XPost: alt.os.linux.mint   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Mon, 8/19/2024 9:45 AM, Monsieur wrote:   
      
   >   
   > Interesting, I did not know that. I better start backing up my backups then,   
   because all my disks are cheap ssd's.   
      
   If you clone a 1TB SSD to another 1TB SSD, and write the output device   
   from end to end, that uses one cycle on the flash cells. The flash cells   
   are rated for about 600 cycles. You could clone 600 times, before the   
   SSD would be worn out.   
      
   Hard drives on the other hand, you can sit around all day,   
   doing one dd transfer after another. On the better hard drives,   
   they're 550TBW, which means you get the same ability to use   
   the disk, but you get that much runtime per year. I have one   
   hard drive, with 55000 hours on it, but it's not a 550TBW drive.   
      
   The poorest quality hard drive, is 110 TBW (WD Blue perhaps), the highest   
   quality   
   hard drive is 550 TBW. High capacity drives (perhaps 8TB capacity),   
   are filled with helium gas and sealed, unlike the other drives   
   which "breath air" through a breather hole which is equipped   
   with a hepafilter. The 24TB helium filled drive, should never experience   
   effects from room humidity, but then, the helium filled drive   
   can fail when the helium escapes. Some helium drives, the theory is   
   that they have pressure gauges. But decoding the indicator,   
   I don't think anyone has figured out for sure what the   
   values mean.   
      
   They're quite different kinds of devices. The HDD, you can use it   
   any way you wish. You are more likely to be exhausted while   
   using it, than the drive would be. SSDs last a long long time,   
   doing small file writes, but if you made a habit of blasting   
   large images, over and over onto an SSD, that's not really   
   all that good for it.   
      
   Someone did a "life test" on a small selection of SSDs. In terms   
   of calendar time, it took quite a while to wear them out. The   
   end-of-life policy is different on each brand. You must be   
   especially careful with Intel branded SSDs. If the device has   
   a rating of 600 writes per NAND flash cell, as soon as the   
   Intel drive hits 600, it "bricks". It will neither allow   
   reads nor writes. This is particularly bad as a policy, as it   
   does not allow simply cloning over to another Intel drive.   
   Instead, the user must have a clone copy they made *before*   
   end-of-life. This means, owners of Intel SSD drives, must   
   check with smartmontools or similar, what the recorded write   
   life is so far.   
      
   The most liberal brands of SSD, they whiz right past 600 and   
   continue to both read and write. You might get a substantially   
   longer life. Or, you might have a catastrophic failure (black   
   screen some morning, no boot for you). Such a device though,   
   if you were paying attention, you might still successfully   
   clone it, if some system utility were to warn you about   
   the dire situation (risk taking). I treat these drives as   
   the more desirable kind, because as long as you can monitor   
   them for remaining life, there should not be any data loss,   
   and not an obsessive need to do backups all the time.   
      
   My backup frequency on SSDs here (lazy) is a full backup   
   every three months. Images go to an 18TB hard drive. I only   
   own one Helium drive so far :-) The Helium is "guaranteed"   
   to stay inside the drive for five years. The gas seals   
   are done with an adhesive! While the housing has welds,   
   the welds are not for gas, they're for mechanical protection   
   of the inner seal plate. This means data recovery on my   
   18TB drive (if I wanted to pay for such), is fraught.   
   As a joke, a data recovery company made a video of them   
   using an NC machine to mill the welded plate off the   
   top of the drive. It ... almost worked (you have metal shavings   
   everywhere too). With ordinary (air-filled) drives, you just   
   open them in a portable glove box with hepafilter. Helium drives,   
   are an entirely different animal. Again, the user is challenged   
   by their technology choice. But I decided to buy *1* of them for test.   
      
   An air-filled hard drive, has on the label "do not block this hole".   
   That is the breather hole. On a Helium drive, there is no hole   
   like that in the top cover, and there is not a warning of that   
   sort to be seen.   
      
   Helium drives, the altitude spec for them is the same as   
   the air-breathing drives. But it's possible they do in fact   
   operate at higher altitude than the old drives could.   
      
   Air breathing drives always work at room pressure. As the barometric   
   pressure changes, room air enters or exits the housing, through   
   the hepafilter. If you unscrew the lid on an air breathing drive,   
   there is no popping sound, no vacuum evident, no pressure evident.   
   We don't know what the pressure level is in the Helium drive.   
   They would fill it to sufficient level, so the flying heads work properly.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)