SSD vs HDD - Which One Gives Better Long-Term Value

[alex1092]

I am planning to upgrade my storage setup and can’t decide between SSDs, HDDs, or a mix of both. I need something reliable for daily use and occasional large file transfers. What storage devices have you found to perform best over time?

[Minotaurtoo]

you are likely to get a variety of answers for this.  My anecdotal story:  I've never had an HDD go bad beyond recovery, still have some 10 Gig units on my retro rig that have the same install of windows 98 on them that they had when I built it.  However, newer large capacity drives could be using shingled magnetic data storage tech, and I've heard they can lose data... In theory, SSD's should be the safest option, but I've lost 3 over the years.  One WD green lable, and two others I can't remember OCZ I think.  Again, this is anecdotal, and shouldn't be taken as gospel in anyway. 

[Fluxmaven]

Outside of storage servers, I don't use spinning rust for anything anymore. SSDs are faster and plenty reliable. I've had way more failures with HDDs over the years. I was an early adopter of SSDs too. First was a 32GB IDE lol. For many years I'd run a smaller SSD for a boot drive and a HDD for storage. Now I typically just load up the m.2 slots with fast NVMe drives. 

 

It obviously depends on what your actual needs are. If you need over 4TB of capacity, HDDs start making more sense.