[mythtv-users] Anyone using SSD for long term storage?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/22/2014 09:40 PM, Mark Wedel wrote:
> On 07/22/14 10:14 AM, Ian Evans wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 1:09 PM, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
>>
>>     On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Ian Evans wrote:
>> > After facing a 2nd green drive failure since January, I began 
>> dreaming of
>> > using SSDs as long-term storage. Just curious if anyone's using 
>> them as
>> > storage for video libraries.
>> >
>> > Realize the initial cost is higher, but I'm assuming over the long 
>> term the
>> > savings would be seen through:
>> >
>> > - lower power usage
>> > - lower heat
>> > - time cost (not having to re-rip libraries every time a drive fails)
>> > - etc :-)
>>
>>     OPEX vs CAPEX.  You would have to also include the time value
>>     of money, and the ROI in any investments.  That is if you want
>>     a real economic answer, rather than a "feels good" answer that
>>     many will no doubt provide.
>
>  I once did the math of the cost of running a hard drive for a year - 
> this was actually more on the basis of at what point would I actually 
> save money replacing several smaller capacity drives with a single 
> large one.
>
>  Most hard drives use about 10 watts (0.01 kw), or about 88 kwh/year. 
> If you pay $0.12/kwh, that comes out to about $10/year.  This ignores 
> any cost you pay for cooling, which really depends on where you live.
>
>  At that cost, and at current price of SSD (and making the leap that a 
> SSD uses 0 watts), it would take long to pay for itself.
>
>  However, if you had 6 x 500 GB (costing $60/year), replacing it with 
> a 3 TB HD ($100) pays for itself in 18 months.
>
>  Of course, this payback can be considerably different depending on 
> how much you pay for your power, how many hard drives you are 
> replacing, whether you need redundancy, etc.
>
>  But a simple calculation on this aspect at least isn't that hard.

And remember that often MythTV users will get large-capacity hard drives 
that are designed for low power usage (versus the 
7200rpm/"black"/"raptor"/... high-performance and who cares about power 
usage drives) for video storage.  Most of those produced today idle at 
only 2-5W (for example a 1TB WD10EARX (old model) WD Caviar Green 
consumes 5.3W reading or writing and 3.3 when idle and 0.7W when in 
standby or sleep, versus a 1TB WD Caviar Black which consumes 8.4W 
reading or writing/7.8W idle/1W standby or sleep).

A current-model 1TB WD10EZRX consumes 3.8W reading or writing/2.6W 
idle/0.6W standby or sleep, and a current-model 4TB WD40EZRX consumes 
4.5W reading or writing/3.3W idle/0.4W standby or sleep.  Or, if you 
like Seagate, a current-model 4TB ST4000DM000 consumes 7.5W reading or 
writing/5W idle/0.75W standby or sleep (and Seagate dropped their 
"Green" line at 2TB because they felt the power savings of $5/yr weren't 
worth a separate SKU).

So, even if you don't let your drives go to standby or sleep, you may be 
spending closer to $3-$5/yr to spin that rust.  If you do let them 
standby, you'll spend significantly less (like around $1-$2/yr).

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=780 (which, of course, 
is a completely broken web page with invalid links, so you have to get 
to model info by searching the FAQ to get 
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1679/ which downloads 2 
PDFs that it calls "WD" and "Caviar" with no extension, and searching 
the FAQ won't even find info for >3TB models, which is at 
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771438.pdf 
(found thanks to an external search)--but, hey, even if they can't build 
a web site, at least WD can build hard drives)

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/desktop-hdd/#specs 
(their page--and its links--works)

Mike