SSD or HDD for a temp/scratch drive?

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giantbucket

giantbucket

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ok, "scratch" may not be the ideal word, because it's more of a temporary holding drive where i'd have various downloaded files and/or imported files from USB drives. the files would be there while i clean them up, edit them, purge out unwanted files (in cases where a download contains 5 files but i only need one, or a winzip extraction situation).

anyways, files on there would stay for a few days to a few weeks (probably up to a month), and most of the time they'd be relatively small - i'm guessing if i had a 64G or 100G drive then i'd not be running out of temp space on there, since i don't do video editing, just audio and photos and winzip extracts.

being a "working on stuff" drive, it would see plenty of reads / writes / deletes / etc. once i'm done futzing with a file, i'd move the cleaned up thing onto my main storage HDD (one of several WD Reds)

so, having said ALL that, would an SSD be better than an HDD for this, or worse? my OS is already on an SSD.

from the brief thinking i've done, an SSD would be much smaller, lower power, quieter, etc. but i don't know how the frequent R/W/Del actions would affect longevity of either. and whether i buy a small SSD or small HDD i'd still be spending approx the same $60 or so my wallet won't know the difference....

thoughts?
 
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writing to an SSD often actually wears down the drive. The reason you only put your OS and important programs on it are because you'll only write those to it once, and won't be writing over it. Now it's only old SSDs that have done that, and the estimated lifespan of an SSD is about 8 years, 4 years if you write your documents to it. Manufacturers may have improved the lifespan of them, making them more usable as a general storage drives (high end laptops now come equipped with only an SSD), but only time will tell. Its safer to just buy an HDD in my opinion, an SSD "scratch drive" may only last a couple years
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excaliburr

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writing to an SSD often actually wears down the drive. The reason you only put your OS and important programs on it are because you'll only write those to it once, and won't be writing over it. Now it's only old SSDs that have done that, and the estimated lifespan of an SSD is about 8 years, 4 years if you write your documents to it. Manufacturers may have improved the lifespan of them, making them more usable as a general storage drives (high end laptops now come equipped with only an SSD), but only time will tell. Its safer to just buy an HDD in my opinion, an SSD "scratch drive" may only last a couple years
 
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giantbucket

giantbucket

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evidently i remembered that i have an old 100G 2.5" HDD, came from a dead laptop so i used it as the OS drive in my current desktop until i migrated that to SSD. so in a way, i have a 100G HDD hanging around - but it has my OS on it and i'd LIKE to keep it untouched "just in case". i still make weekly OS backups anyways, so in a way it's a "worst case short of a fresh reinstall from MS DVD media"

(sorry for that mild tangent)

i guess i wouldn't worry TOO much if an SSD wears out in 2.99 years just before the normal 3yr warranty expires so that i can get a replacement and run THAT for maybe another year. i would care if the frequent read/writes/deletes would wear out an SSD in 6-12 months, though - even WITH a warranty, having to go through a replacement every year would be a pain in the butt...

so - would an SSD used like this wear out in 12 months, in which case i use up my 100G for scratching (and not worry about losing the OS on it that's backed up 3 other ways)?

or would i be ok for 3 years or so in which case the "small, low heat, no moving parts" of an SSD is quite compelling (as i can then stuff it just about anywhere inside the case)?
 
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