SSDs and power outages

Thinking about getting an SSD, the only problem is I've heard they really don't like power outages. I try not have that happen to my computer too often but on occassion I'll accidentally unplug it or the battery will drain out. If I get an SSD it probably will face an occassional power loss. Is it too risky to get an SSD in this type of situation?

 

See this article, about halfway down, for a clear explanation of what 'power loss protection' means on a consumer-class SSD.

 

this being laptop forum, I assume you have one and normally power outage doesn't affect laptop since it should switch to battery power on it's own. You can also set up alarm in Windows to warn you the battery is low at 10%, 5% or 3%, if I remember correctly, to give you plenty of time to shutdown, before battery runs down. Anyway, the problem comes only when power is cutoff during writing cycle, similar to mechanical drive and since SSD is faster, the writing cycle is shorter, everything else being equal, so I would think SSD would have even less chance to be corrupted. I wouldn't worry too much, just don't take out laptop battery, set the alarm for low power and shut it down, when computer is not used.

 

Nah, even a notebook with a brand new battery, fully charged, is not exempt from the dangers of data corruption in an SSD.

All you need is a BSOD that just reboots/powers off your system and... well, you pay your money and you take your chances.

 

There is nothing written in stone to guaranty data corruption will not happen. In my experience the chances on a laptop are equal between that of SSD and HDD. Early SSD's though were a bit more flaky to put it mildly. One thing though is if a SSD decides to bite the bullet you usually, and instantaneously, loose everything on the drive. There is little if any warning too. HDD's a lot of times give a warning, bad sectors popping up etc., a SSD will just all of a sudden be gone with no hope of recovery.

So if you have the money get a SSD but keep a vigilant backup solution for your system and data.

 

Absolutely. This can't be preached enough. No matter your setup or storage drive, backup and backup again. Duplicate backups is the only way to go.

 

In your experience how well do SSDs do against HDs in terms of power outages BSOD etc. I am willing to accept the risk of loosing data I am working on but I would not like having my drive wiped clean or bricked because of a pulled plug one day.

 

BSOD's happening to a HDD can cause an irrecoverably corrupted OS. The data should still be intact and accessible. Though if you're encrypted using bit locker that is probably a bit more complicated.

My computer locks up and freezes now and then and recovers just fine. As has been said before, ad nauseam, everywhere: backup backup backup everything you can't afford to lose.

 

If a SSD fails is the data more or less accessible than if a HDD fails?

 

How does the protection on a samsung 850 Pro compare to a samsung 850 Evo? Is one worth getting over the other?

 

The backup should be equally accessible regardless of what kind of drive you're backing up...


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If an SSD fails (which usually happens from one second to the next...), the data is effectively gone.

Unless you have a laboratory of spare parts and the prerequisite schematics to try to briefly power up and copy the RAW data off of the cells and the software to put that RAW data back together as files...

 

SSD is less accessible.

In theory, with an HDD, a highly specialized company could extract data, providing that the platters are intact and undamaged.
With an SSD, there are only trapped electrons, therefore a short circuit anywhere would be catastrophic.

 

Indeed... it is impossible with a SSD