Solid State storage workarounds

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Vil_Riker

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Jun 22, 2022
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Last December I got 512gb micro SSD card for $50, and the idea was to keep a collection of these cards in a small container. Now this card is full so I looked to buy another one.

How naive I was... the same card is now $155.


o_O not good

So is it time to go back to external storage with a 2tb hard drive? I thought hard drives were in the past but Toshiba external storage is cheaper for 4x capacity. I still have a drive from 2008 that works well so the reliability is likely still there.
 
Quattro Pete said:
What is micro SSD?

Is it something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/SSK-Portable-External-Transmission-Smartphone/dp/B0BGKXX9TK
Click to expand...
I'm sure he means MicroSD.
Vil_Riker said:
Last December I got 512gb micro SSD card for $50, and the idea was to keep a collection of these cards in a small container. Now this card is full so I looked to buy another one.

How naive I was... the same card is now $155.


o_O not good

So is it time to go back to external storage with a 2tb hard drive? I thought hard drives were in the past but Toshiba external storage is cheaper for 4x capacity. I still have a drive from 2008 that works well so the reliability is likely still there.
Click to expand...

Personally, I'm a Sandisk fan for SD cards. Lexar and PNY are also good, I just prefer Sandisk.

I'm not seeing a 512GB as high as your seeing. However, as @SC Maintenance said there are supply chain issues and AI data centers are driving up costs for all memory.

Sandisk Ultra 512GB for $99.99 on Amazon

Can you deal with 2 x 256GB cards and save some money?
PNY Premier-X Class 256GB 2 pack for $72.99 on Amazon

Is this your backup solution for a computer? Do you need a super fast card? You might be able to get a card that will suit your needs but has lower specs and save a few dollars.

If it's a backup solution, it's hard to argue against a WD Elements, many TB for the price your looking at for a 512GB card.

One thing is for sure, DO NOT trust that 18 year old drive. It will call it at any time.
 
The memory shortage has caused SSD prices to spike and also the for hard drives, but not nearly as much for hard drives so the cost multiplier for a SSD is way higher than it was before. So just get an external HD.
 
I meant MicroSD, not Micro SSD. My workaround was going to be SSD external drives instead of collecting MicroSD but the SSD external storage is out the wazoo as well.

I just checked, the 512gb Sandisk is now $185 on Amazon, it was cheaper yesterday :(


1773239805554.webp
 
For only $1,700, you can get a nice 8TB M.2 SSD. I had planned on getting one, until the recent tripling of price. Heck, I saw one for $3,900!!! For that kind of money, I will go back to pen and paper.

I guess there is some good news though. A spinning hard drive with CMR (conventional magnetic recording, the type you want for archive) are still really inexpensive. Perfect for long term storage. As they don't need to be powered up every year like SSD's do. An 8TB old-school drive is about $190.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Computing-Workstations-VAP8T0B-AM/dp/B0DY2TB1TD?crid=2YJEGS8TV4ZW9&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.h8Nsk2MlN3rtH8sF7oWnreD7jJlpvdul51xUYIGoRAytrqTzoIsXUxkNOm5042-ySDBaeLwdFAzp1OmQe-8zERvTLZBk3vtn7HBjWjqjgvD2f4o71H4zUX2rv_l6djXYzWtRwhPpHgpIMu1jdRixObukBx7VEmzI7wGH2_0likrTpx-pchglFPNaPIEKy8JA8_f_yX8FDapBlpwMNUV5lMH6qnjauaVo7JzRYpbzPiI.cDdVI90UdNF-kRnpRAl4zFi9InY4aNTmn-NX49LbVvY&dib_tag=se&keywords=8tb+samsung+990+pro&qid=1773241361&sprefix=8TB+samsung+,aps,183&sr=8-1&th=1
 
Last edited:
Cujet said:
For only $1,700, you can get a nice 8TB M.2 SSD. I had planned on getting one, until the recent tripling of price. Heck, I saw one for $3,900!!! For that kind of money, I will go back to pen and paper.

I guess there is some good news though. A spinning hard drive with CMR (conventional magnetic recording) are still really inexpensive. Perfect for long term storage. As they don't need to be powered up every year like SSD's do.

https://a.co/d/09fB6I7g
Click to expand...
I have that exact NVMe drive in a backup server at my home. It wasn't cheap, but man is it fast!
 
Vil_Riker said:
Last December I got 512gb micro SSD card for $50, and the idea was to keep a collection of these cards in a small container. Now this card is full so I looked to buy another one.

How naive I was... the same card is now $155.


o_O not good

So is it time to go back to external storage with a 2tb hard drive? I thought hard drives were in the past but Toshiba external storage is cheaper for 4x capacity. I still have a drive from 2008 that works well so the reliability is likely still there.
Click to expand...
For long-term archival file storage you are far better-off using hard drives anyway, not to mention the huge cost advantage.
Regarding any device that uses NAND flash memory such as SSDs, SD memory cards, USB flash drives, and similar products there can be long-term data corruption just from lack of use. Furthermore, this type of data corruption renders files unrecoverable from NAND flash memory.

 
Last edited:
If you just buy two hard disks, that you back up at the same time, you can be sure that if one fails you'll always have all the same information on a second one. One of mine is actually an old computer hard drive where the motherboard failed. I don't trust either one, but I trust that both of them won't fail at the same moment.

This is what they call Redundant Array of Individual Disks (RAID) except done manually :D
 
I would just get an external HDD spinning disks are definitely still in use; less by pre-built consumer computers but used a lot in NAS and businesses. The RAM shortage has caused all other storage devices to go up too. The 8/12TB HDDs I got for work a year ago have gone up $50 if you can even find them in stock anymore. The 4TB SSDs I got for work went from $600 to over $1000.
 
Quattro Pete said:
Maybe I just got lucky, but I had an SSD sitting in storage for 11 years. Finally pulled it out and I was able to access all the files on it.
Click to expand...
You are lucky.

Most companies (Samsung, SK Hynix, SanDisk, maybe more) design their offline data retention at room temp to be 1 year. The accelerated temp one like sitting on your car dash, to be about 1 month. Offline data retention for HDD is typically designed to be 5 years.

I have an old HDD from 2003 that still hold data, but I am not fooling myself that I am just lucky and another same drive would be this good.
 
Quattro Pete said:
Maybe I just got lucky, but I had an SSD sitting in storage for 11 years. Finally pulled it out and I was able to access all the files on it.
Click to expand...
In truth, nearly all SSD's retain information for a long time, even when not powered up. But we can't count on it. Solid State memory relies on a stored charge to retain information. Even a few bits lost can corrupt a file. As mentioned above, temp is a huge factor.

But here's my understanding. Not only is it difficult to predict, but the older products are somehow better and may last 10+ years. Some recent SSD's experienced severe data loss in the 1-2 year time frame. Cheap, no-name is a factor here.

Any way you slice it, unpowered flash memory really can't be relied on for decades like properly stored HDD with CMR.
 
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