New findings from cloud storage and backup firm Backblaze has make clear the long-term reliability of SSDs versus HDDs, when deployed as boot drives.

The second version of the Backblaze drive statistics report (opens in new tab), primarily based on the storage {hardware} deployed throughout the corporate’s knowledge facilities, reveals the annualized failure charge (AFR) of HDD boot drives is roughly twice that of SSD equivalents.

The longevity of SSDs is accentuated notably past the fifth yr of utilization, at which level 3.55% of laborious drives endure a failure, in contrast with solely 0.92% of SSDs.

SSD vs HDD

Though the info collected by Backblaze is consultant of efficiency in just one setting, and can’t be used as a marker for the reliability of SSDs and laborious drives exterior of a boot drive context, the corporate believes it’s enough to attract clear conclusions concerning the longevity of each sorts of storage system.

“At this level, we will moderately declare that SSDs are extra dependable than HDDs, a minimum of when used as boot drives in the environment. This helps the anecdotal tales and educated guesses made by our readers up to now yr or so,” wrote Backblaze.

Nevertheless, the corporate additionally concedes the SSD failure charge is prone to rise dramatically after the fifth yr of use, following the same sample to laborious drives. For context, by the eighth yr, HDD boot drives file an AFR of 6.41%.

“It’s extremely sure that the failure charge of SSDs will ultimately begin to rise,” stated the agency. “Additionally it is doable that sooner or later the SSDs might hit the wall, maybe once they begin to attain their media wearout limits.”

With this in thoughts, the corporate, which deployed SSD boot drives at scale for the primary time in 2018, will monitor intently for indicators of a dip in AFR, which is able to presumably be mirrored in subsequent yr’s report.

The falling value per capability of SSDs, coupled with the efficiency benefit from a velocity and reliability perspective, means there are few remaining causes to go for a tough disk drive – particularly to be used as a boot drive.

For organizations contemplating making the shift themselves, the brand new figures from Backblaze would possibly simply be sufficient to tip the scales.

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