Portable SSD Hard Drives

Flash drive = Solid State = SSD.
This implies a finite (large, but finite) number of read/write cycles. I'm very surprised this isn't mentioned in the article.

Bob, very helpful article, thanks.

But please, it's "careering", not "careening". The latter is to scrape barnacles and weed off the bottom of a boat. What you've written describes the action of whizzing around with no apparent deliberate direction.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Careening has both definitions, in Webster and other dictionaries.

You should menetion that USB3 drives need to have USB3 connections and cables in order to get the speed advantage.

Your Aug 7 column talked about possible malware on some USB drives. Are the ones you've mentioned here highly unlikely to have the kind of problem you described in that column?

1 Tb less than for $100? There are 2Tb portable hard drives for way less, than $100 here! At Black Friday or after BF sale I've got Seagate Expansion 2 Tb for $69.99 after rebate minus $25 for using PayPal for that purchase. Even with around $8 shipping it's way less, than a sacred $100. SSD can be relatively cheap as well - for example, AMD 480 Gb for $149. It's a bare drive, but it's not a rocket science to put it in an enclosure for some more bucks (for example, SIIG USB 3 for SATA for $3 after rebate). That makes SSD portable option much sweeter. It's not rugged enclosure, of course, but you've got the idea.

About flash drives I consider a good price when it's 4 Gb per $ or better. But that drive should be reliable. So, do some research. I saw Toshiba 32 Gb flash drive for $8 after rebate, but when I read feedbacks, I decided to keep away of that drive. For years some companies manufacture special models hard to kill, like Corsar Survivor. I have two rugged 16Gb Corsair Voyagers and happy with them, so there is a high probability that Survivor will survive years of using as well.

Actually since every portable drive uses USB, their SATA super fast 6 Gb/s speed (I bet every rugged SSD portable drive contains inside a regular SATA SSD with a standard SATA III interface) is a waste of money, so I'd consider flash drive more logical for that purpose unless you need more space, than 128 or 256 Gb, a pretty common size for flash drive for a couple of years.

Do they have the same inherent code vulnerability as flash drives?

SSD look great but I cannot justify the cost. My ext USB drive is identical to the laptop drive. I use cloning [not image] software and have an identical cloned copy on my ext drive. Should the primary drive fail, I merely install the backup. Simple and effective.

Hello Everyone:

I purchased the OYEN Digital High Performance USB 3.0 Shadow Mini SSD last year to store my precious HD Music Video Collection and my Mp3 catalogue of music for safekeeping as I understand that an SSD is more reliable than a non-SSD in terms of longevity. My computer files are too precious to waste if the device I use crashes so I am more confident using my portable SSD from Oyen (a company I am sure few have heard of).

I thank you all for listening,

i

BOB; DELL HAS A 2TB PORTABLE BACKUP HARD DRIVE- ON SALE UNTIL 12/7 FOR $89.99 A SAVINGS OF $60. I THINK I WILL GET ONE FOR MY WIFE. IT LOOKS LIKE THE ONE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER PICTURES. HAVEN'T CHECK IT OUT YET. HOPE IT WORKS OK.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Nice price, but it's not an SSD drive.

In June of this year, I purchased a Samsung 840 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5-Inch SATA III SSD drive for $420.00 from Amazon. Not all 1TB SSD drives are as expensive as you stated Bob.

Just received a 256 Gig HP Flash rive from Tiger Direct for just under $81.00 including tax and shipping. I am not sure how long it will be on sale.

The write lifetimes are largely myths, well they were once true, but on modern (last couple of years) SSDs do have limits but now we're talking about decades for the regular user, so now it will likely outlive your computer.

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

I've put a few flash drives through the washing machine and they cleaned up really nice. Still ticking.

ManoaHi and intelligencia: SSD life is still hotly debated and certainly not settled yet. With manufacturers pushing multi-level cell (MLC) technology to the limit (which each memory cell hold more than one bit) in order to get capacities up and prices down it is argued by some that SSD reliability is going down, not up. (see Scott Mouton & his 'My Hard Drive Died' website and podcasts.) Both technologies now assume errors will occur and use ECC to fix those errors without the user (or OS even) knowing.
Manfacturers can make much more reliable drives (both SSD and HDD) but the market wants them cheap. Those that worry about reliability use RAID and run multiple drives at one time.
p.s. And don't confuse RAID with backup. - Hey BobR: RAID vs. Backup would be a good topic!

I have read many conflicting suggestions as to whether external hard drives should be constantly attached to your laptop for continuous back-up.

Doesn't this action wear out your external drive easily as compared to attaching it as needed? Cheers.

I have a 30month old Patriot Pyro 240GB SSD as my boot-drive which includes Win8.1 OS and oodles of installed applications (114GB Free space). Utility program 'SSDLife Pro' shows that this SSD has over 20,000 working hours on it and its "Health" is shown as 100%. 'SSDLife Pro' is showing the "Estimated Lifetime" to be 7 years, 3 months, 25 days (T.E.C. date = 2022/04/10). To minimize WRITES to this SSD, all my application and personal data are stored on other drives in the system. To further elongate the SSD's life, I don't index it (for searches), since there is very little data that I need to search for and it is blazing fast even w/o search-indexing enabled.
30months ago I paid $199 for this SSD and now similar SSDs are selling for under $100.

My new Samsung 750 Pro 256GB SSD has a 10 year / 150TB-Write warranty; it cost $150 [an external USB3 case costs

For me, the SSD Drives, at a price I can afford ... Would not be good, for me at all. Now, for Hubby, that is a different story completely.

I have a 1TB Hard Drive, with over 275GB of data, stored on my computer. Hubby, has next to nothing, only 36GB, with a 250GB Hard Drive. Oh, he has his games, but, they are not many, only the ones he likes. While, I on the other hand, have a ton of games ... It's what I do, okay??? I also, have lots of information on our monthly bills, our lease, and other stuff, that is important ... That is why I have an External Hard Drive.

I am happy, that I have a lot of free space, too. Having a low amount of data on your computer, helps with the speed of getting up on display, what you need!!! If, you have ever had a Hard Drive be almost full to capacity, you know what I am talking about.

Now, I do have a 3TB External Hard Drive, for backing up, my computer. I got that for a good price, last year, for $129 plus tax. I bought it at a retail store. I know they are probably much cheaper now, but, that was an excellent price, when I bought it and it just works, like it is suppose to.

I also, have a 1TB External Hard Drive, that I am not using and will give to one of my daughters, when she find a house, to rent. I have already given her a computer, she just needs this, for good backing up. Her computer has only, 250GB Hard Drive, just like my husband's.

Mike, should have checked a little further on your definition of careening:
turn (a ship) on its side for cleaning, caulking, or repair.

2. North American
move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction.
"an electric golf cart careened around the corner"

I'm not sure what it takes to destroy a flash-drive, short of fire or hammers. I've washed two in a clothes washer, both still work good. I have another that was dropped in a parking lot and ran over by several cars crushing the outside case and terminal head; still good.
BTW, distilled water is pure enough that it is an insulator. This works great to rinse off electronics that have had coffee, soft drinks or other conductors spilled onto them. I have saved laptops and other devices by this simple procedure. Disconnect power, remove batteries, rinse thoroughly and dry completely. Avoid wetting speaker cones, if possible. It's best to disassemble the case if one has the means.