0GB/

Amazon has this 2-bay
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Exte ... +enclosure

Docks are ok if just needing one or two only:
http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Dual-Ba ... +enclosure


If you Google for them you'll see a bunch -- until you drill down, that is.

I just bought a 1TB SSD (a Crucial) and it was hovering, alright... $370. Cheapest reliable brand I found.

OWC had the Crucial M500 960G for $303 two weeks ago. You do have to be ready to buy and fast on the trigger – and click through their link when you see that. The Samsung 940 EVO can be found on eBay at that price, too. It's not that hard to figure out who the good sellers are.

[HCMarkus]

The 840 EVO drives are still reportedly exhibiting the stale data slowdown, even after the firmware "fix" Samsung distributed a while back. This could be a real issue if these drives are used for storing static data, like VI sample sets, but Samsung is reportedly working on a permanent fix.

You can always erase and re-write the data to refresh it.

[mikehalloran]

The 840 EVO drives are still reportedly exhibiting the stale data slowdown, even after the firmware "fix" Samsung distributed a while back. This could be a real issue if these drives are used for storing static data, like VI sample sets, but Samsung is reportedly working on a permanent fix.

I hadn't read that.

Any news if it affects the 845 EVO or 850 EVO? (My 845 is performing beautifully)

You can always erase and re-write the data to refresh it.

[James Steele]

The 840 EVO drives are still reportedly exhibiting the stale data slowdown, even after the firmware "fix" Samsung distributed a while back. This could be a real issue if these drives are used for storing static data, like VI sample sets, but Samsung is reportedly working on a permanent fix.

You can always erase and re-write the data to refresh it.

Bummer. I did that fix on my 840 EVO. Hope they finally get this right.