Solid state computer memory

My CCTV recorders all use standard SATA hard drives. I have begun to hear whispers about new technology hard drives with no moving parts, completely solid state. Does anyone here have any info on this? I would think it would improve reliability a bunch. What say you, Great Computer Gurus?

I believe they are available in 'netbook' type laptops already. They just happen to be rather small storage. In reality they are just built in USB thumb-drives.

And looking into it, pretty much every smart phone, ipod/mp3 player, ipad/tablet... has them to a degree. Some have additional storage with SD cards, though.

They are essentially a matrix of SD cards with buffering circuitry to speed writes. Blindingly fast reads compared to an array of spinning plates. The price point is still a little steep per MB for my liking and the new 6GB/s SATA is more than adequate for my needs when I can get 2TB for $89 at newegg.

Been around for decades. The old IMB XT's used it. And they weren't the first to do so.

yep...SSDs Amazingly fast, but limited number of read/writes iirc.

I installed one in my laptop for a system drive. So far it's working great. I can't talk about reliability as I just did this. Found a sweet spot on a 96GB drive. I bought mine on Amazon. I did notice the golden rule applies - the larger, and newer, the drive the more expensive it is.

I did notice an uptick in speed and lower boot times. I play Civ5 and that game flies now. I used to scroll over the map and it would jerk and lurch a little. Now it's smuve like buttah.

I didn't check into their resistance to high G loads like say a drop or fall. I know magnetic hard drives have trouble with that but I haven't had an HD fail from being dropped in years.

Have you had trouble with HD's in your CCTV cams?

Yeah, price of a 2TB drive is way down there now, but what I am after is 100% reliability. The ONLY failure I get on my recorders is hard drives, and the bigger, the more likely a failure. I need a minimum of 500GB.

cwh wrote: Yeah, price of a 2TB drive is way down there now, but what I am after is 100% reliability. The ONLY failure I get on my recorders is hard drives, and the bigger, the more likely a failure. I need a minimum of 500GB.

I have had good results with Samsung 7200RPM 2TB drives but they are in a redundant RAID array just in case. No single drive is safe.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: No single drive is safe.

What he said.

If you want to learn an EXHAUSTIVE amount about the new solid state drives that are being used as harddrives, go to anandtech.com . The guy is THE person to talk about SSD's, and he has many writeups plus gets "first access" to lots of manufacturers new products. He has also helped them solve some issues with their early production models.

NOT ALL SSD'S ARE CREATED EQUAL. Some are not even better than WD raptors, so don't waste your money on those. I have a small 60gb being used as my main hard drive in my compy that holds the OS plus games. Computer boots in about 10 seconds to a useable desktop with Win7, everything is lightening quick.

Unless this thing is going to get shaken around a whole lot, for now regular hard drives are the better choice for reliability. SSDs are currently LESS reliable and often fail suddenly with no warning. They're usually used where power saving and performance are critical (in netbooks and gaming PCs) or where the drive will be subjected to harsh shaking (in vehicles).

I cant see how an SSD would be worth the cost difference for use in a CCTV recording applications.

an SSD has a limited number of writes that is a fraction of a magnetic drive. A CCTV does nothing but write almost exclusively to the drive and almost never reads by comparison.

for a CCTV, for the dollar, stick with regular drive.

If you're having drives fail regularly, then the problem is one or more of:
- your drive controller is flaky
- There are environmental issues
- You're using el cheapo hard drives when you need server-grade stuff

Environmental issues are likely heat (little/no ventilation, allows heat to build up), or crappy electricity (brownouts, electrical noise, etc.)

GameboyRMH wrote: Unless this thing is going to get shaken around a whole lot, for now regular hard drives are the better choice for reliability. SSDs are currently LESS reliable and often fail suddenly with no warning. They're usually used where power saving and performance are critical (in netbooks and gaming PCs) or where the drive will be subjected to harsh shaking (in vehicles).

This - we had one fail at 6 months at work when I put them in test racks for a perceived reliability gain.

Hard drives supplied are server grade. We learned that lesson a long time ago. Environmental much more likely. Caribbean, high humidity, sometimes installed in unairconditioned areas. I really hadn't thought about that. I just had 2 dvrs go down in a distillery in St. Lucia and I will inquire about this possibility. Thanks, that may be very helpful. What hard drives do you consider server grade?

GameboyRMH wrote: Unless this thing is going to get shaken around a whole lot, for now regular hard drives are the better choice for reliability. SSDs are currently LESS reliable and often fail suddenly with no warning. They're usually used where power saving and performance are critical (in netbooks and gaming PCs) or where the drive will be subjected to harsh shaking (in vehicles).

What he said. We did a pilot of them at work in some notebooks. The ones that failed, failed without warning and no ability for recovery.

Rob_Mopar wrote: What he said. We did a pilot of them at work in some notebooks. The ones that failed, failed without warning and no ability for recovery.

Heard the same from several reliable sources and the "no ability for recovery" is a big issue if you're dealing with an "only drive" that contains tons of user data and have no backups.

We use SSDs as build drives in our development machines so we don't lose our whole machine if the drive goes south, but then again you don't want to keep new code on there for weeks without checking it into the source code repository.

@cwh, you might want to look into harddrive coolers if your systems run in adverse climates as they can help keeping the HDD temperature within its specs. Here's an example, but you' need a 5.25" slot to mount a 3.5" HDD with these: http://www.quietpc.com/us-en-usd/products/harddrivesolutions/zm-2hc2

There are various other solutions available with fans etc.

"The ones that failed, failed without warning and no ability for recovery". That's scary.

you gotta understand. all a hard drive is, is some type of physical medium that is read in a digital fashion, and interpreted.

but still, its just a lump of material its stored on.

A magnetic hard drive is a layer on a platter. Magneto-mechanical.

If it fails to work, there's a chance the details are still on the platter.

SSD doesnt work the same way. its 'lump of material' is an electrical charge. If that charge is in any way comprimised, your lump of material is basically a melted ice cube.

Shopping for hard drive coolers is tricky, a lot of them do little to no good. Find one like in the link that carries heat from the sides. For a computer that isn't maintained regularly, a fanless model would be better.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

That's pretty much why I linked to that one - a lot of the other ones can encase the disk and sometimes make them run even hotter.

HiTempguy wrote: I have a small 60gb being used as my main hard drive in my compy that holds the OS plus games. Computer boots in about 10 seconds to a useable desktop with Win7, everything is lightening quick.

Ditto here. Can do a full reboot of Win7 in probably less than 20 seconds - I'm hooked!

For right now, SSDs are best used for mission-critical speed, and rust is good for high density, low cost storage. I'd be looking at the environments in which these drives are installed. High heat, high humidity, and likely lots of debris will cause heat related failures.

I'm not a fan of hard drive coolers. I just don't think they're needed in most instances. I'm willing to bet that your DVRs don't have good airflow (maybe none at all) around the drives. That's what I'd be willing to bet is causing the failures.

For good drives, I tend to go with Western Digital Caviar Black drives at the least. I've never had an issue with one, but then again my newest one is about 7 years old.

I know when we lived in Panama (90-96) we saw a number of HDD failures... I recall some where from mildew/fungus on the plates... the high humidity i'm sure "helped" I think a good dehumidifier would do a lot... but I know thats not realistic in a lot of areas.