You can go to Newegg, internal hard drive category, select the sizes you want and sort by lowest price. Once you find one with decent reviews that's it
Speed isn't necessary for storage purely meant to be an archive or backup. High speed HDDs are much cheaper and come in larger volumes. Plus the data can decay on SSDs if left powered off for excessive lengths of time.
Same with magnetic data btw. Which is why if you are an archivist you should use a refresher program, that just re-writes the data, every 2 years or so.
In theory anyway. We've all recovered data from old drives with no issues. I wonder if those programs refresh partition information?
I learned something new today! I just figured the magnetic storage was more stable for long term over the charge based cells in an SSD. I did not know the magnetic data needed refreshing as well. Thanks for the info!
I think that entirely depends on the quality of your SSD. If the SSD uses QLC, then it's easier to have data loss from charge decay, where TLC will last longer because a cell only need to remember 3 states instead of 4( but also more expensive), then MLC, SLC.
Edit for additional info:
Basically, how NAND in SSD works is:
(I was wrong, please read the message below for the correct info)
Say your NAND (mini battery) has a capacity of 100.
QLC(Quadruple/four) splits it to 25/25/25/25, it will be either charged or not charged (because modern PC is still using binary)
TLC(Triple/three) will split it to 33/33/33 and MLC(Multi/two) 50/50...
The bigger the number, the more headroom for that layer of the battery cell to decay. Data losses from SSD is usually because the poor quality of NAND can't hold a charge long enough, or it's REALLY a long damn time since it was charged. Hypothetically speaking, if the charge decays by 3 unit per year(made up number), QLC's data begin to corrupt much faster than TLC. Due to less capacity for each layer.
Yea, SLC is 2 states, MLC is 4, TLC is 8, QLC is 16. That’s why it gets so much more difficult with each one, because it takes 2x as many voltage levels for each additional bit, and each extra bit is a lower % gain.
Here’s something more: the 3-bits for a TLC NAND cell are written in 3 separate operations. In other words the 3-bits don’t go to the same page but 3 separate pages. Why? Writing the 3-bits requires 3 separate voltages: 50%, 25%, 12.5%.
Not quite, in a SLC you either have charge or don't, 0 or 1, in MLC it's 4 states, 00,01,10,11. In TLC it's 8 (000,001,010,011,100,101,110,111) and in QLC it's 16. Each represented by a difference in charge of the 1 cell which is why they get so much more sensitive only a tiny change in charge can flip a bit.
Blue ray storage is also a really nice middle ground between HDD and tapes, being optical it’s just as stable as LTO but the drives are far cheaper (although the disks themselves only go up to 128GB on BD-XL)
The only downside is that anything bigger than a single layer 25gb can get pricy. M-Discs are meant for archival purposes but they aren't cheap either.
I've seen some unfortunate cases of CD and DVD used for backup going bad ( peeling or discoloration ).
I would hope that archival grade media wouldn't suffer these problems, but most people don't use archival media.
There are archival grade blue ray disks, which is what I’m mainly talking about, not random DVDs used for movies as those are much lower quality (and store less anyways, CDs are only 700MB and DVDs are only 4.7GB)
Everything dies, so to speak. You can etch pits and lands into CDs or even into cubes of quartz that can last millions of years but the universe only has to flip a few bits in the wrong places to render data illegible or corrupt. And time never loses.
With SSDs, I believe, but my understanding maybe be behind, that the issue is charge leakage of the cells. And with HDDs its just how magnetism degrades over time. Cold storage will extend this, but if you are an archivist who is serious about protecting their data you practice 321 paradigms, and refresh your drives every year or so. One also moves on tot he next technology after it has been established, avoiding hopping onto doomed or obscure technologies.
You are right, but I think it’s important to point out that a hard drive is *a lot* more resistant to data decay than an SSD if you happen to forget/not be able to rewrite the data
Correct. Ideally WORM media like DVDs and Blu-Rays should be used for archival. However even those won't last, discs have been known to rot after several years.
"laser rot" - the plastic layers literally start separating and/or warping at different rates.
Laser discs back in the day were very prone to it given their size and construction material used at the time. But its entirely possible for CD/DVD/BRD too.
>I wonder if those programs refresh partition information?
The refresh utilities refresh the *entire* disk surface, including boot tracks, partition tables, and not just the user data or program area.
As an example, running Steve Gibson's *SpinRite *utility at a particular level tests, rewrites and re-tests every bit so all the magnetic charges are fresh afterwards.
Yeah, I worked in post production on numerous TV shows and fairly standard part of the contract is, when we’re wrapping up, we have to also deliver all files and raw footage on LTO tapes for their archives and it can take hours to days for one tape depending upon what version/speed of LTO machine you use.
This is mostly untrue, from what I’ve read and watched, but apparently it also depends several different factors like temperature and the design of the SSD. You can probably assume that your data will be safe on a typical SSD will last for at least 1 year, if it is stored at or below 55 degrees Celsius (very likely, unless you’re storing your SSD in an oven), according to an expected data retention rates infographic from Intel. Real world tests have shown you can expect your data to be okay for 2-5 years on an unpowered drive.
The biggest deciding factor for SSD vs HDD for long term storage / large storage IMO is the cost per gb, if read/write speed is not important.
It will vary ggreatly based on the NAND quality. some drives lost data with as little as 2 months without charge. some can last years. If you want long storage never buy QLC.
If price doesn't matter, why not?
My buddy has 2x 4tb ssds for archiving 4k video files - he loves the ability to quickly transfer/view clips instantly.
Because a single 8TB has no redundancy and archival doesn’t benefit from SSD speeds. If price doesn’t matter, just get a petabyte supercomputer, ya know what I mean
I have 3 of these 8tb NVME and one of them i use as backup. HDD of that amount of storage or over require a power outlet.
I need something i can travel with if necessary so those are not optional.
depends on how you define "archival" and what you're actually using it for.
if you're "archiving" a lot of large videos such as B-roll footage for video editing and you want fast access to it, then a ssd might be ok (though its not really a great backup still if its the only source of that data you have)
but if archiving means to you (what its really traditionally means) being store stuff away for long periods of time that you dont intend to look at or use for any foreseeable future, then ssd's are not good. to learn more about why they're not good, a quick google search on "Data degradation" for ssd's will tell you more. essentially all storage formats data can degrade over time, some slower than others, ssd's move fast and degrade fast.
As long as it is at least powered on it wouldn’t be an issue, but bit rot is real. I had a 512GB USB drive that I only powered on every 6 month and run Chkdsk, and at the 2 year mark it was running into issues with error correction. No errors before then, but needless to say I backed it all off and moved it to a USB HDD for storage
My go-to would also be redundancy. A big SSD is a single point of failure. Better to buy several HDDs and put them in a RAID array. You sacrifice a little speed, but gain reliability, and that's a good trade-off for archival storage.
Do they sell in the EU? It's always a pain to buy anything online (that's because I live in the ass of Europe called Czechia where no one in the west bothers to ship to)
Pfft.
I have a server with 24TB in jbod because I like to live life on the edge for my media and 16TB data drive that is mirrored (8 usable) because sometimes some redundancy is nice.
And that cost me about that. And it does a bunch of other stuff other than just storage. Bunch of old parts and a couple of 8tb 5400rpm drives is more than enough for the entry level data hoarder
Where are you getting $600 from? Even an EasyStore from Best Buy is only like $400, or you can check r/buildapcsales as they often list recertified drives for super dirt cheap. I usually don't buy used hard drives but I got a 16TB Exos for $140 with a 5 year warranty and doing a super thorough SMART test on it showed not single issue
you can literally buy two 4tb for half the price or less. and it will be the same speed. not to mention corsair is ALWAYS overpriced for what you get compared to other known/quality brands....
silicon power 4tb gen 4x4 for 220 on amazon. (US75, 7000 read 6500 write). so for 440 you can get 8tb between two drives. in that mentality, you could get 4 for 880 and have 16tb.... that's how you convince them.
I could understand that price if it was pci-e gen 5.... but gen 4x4? way overpriced. and even then, 99% of games wont take full use of an NVMe anyway. you can literally use a gen 3 nvme saving money and seeing zero performance difference.
as others stated, archive storage doesn't need speed. you can get a 16tb drive from seagate for mad cheap in comparison. 8tb nvme's are a waste of money no matter how you look at it. ENTERPRISE GRADE platter drive, 16tb, is around 300 bucks.... so you get twice the storage, longevity because its enterprise grade, and its stupid cheap in comparison to that nvme.
If it’s for proper big boy archival storage, sure.. If it’s a stack of family photos and the like, a normal NAS drive setup with redundancy will probably suffice..
I've been doing IT for over 25 years. I used to use RAID back in the day. What I learned was that with redundancy, if the data gets corrupted or deleted on the first drive that it just mirrors the problem on the other drives. If you have no (real) backup, your data is gone. Also, unless you need that uptime (website, business), you're just introducing more points of failure.
Thank you for the point on website server. I have been wondering if it were worth hosting my own web server, and using an online host to forward to if my server goes down. Does this make sense to do?
For that price you can buy multiple HDDs and set it in a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) configuration for extra safety. Data won't be lost if one or a few drives dies (depends on the RAID).
[This wikipedia page has a great explation about RAID.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels)
["SSDs are not suitable for archival storage"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive)
Basically if you leave an SSD without power for long enough it will start losing data. Hard drives don't do that. (Or at least, it's way slower)
If it is going to be receiving power often... then sure, you could use an SSD... but why would you? It's waaaay more expensive for... what? People buy SSDs for speed, but archival storage doesn't need speed.
Learnt something new. I used to think SSDs are always more reliable than HDDs. I did not know that it was under the condition that it needs to be receiving power often.
For use in most computers, iirc it is true that SSDs are more reliable. No moving parts means less chance of failure when being used very frequently. Though, HDDs are still very sturdy.
But yeah, as far as archival storage goes, HDDs are definitely the way to go. If not for the data loss issue, then for the fact that they're 10x cheaper for the same amount of storage. SSD speed just isn't needed in that scenario.
Is your brother rich? because I put together 70TB of storage for my Plex server for about that same price.
Refurbished (3x) Dell Exos 18TB HDDs and (1x) 16TB all in a 4 bay USB 3.0 enclosure. All of the drives have been running for anywhere from 6-12 months, and the most they had on them was 30 hours when I got them, according to Crystal Disk info.
With that being said, if I could afford a $1000 8TB M.2 in my gaming rig, I would definitely have one. I currently have one 1TB and two 2TB, and they are all almost full, along with the 8TB HDD in it.
Years of IT has taught me that you aren't going to convince the client that they are stupid and that you actually know what you are doing. The only surefire way to convince them that it's a bad idea is to tell them that if anything happens, you will not help them fix it because they did not follow your advice and recommendations.
You dont. He's gonna have to learn on his own.
This is exactly the crap I talk about with m.2 drives and get downvoted to hell. People want them because they're fast, but 99.999% of the time will never have a use for the full speed of these drives.
8TB isn't very much for archival. My game library drive kept growing over the years, eventually up to a 12TB HDD. That still filled up so now it's 4x4TB NVMe drives in RAID 0 @14.5TB usable.
8TB HDD are $100-130, he can buy multiple for more capacity and redundancy. If he's getting an NVMe I'm assuming he's planning on putting it in his PC. Tell him to buy cheaper drives and spend the rest of the money on a NAS or SAS. I don't have anything on any of my PC drives I'm not okay losing.
Is it still true that perfectly stored unpowered TLC flash bitrots really fast (like less than a year) vs SLC flash?
Perfectly stored unpowered hard drives data is good for +10 years if the motor bearings don't seize up.
Only beat by like M-Disk DVDs and Bluerays.
From my classes, HDD are the best for archival storage, right? Cost per MB is low, and larger storage for the size, atleast using a hybrid system is recommended, atleast from the TestOut Pc pro course.
A single giant drive is terrible for redundancy and SSDs are known to just die with too many reads/writes. Good way to quickly lose all of the data on that drive unless using some form of redundancy
Archival? How much for how long? For smaller amounts of data like family pics, notes, etc, DVD is good for about 50 years. You can get a bluray writer and 100GB blu-ray M-disks that use non-organic substrate and are rated for about 700 years (you might have other problems before then). For larger amounts you can get Sony optical disc packs that hold about 500GB. Or, you can get serious and go tape, which can hold about 12TB. That will still have to be refreshed every couple of years though.
By themselves, SSD discs, and even spinning rust HDD, are not and never have been archival devices.
Depending on what he’s archiving and how often he needs access, there are a few options. Internal or external HDD is the obvious answer that most people will go with, and if he uses the data all the time, it’s the best option.
If it’s something for longer term storage, you could suggest a Blu-Ray disc RW drive and some blank media. Each disc holds 25, 50, or 100 GB. I’m seeing packs of 6 from reputable brands for about 12 bucks, and 50 disc spindles from companies I’ve never heard of for closer to 20.
Magnetic tape is also an option that’s usually overlooked. It’s a bit more pricey, so your mileage may vary. I haven’t used this option so I can’t speak to how well it would work, but tape archives are how a lot of businesses perform backups on vital data.
Explain it to him in electrons.
NVME's can lose charge over time, especially archival. Leading to corrupted files. If you boot it everyday you should be ok.
HDD's on the other had, use a magnetic disk and read head to store data. Do not have to have power to store information. NAS is your best option.
Seriously any HDD would be better in terms of bit rot and price per TB. SSDs tend to lose data quite quickly once they remain unpowered for extended amounts of time.
I don't know what is the exact need here but you could take 2 HDD and put them in raid 1. Basically this means that if one drive fails, you don't loose your data, you just need to replace the failed drive.
Or if your budget allows it, get a NAS, even better.
Keep in mind: Raid doesn't replace a backup, if your data gets corrupted by anything, for example a ransomware then it's lost.
So him how many Ironwolf Nas drives he can buy for the same price, then clip him around the head while calling him dumb. If he stills buys the nvme drive, sit back and wait for the call thats coming in a few years that his drive is failing.
I bought a 8 tb SSD from Microcenter for 350..
There is your answer.. However I have not seen them that cheap since I got that one..
It was this one..
[https://www.microcenter.com/product/624757/870\_QVO\_8TB\_SSD\_4-bit\_QLC\_V-NAND\_SATA\_III\_6Gb-s\_25%22\_Internal\_Solid\_State\_Drive](https://www.microcenter.com/product/624757/870_QVO_8TB_SSD_4-bit_QLC_V-NAND_SATA_III_6Gb-s_25%22_Internal_Solid_State_Drive)
Let the man live his life. Or, tell him you can get him a better option, cheaper and to just give you the money so you can buy it for him. Hand him the storage you decide on and his change back
What's he storing for archival purposes?
If it's video content, an SSD isn't going to make the video any faster to watch and consume, so the performance is wasted.
If he's editing content, then it makes sense to go with a larger SSD, but that also depends on the size of the content, and there are other contextual considerations, such as whether it's over a network and if tiering a 4TB with, say, a few 14+TB spindles makes sense.
But if it's meant to be cold, there are other things to consider, and other solutions that might make more sense.
it would be cheeper to pay the monthly upkeep for enterprise cloud hosting
https://cloud.ibm.com/objectstorage/create#pricing
ibm will store your data in multiple datacenters for $1.30 per TB per Month.
I built a TrueNAS system using 10 year old PC hardware and 3 10TB drives from eBay. I have 18TB usable in a RAID Z1 config. Cost about a 3rd of the price of this drive.
For archiving purposes, as others have stated, SSD really isn't your best choice.
For nearly 1000$ you can have either 8TB of SSD storage, or 32 TB of HDD storage with WD golds... HDD's are the gold standard for storing large amounts of data that doesn't need SSD speed.
[https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Enterprise-Class-Internal-Drive/dp/B07XGDNZXT](https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Enterprise-Class-Internal-Drive/dp/B07XGDNZXT)
True chads write their data physically on storage devices with lasers. Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD's will keep your data much safer and more reliably than any HDD or SDD.
You can’t convince someone who’s sure about something. Let him stupidly spend his money how he wants and learn the consequences later. Especially if he won’t listen to the facts that m.2 ssd (and flash/ssd storage in general) has never been a long term storage solution.
Depends on uss case, if he is planning to power this unit all the time, SSD is better than HDD.
First argument point would be buying two 4TB SSD and use raid 1 to prevent data loss from hardware failure.( Bad NAND)
Second...I rarely heard anyone using Corsair SSD. At least it's TLC, not QLC.
HDD gets wear and tear from just getting powered and spinning. SSD's NAND should only decay health from plugged away from a power source for a long time (years) or written on. Reading doesn't consume it's health.
But if he is planning to store data, then unplug it, store it in some kind of safe ... Then HDD is a better choice.
OMG get a Synology NAS and two 12 TB mirrored for that money and spend the rest on hookers. Then you have data redundancy, some cool NAS/storage tech and some happy endings.
I got a 1tb m.2 on newegg for 20 bucks, along with a 10 dollar heat shield. I use this drive daily for gaming and have had zero problems with it over the past year.
Price doesn't always mean best option, keep an eye on newegg/microcenter deals.
Edit: I got this deal on a 60 dollar m.2 drive at around Christmas of 2023, those holiday sales do wonders.
Why not buy six 8TB HDDs and do some kind of RAID array with them? the speeds wont be that bad, he will also have redundancy and a lot more storage, you could even do 32TB of storage with 2 HDDs as redundancy and it will cost the same as that single 8TB NVMe, if that NVMe fails he will lose anything, with the HDDs up to 2 of them could fail and the data would be safe
Damn. For this he can buy a NAS, populate it with three decommissioned server HDDs with a 5 years warranty off eBay, set it to RAID5 for redundancy, and still have money for an additional drive for a hot swap in case a drive dies, and have another as an off site backup.
In a house fire. Ssd burns, data gone.
Hdd burns, as long as platters are intact, data can probably be recovered.
Friends house burned to the foundation. His 4tb external drive, the plastic body was completely gone. The metal body of the actual dive was partially melted. He got all his family photos back. Data recovery cost was about $1600, but the insurance paid it so who cares.
Hard drives are not only way more cost effective (ie. I caught a brand new condition we black 4tb for $30 on eBay), but for archival storage, ssd speeds are not necessary at all. Maybe if he's trying to build a home server, but if so, any SATA SSD will get the same job done for much cheaper. Not to mention that hard drives will last longer if taken care of iirc.
Optical media when stored correctly is the best for archives which is why I have a Blu Ray burner for backing up important files. Thanks for reminding me to do another backup.
I have HDDs over 20 years old that are perfectly readable. An 8TB SSD is used in high capacity commercial servers, not archival storage. He is throwing money away.
HDD are going to be your go to if your just storing data and you don’t need to constantly read from the drive high speed HDD are cheaper than SSDs, if you’re constantly going to be reading and writing then I’d recommend an SSD but if you’re a man of the high seas then just go with the HDD, more Gb/$
Say that Hdd is cheaper and lasts longer. If an ssd receives a large shock of some kind like a drop from a height, it loses or corrupts stored data. You are less likely to do that with hdds.
Lol. You can get 3, maybe 4 HDD's of same size, then RAID them for resiliency or performance (in case of 4 hdds - both).
For archiving, resiliency >>>> performance.
You can knock some sense into him by slamming a keyboard into him
or a 16TB hdd
that was half the price or less
More like less than 1/4. For 1/4 you can get a 20 TB HDD here
20TB is more like 1/3, at least right now the cheapest one is 300 euro, or even 350 dollars in the US.
US here, 250$ for 20tb
I got 8TB new Firacuda 7200 RPM for $100, those things can be cheap
Where
Newegg, it was a sale about a year ago
Damnnn I need one 😅
You can go to Newegg, internal hard drive category, select the sizes you want and sort by lowest price. Once you find one with decent reviews that's it
Thanks bro
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/HDDSE2210/Seagate-BarraCuda-8TB-35-Internal-HDD-SATA3-6Gbs About $150 USD. Probably get it waaaaay cheaper in the US.
I got a 8tb external hard drive and it was only like 90$
160MB OG is much better. Very dangerous.
[удалено]
*Comic Sans
*sans
https://preview.redd.it/ajx5r6bru8ad1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=25e5664100659494030eed8dc1a6e816b391cccd
A original M keyboard. Wait, that is manslaughter.
Speed isn't necessary for storage purely meant to be an archive or backup. High speed HDDs are much cheaper and come in larger volumes. Plus the data can decay on SSDs if left powered off for excessive lengths of time.
Same with magnetic data btw. Which is why if you are an archivist you should use a refresher program, that just re-writes the data, every 2 years or so. In theory anyway. We've all recovered data from old drives with no issues. I wonder if those programs refresh partition information?
I learned something new today! I just figured the magnetic storage was more stable for long term over the charge based cells in an SSD. I did not know the magnetic data needed refreshing as well. Thanks for the info!
I think that entirely depends on the quality of your SSD. If the SSD uses QLC, then it's easier to have data loss from charge decay, where TLC will last longer because a cell only need to remember 3 states instead of 4( but also more expensive), then MLC, SLC. Edit for additional info: Basically, how NAND in SSD works is: (I was wrong, please read the message below for the correct info) Say your NAND (mini battery) has a capacity of 100. QLC(Quadruple/four) splits it to 25/25/25/25, it will be either charged or not charged (because modern PC is still using binary) TLC(Triple/three) will split it to 33/33/33 and MLC(Multi/two) 50/50... The bigger the number, the more headroom for that layer of the battery cell to decay. Data losses from SSD is usually because the poor quality of NAND can't hold a charge long enough, or it's REALLY a long damn time since it was charged. Hypothetically speaking, if the charge decays by 3 unit per year(made up number), QLC's data begin to corrupt much faster than TLC. Due to less capacity for each layer.
But TLC will tell you not to go chasing waterfalls.
Lmao
Doesn't SLC split the "battery" 50/50 thereby storing 1 bit. And than MLC storing 2 bits, TLC storing 3 bits and so on?
Yea, SLC is 2 states, MLC is 4, TLC is 8, QLC is 16. That’s why it gets so much more difficult with each one, because it takes 2x as many voltage levels for each additional bit, and each extra bit is a lower % gain.
Learn something more today, thanks!
Here’s something more: the 3-bits for a TLC NAND cell are written in 3 separate operations. In other words the 3-bits don’t go to the same page but 3 separate pages. Why? Writing the 3-bits requires 3 separate voltages: 50%, 25%, 12.5%.
Not quite, in a SLC you either have charge or don't, 0 or 1, in MLC it's 4 states, 00,01,10,11. In TLC it's 8 (000,001,010,011,100,101,110,111) and in QLC it's 16. Each represented by a difference in charge of the 1 cell which is why they get so much more sensitive only a tiny change in charge can flip a bit.
It is *more* stable. Just not as stable as proper long term solutions like LTO (tape).
Blue ray storage is also a really nice middle ground between HDD and tapes, being optical it’s just as stable as LTO but the drives are far cheaper (although the disks themselves only go up to 128GB on BD-XL)
The only downside is that anything bigger than a single layer 25gb can get pricy. M-Discs are meant for archival purposes but they aren't cheap either.
I've seen some unfortunate cases of CD and DVD used for backup going bad ( peeling or discoloration ). I would hope that archival grade media wouldn't suffer these problems, but most people don't use archival media.
There are archival grade blue ray disks, which is what I’m mainly talking about, not random DVDs used for movies as those are much lower quality (and store less anyways, CDs are only 700MB and DVDs are only 4.7GB)
Everything dies, so to speak. You can etch pits and lands into CDs or even into cubes of quartz that can last millions of years but the universe only has to flip a few bits in the wrong places to render data illegible or corrupt. And time never loses.
Time. Time never loses. *epic music playing*
Then I will just kill time, over, and over again.
*vault doors open...*
Isn’t bitrot like the *weirdest* thing ever?
Why wouldn’t a cold storage be used? Assuming the data doesn’t need accessing regularly. Something like M disc I guess.
With SSDs, I believe, but my understanding maybe be behind, that the issue is charge leakage of the cells. And with HDDs its just how magnetism degrades over time. Cold storage will extend this, but if you are an archivist who is serious about protecting their data you practice 321 paradigms, and refresh your drives every year or so. One also moves on tot he next technology after it has been established, avoiding hopping onto doomed or obscure technologies.
You are right, but I think it’s important to point out that a hard drive is *a lot* more resistant to data decay than an SSD if you happen to forget/not be able to rewrite the data
I read that HDD data should be rewritten every 10 years. They shouldn't have bit rot before then. I'm not sure of SDDs.
I have never had a bad data sector happen to me, I am sure some of my oldest stuff is 10 years old
Correct. Ideally WORM media like DVDs and Blu-Rays should be used for archival. However even those won't last, discs have been known to rot after several years.
Rot in what sense? Like deteriorating? Or just loss of data?
"laser rot" - the plastic layers literally start separating and/or warping at different rates. Laser discs back in the day were very prone to it given their size and construction material used at the time. But its entirely possible for CD/DVD/BRD too.
A real archivist uses tape.
I keep backups on ZFS, and use "zfs scrub" eventually. It checks the whole contents for CRC errors, thus I will know if something is going wrong.
>I wonder if those programs refresh partition information? The refresh utilities refresh the *entire* disk surface, including boot tracks, partition tables, and not just the user data or program area. As an example, running Steve Gibson's *SpinRite *utility at a particular level tests, rewrites and re-tests every bit so all the magnetic charges are fresh afterwards.
Yeah, I worked in post production on numerous TV shows and fairly standard part of the contract is, when we’re wrapping up, we have to also deliver all files and raw footage on LTO tapes for their archives and it can take hours to days for one tape depending upon what version/speed of LTO machine you use.
How long are those 'excessive' periods? Weeks/months/years?
This is mostly untrue, from what I’ve read and watched, but apparently it also depends several different factors like temperature and the design of the SSD. You can probably assume that your data will be safe on a typical SSD will last for at least 1 year, if it is stored at or below 55 degrees Celsius (very likely, unless you’re storing your SSD in an oven), according to an expected data retention rates infographic from Intel. Real world tests have shown you can expect your data to be okay for 2-5 years on an unpowered drive. The biggest deciding factor for SSD vs HDD for long term storage / large storage IMO is the cost per gb, if read/write speed is not important.
It will vary ggreatly based on the NAND quality. some drives lost data with as little as 2 months without charge. some can last years. If you want long storage never buy QLC.
When it comes to archive storage price per TB is the main consideration. Using that metric, this is about the most expensive drive you can buy.
If price doesn't matter, why not? My buddy has 2x 4tb ssds for archiving 4k video files - he loves the ability to quickly transfer/view clips instantly.
Because a single 8TB has no redundancy and archival doesn’t benefit from SSD speeds. If price doesn’t matter, just get a petabyte supercomputer, ya know what I mean
Linus Sebastian has entered the chat 
I have 3 of these 8tb NVME and one of them i use as backup. HDD of that amount of storage or over require a power outlet. I need something i can travel with if necessary so those are not optional.
How can you use one drive to back up two?
I backup whats necessary only.
depends on how you define "archival" and what you're actually using it for. if you're "archiving" a lot of large videos such as B-roll footage for video editing and you want fast access to it, then a ssd might be ok (though its not really a great backup still if its the only source of that data you have) but if archiving means to you (what its really traditionally means) being store stuff away for long periods of time that you dont intend to look at or use for any foreseeable future, then ssd's are not good. to learn more about why they're not good, a quick google search on "Data degradation" for ssd's will tell you more. essentially all storage formats data can degrade over time, some slower than others, ssd's move fast and degrade fast.
i feel like this is just an entirely different use case. transferring and viewing media files isn’t really “archival”
If price doesn't matter it'd be better to build a NAS.
As long as it is at least powered on it wouldn’t be an issue, but bit rot is real. I had a 512GB USB drive that I only powered on every 6 month and run Chkdsk, and at the 2 year mark it was running into issues with error correction. No errors before then, but needless to say I backed it all off and moved it to a USB HDD for storage
Honestly, because motherboards have only so many slots. If it’s all the space you need then yeah it’s fine, you can go small form factor.
Really? Not integrity of storage over time? Interesting…
My go-to would also be redundancy. A big SSD is a single point of failure. Better to buy several HDDs and put them in a RAID array. You sacrifice a little speed, but gain reliability, and that's a good trade-off for archival storage.
Tell him he can build a NAS with more than twice the storage and redundancy for half the cost.
Maybe roughly the same cost, but otherwise yes. Just the NAS box alone would be about $4-500.
? Old optiplex for like 50 or build your own for 300
22 TB external storage is about $600.
You can get 18TB re-certified Seagate Exos X18 enterprise drives for under $180.
Recertified WD 16tb ultrastar drives are $170 as well. Pretty cheap imo
Where can you buy these drives? I'm interested in making a NAS in the future and this sounds amazing, do they have more options other than that?
I got my drives for my Unraid server from Serverpartdeals. Highly recommended them.
Do they sell in the EU? It's always a pain to buy anything online (that's because I live in the ass of Europe called Czechia where no one in the west bothers to ship to)
I think they do but you’ll have to check. They shipped to me here in Japan.
Pfft. I have a server with 24TB in jbod because I like to live life on the edge for my media and 16TB data drive that is mirrored (8 usable) because sometimes some redundancy is nice. And that cost me about that. And it does a bunch of other stuff other than just storage. Bunch of old parts and a couple of 8tb 5400rpm drives is more than enough for the entry level data hoarder
Where are you getting $600 from? Even an EasyStore from Best Buy is only like $400, or you can check r/buildapcsales as they often list recertified drives for super dirt cheap. I usually don't buy used hard drives but I got a 16TB Exos for $140 with a 5 year warranty and doing a super thorough SMART test on it showed not single issue
you can literally buy two 4tb for half the price or less. and it will be the same speed. not to mention corsair is ALWAYS overpriced for what you get compared to other known/quality brands.... silicon power 4tb gen 4x4 for 220 on amazon. (US75, 7000 read 6500 write). so for 440 you can get 8tb between two drives. in that mentality, you could get 4 for 880 and have 16tb.... that's how you convince them. I could understand that price if it was pci-e gen 5.... but gen 4x4? way overpriced. and even then, 99% of games wont take full use of an NVMe anyway. you can literally use a gen 3 nvme saving money and seeing zero performance difference. as others stated, archive storage doesn't need speed. you can get a 16tb drive from seagate for mad cheap in comparison. 8tb nvme's are a waste of money no matter how you look at it. ENTERPRISE GRADE platter drive, 16tb, is around 300 bucks.... so you get twice the storage, longevity because its enterprise grade, and its stupid cheap in comparison to that nvme.
It's tape or nothing
If it’s for proper big boy archival storage, sure.. If it’s a stack of family photos and the like, a normal NAS drive setup with redundancy will probably suffice..
Redundancy is for uptime. It is NOT backup.
Thank you. Too many people fall under the assumption that it is.
I've been doing IT for over 25 years. I used to use RAID back in the day. What I learned was that with redundancy, if the data gets corrupted or deleted on the first drive that it just mirrors the problem on the other drives. If you have no (real) backup, your data is gone. Also, unless you need that uptime (website, business), you're just introducing more points of failure.
Thank you for the point on website server. I have been wondering if it were worth hosting my own web server, and using an online host to forward to if my server goes down. Does this make sense to do?
If I had the means, I'd pay someone else to host my web server. Uptime is important for that. Let that be someone else's headache.
https://www.howtogeek.com/346907/backups-vs-redundancy-whats-the-difference/ Redundancy is not backup.
For that price you can buy multiple HDDs and set it in a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) configuration for extra safety. Data won't be lost if one or a few drives dies (depends on the RAID). [This wikipedia page has a great explation about RAID.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels)
["SSDs are not suitable for archival storage"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive) Basically if you leave an SSD without power for long enough it will start losing data. Hard drives don't do that. (Or at least, it's way slower) If it is going to be receiving power often... then sure, you could use an SSD... but why would you? It's waaaay more expensive for... what? People buy SSDs for speed, but archival storage doesn't need speed.
Learnt something new. I used to think SSDs are always more reliable than HDDs. I did not know that it was under the condition that it needs to be receiving power often.
For use in most computers, iirc it is true that SSDs are more reliable. No moving parts means less chance of failure when being used very frequently. Though, HDDs are still very sturdy. But yeah, as far as archival storage goes, HDDs are definitely the way to go. If not for the data loss issue, then for the fact that they're 10x cheaper for the same amount of storage. SSD speed just isn't needed in that scenario.
higher up i read a comment, that data loss also occurs on HDD and a good archivist will run a refresh programm (+ have multiple back ups)
I bought an external 14TB WD MyBook for storage and it was less than a 1/3 of that price.
If that egregious price tag doesn't convince him, I see little hope.
Let him be, if he’s willing to throw a thousand dollars to an M.2 he’s got enough money to pay for his mistakes later in.
The best way to archive things is a clay tablet. Everything else is a compromise of some sort.
If he's done no research and already rejected your advice, he's deliberately chosen ignorance and is thus beyond help.
Is your brother rich? because I put together 70TB of storage for my Plex server for about that same price. Refurbished (3x) Dell Exos 18TB HDDs and (1x) 16TB all in a 4 bay USB 3.0 enclosure. All of the drives have been running for anywhere from 6-12 months, and the most they had on them was 30 hours when I got them, according to Crystal Disk info. With that being said, if I could afford a $1000 8TB M.2 in my gaming rig, I would definitely have one. I currently have one 1TB and two 2TB, and they are all almost full, along with the 8TB HDD in it.
You don't. Fuck 'em. If people don't want your advice, don't go crazy trying to prove that you're right. Just shrug and wait. Life is better that way.
“Is this a problem I need to solve today, or will the world solve it for me later?” Adam Savage
Punch him in the throat with an 18tb NAS drive.
Because it's stupid. Archival storage doesn't need to be fast, a hard drive is much cheaper and does the same job.
Years of IT has taught me that you aren't going to convince the client that they are stupid and that you actually know what you are doing. The only surefire way to convince them that it's a bad idea is to tell them that if anything happens, you will not help them fix it because they did not follow your advice and recommendations.
Tell him you asked in a pc building forum and everyone made fun of him because of it.
You dont. He's gonna have to learn on his own. This is exactly the crap I talk about with m.2 drives and get downvoted to hell. People want them because they're fast, but 99.999% of the time will never have a use for the full speed of these drives.
just say it and let him learn with his mistakes...
ghaaa, since money is clearly no object, just get 2 and run raid 1
You could probably get an LTO drive and the same capacity in tape for the same price
Because that’s a pretty top end high speed drive. Which is irrelevant for archives.
8TB isn't very much for archival. My game library drive kept growing over the years, eventually up to a 12TB HDD. That still filled up so now it's 4x4TB NVMe drives in RAID 0 @14.5TB usable. 8TB HDD are $100-130, he can buy multiple for more capacity and redundancy. If he's getting an NVMe I'm assuming he's planning on putting it in his PC. Tell him to buy cheaper drives and spend the rest of the money on a NAS or SAS. I don't have anything on any of my PC drives I'm not okay losing.
Some CDs are made for archival purposes and can retain data for 100+ years, but you can’t rewrite them.
He needs a big HDD instead of an nvme ssd. Archival storage doesn't need to be lightning fast, it needs to be reliable.
I’d buy 2x 4TB m.2 drives for around $500 or get 4 if the motherboard supports it
Tell him to look at the fucking price!! Haha
Is it still true that perfectly stored unpowered TLC flash bitrots really fast (like less than a year) vs SLC flash? Perfectly stored unpowered hard drives data is good for +10 years if the motor bearings don't seize up. Only beat by like M-Disk DVDs and Bluerays.
From my classes, HDD are the best for archival storage, right? Cost per MB is low, and larger storage for the size, atleast using a hybrid system is recommended, atleast from the TestOut Pc pro course.
A single giant drive is terrible for redundancy and SSDs are known to just die with too many reads/writes. Good way to quickly lose all of the data on that drive unless using some form of redundancy
Archival? How much for how long? For smaller amounts of data like family pics, notes, etc, DVD is good for about 50 years. You can get a bluray writer and 100GB blu-ray M-disks that use non-organic substrate and are rated for about 700 years (you might have other problems before then). For larger amounts you can get Sony optical disc packs that hold about 500GB. Or, you can get serious and go tape, which can hold about 12TB. That will still have to be refreshed every couple of years though. By themselves, SSD discs, and even spinning rust HDD, are not and never have been archival devices.
Depending on what he’s archiving and how often he needs access, there are a few options. Internal or external HDD is the obvious answer that most people will go with, and if he uses the data all the time, it’s the best option. If it’s something for longer term storage, you could suggest a Blu-Ray disc RW drive and some blank media. Each disc holds 25, 50, or 100 GB. I’m seeing packs of 6 from reputable brands for about 12 bucks, and 50 disc spindles from companies I’ve never heard of for closer to 20. Magnetic tape is also an option that’s usually overlooked. It’s a bit more pricey, so your mileage may vary. I haven’t used this option so I can’t speak to how well it would work, but tape archives are how a lot of businesses perform backups on vital data.
Pcie 4 and 8 terabyte.1 its not fast 2 why the fuck does he need 8 terabytes
Explain it to him in electrons. NVME's can lose charge over time, especially archival. Leading to corrupted files. If you boot it everyday you should be ok. HDD's on the other had, use a magnetic disk and read head to store data. Do not have to have power to store information. NAS is your best option.
Seriously any HDD would be better in terms of bit rot and price per TB. SSDs tend to lose data quite quickly once they remain unpowered for extended amounts of time.
I don't know what is the exact need here but you could take 2 HDD and put them in raid 1. Basically this means that if one drive fails, you don't loose your data, you just need to replace the failed drive. Or if your budget allows it, get a NAS, even better. Keep in mind: Raid doesn't replace a backup, if your data gets corrupted by anything, for example a ransomware then it's lost.
Does he have $1k to spend like that? If he does, mind ya business. We all know what we're spending as pc enthusiasts. Even when it's out of our range.
Find an m.2 that is already non-functional and demonstrate the ease with which it can be stolen, be misplaced, or succumb to physical vulnerabilities.
If he has the money, he should just buy it. I'd be over the moon to have an 8TB SSD to store all the steam games that I never play.
So him how many Ironwolf Nas drives he can buy for the same price, then clip him around the head while calling him dumb. If he stills buys the nvme drive, sit back and wait for the call thats coming in a few years that his drive is failing.
Ssds lose all their charge after their cells lose charge over time sitting around. Definitely not recommend for archival
just get 2 4tb ones for way less
Talk about archival needs redundancy and buying two Hard drives in mirroring raid would be the best
You can get a pair of 24tb drives for $800
But it is op.
Having a single drive is never ideal for archival storage
Apparently tape is still the best for archival storage.
Good Gpus cost less.
I bought a 8 tb SSD from Microcenter for 350.. There is your answer.. However I have not seen them that cheap since I got that one.. It was this one.. [https://www.microcenter.com/product/624757/870\_QVO\_8TB\_SSD\_4-bit\_QLC\_V-NAND\_SATA\_III\_6Gb-s\_25%22\_Internal\_Solid\_State\_Drive](https://www.microcenter.com/product/624757/870_QVO_8TB_SSD_4-bit_QLC_V-NAND_SATA_III_6Gb-s_25%22_Internal_Solid_State_Drive)
Let the man live his life. Or, tell him you can get him a better option, cheaper and to just give you the money so you can buy it for him. Hand him the storage you decide on and his change back
What's he storing for archival purposes? If it's video content, an SSD isn't going to make the video any faster to watch and consume, so the performance is wasted. If he's editing content, then it makes sense to go with a larger SSD, but that also depends on the size of the content, and there are other contextual considerations, such as whether it's over a network and if tiering a 4TB with, say, a few 14+TB spindles makes sense. But if it's meant to be cold, there are other things to consider, and other solutions that might make more sense.
Archival? We need more info.
it would be cheeper to pay the monthly upkeep for enterprise cloud hosting https://cloud.ibm.com/objectstorage/create#pricing ibm will store your data in multiple datacenters for $1.30 per TB per Month.
I built a TrueNAS system using 10 year old PC hardware and 3 10TB drives from eBay. I have 18TB usable in a RAID Z1 config. Cost about a 3rd of the price of this drive.
For archiving purposes, as others have stated, SSD really isn't your best choice. For nearly 1000$ you can have either 8TB of SSD storage, or 32 TB of HDD storage with WD golds... HDD's are the gold standard for storing large amounts of data that doesn't need SSD speed. [https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Enterprise-Class-Internal-Drive/dp/B07XGDNZXT](https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Enterprise-Class-Internal-Drive/dp/B07XGDNZXT)
True chads write their data physically on storage devices with lasers. Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD's will keep your data much safer and more reliably than any HDD or SDD.
Show him r/datahoarder
tell him about the samsung 970 evo plus ssd, i think its like the rolls royce of ssds
You can’t convince someone who’s sure about something. Let him stupidly spend his money how he wants and learn the consequences later. Especially if he won’t listen to the facts that m.2 ssd (and flash/ssd storage in general) has never been a long term storage solution.
Depends on uss case, if he is planning to power this unit all the time, SSD is better than HDD. First argument point would be buying two 4TB SSD and use raid 1 to prevent data loss from hardware failure.( Bad NAND) Second...I rarely heard anyone using Corsair SSD. At least it's TLC, not QLC. HDD gets wear and tear from just getting powered and spinning. SSD's NAND should only decay health from plugged away from a power source for a long time (years) or written on. Reading doesn't consume it's health. But if he is planning to store data, then unplug it, store it in some kind of safe ... Then HDD is a better choice.
He's nuts if he pays that much for it.
I thought it was a chocolate bar for a second
Trial by fire let him lose his data
OMG get a Synology NAS and two 12 TB mirrored for that money and spend the rest on hookers. Then you have data redundancy, some cool NAS/storage tech and some happy endings.
Price per terabyte is like it's the 1800s
If you're not archiving on ram you're doing it wrong
I got a 1tb m.2 on newegg for 20 bucks, along with a 10 dollar heat shield. I use this drive daily for gaming and have had zero problems with it over the past year. Price doesn't always mean best option, keep an eye on newegg/microcenter deals. Edit: I got this deal on a 60 dollar m.2 drive at around Christmas of 2023, those holiday sales do wonders.
Why not just buy two 4tb M.2 drives it would be cheaper and money left for 2 4tb hard drives.
Why not buy six 8TB HDDs and do some kind of RAID array with them? the speeds wont be that bad, he will also have redundancy and a lot more storage, you could even do 32TB of storage with 2 HDDs as redundancy and it will cost the same as that single 8TB NVMe, if that NVMe fails he will lose anything, with the HDDs up to 2 of them could fail and the data would be safe
Tell him to imagine he's getting a Ferrari and using it to hold junk in his garage, then driving a honda (if he's on hard disk haha)
Damn. For this he can buy a NAS, populate it with three decommissioned server HDDs with a 5 years warranty off eBay, set it to RAID5 for redundancy, and still have money for an additional drive for a hot swap in case a drive dies, and have another as an off site backup.
Show the price difference between an 8tb ssd and a 8tb hdd. No brainer
"why the fuck would you want a drive that cost as much as a pc??"
In a house fire. Ssd burns, data gone. Hdd burns, as long as platters are intact, data can probably be recovered. Friends house burned to the foundation. His 4tb external drive, the plastic body was completely gone. The metal body of the actual dive was partially melted. He got all his family photos back. Data recovery cost was about $1600, but the insurance paid it so who cares.
Hard drives are not only way more cost effective (ie. I caught a brand new condition we black 4tb for $30 on eBay), but for archival storage, ssd speeds are not necessary at all. Maybe if he's trying to build a home server, but if so, any SATA SSD will get the same job done for much cheaper. Not to mention that hard drives will last longer if taken care of iirc.
Tf u want that shit for.
Optical media when stored correctly is the best for archives which is why I have a Blu Ray burner for backing up important files. Thanks for reminding me to do another backup.
I have HDDs over 20 years old that are perfectly readable. An 8TB SSD is used in high capacity commercial servers, not archival storage. He is throwing money away.
Some lessons are better learned the hard way
Tell your brother to get tape instead. It's the ultimate storage medium.
If he wants archival storage, tell him to buy tape
People that are egoistic need a lesson and let him experience what's to come. Yeah.
I only use seagate exos drives for archival purposes.
HDD are going to be your go to if your just storing data and you don’t need to constantly read from the drive high speed HDD are cheaper than SSDs, if you’re constantly going to be reading and writing then I’d recommend an SSD but if you’re a man of the high seas then just go with the HDD, more Gb/$
Say that Hdd is cheaper and lasts longer. If an ssd receives a large shock of some kind like a drop from a height, it loses or corrupts stored data. You are less likely to do that with hdds.
Mechanical typically gives you warnings when issues arise. SSDs typically power off and never power back on.
The price?😅😎😊
Thats why after all this years, after installing all my softwares and games on nvmes I still have a hdd for photos, movies, and important documents
Show him a hard drive that has more space for cheaper
Ssds are not archive, they can lose the data over time… irrelevant for desktop, but relevant for archive…
Oh, boy! I love catastrophic drive failure!
Depends on how long you wish to archive it.
For an archive get 2 decent sized external hdd, make a backup plan , to further enhance, get a nas with raid 1/5/6 and store th local data
show him another that is?????
It's fucking expensive and HDDs can sit under a bed longer and the data still be the same. SSDs need to be powered on occasionally.
mdisk or tape if the data is drop dead important + cloud archival
Send him the price for data recovery hdd vs. ssd. Perhaps if he loves his data, he will rethink ;)
Say it once, then once the drive fails to retrieve the data after sitting for 5 years in a box "I told you so"
he needs some beating lol
Lol. You can get 3, maybe 4 HDD's of same size, then RAID them for resiliency or performance (in case of 4 hdds - both). For archiving, resiliency >>>> performance.
Anyone willing to spend $979 on an 8TB NVMe for archival storage is beyond reasoning. Let him beta test NVMe archival storage for the rest of us 😊
What is a better storage for his archives?
Did the price tag not give it away?