Is there any point buying a portable SSD

Faust

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I pose the question in the subject line as portable SSDs for data storage or backups are pretty expensive in larger capacities. A cheaper option and in my opinion just as good is to buy an SSD in either 2.5 inch or NVMe form factor, get an enclosure which are cheap as chips, pop in your chosen SSD and your good to go. This may not be as small and attractive as say a Samsung T5 but will do just as good a job and in NVMe form do it even faster.
 
Hi. I picked up a Sabrent enclosure from Amazon and put a 480 GB hd it. No problem works a treat.

See if I can get the link for you....

Ice
 
Hi. I picked up a Sabrent enclosure from Amazon and put a 480 GB hd it. No problem works a treat.

See if I can get the link for you....

Ice
Yes, thanks for the link. I have something similar. I took a 250 gig SSD out of my old laptop a few months ago and popped that in an enclosure. Whilst the capacity isn’t great I can get a couple of backups on it which complete much quicker than a HDD. I am now going to do something similar for my iMac’s TM backups, though need a minimum 1TB for that. 2TB would be better but I’m too mean to pay the current SSD prices for these capacities. 😩
 
hmm good question. I guess there is a point to it if someone really needs one.
 
Be aware that SSDs only retain data for 1-2 years when powered off.
HDDs are rated at 9-20 years depending on mdel.
 
Don't forget you will only benefit from SSD speeds if your computer has USB 3.2/USB C/ thunderbolt 3.0 ports and your SSD enclosure supports the same. Otherwise the benefits will be lost and you may as well get a conventional drive
 
Don't forget you will only benefit from SSD speeds if your computer has USB 3.2/USB C/ thunderbolt 3.0 ports and your SSD enclosure supports the same. Otherwise the benefits will be lost and you may as well get a conventional drive
Macs have all the fastest connections. However, given I'm talking about drives whose sole purpose will be for backups, does speed really matter?
 
Macs have all the fastest connections. However, given I'm talking about drives whose sole purpose will be for backups, does speed really matter?
Yes it does when you use SSD as otherwise you may as well put an HDD in them. Even cheaper ;)
 
Be aware that SSDs only retain data for 1-2 years when powered off.
HDDs are rated at 9-20 years depending on mdel.
??? Blimey, where do you store them? In a oven at a constant above 30 degrees or something?

I thought that story was debunked many a times already.
 
It is worth noting that SSDs retain data without power from 1-2 years and with HDDs 9-20.
I looked it up because a very large customer had a collateral protection clause in the contract.
 
It is worth noting that SSDs retain data without power from 1-2 years and with HDDs 9-20.
I looked it up because a very large customer had a collateral protection clause in the contract.
Are there difference between those specs for datacenter vs personal use, and the temperature at which they stored and operate? That was the point of debunking this as the data out of the studie was being misinterpreted and applied to how consumers use them.
 
I was just having a first look.
It varies from model to model but enterprise drives show better reliability etc. so I would expect them to be better.
 
That is at higher temperatures for enterprise, my use case was for backup as collateral.

retention.PNG
 
Indeed I got that. But those figures were for devices NOT passing the endurance tests. They really shouldn’t be in the public domain to buy in the first place.

either way I think it’s fair to say that it isn’t really relevant for the consumer level that we are talking about in this context regardless. Besides using an SSD for cold storage backups is very cost ineffective.
 
The problem is that retention is dependant of the electric fields inside the device otherwise there is leakage.
Of course, with power on there is electron migration which is another issue.
It is worth noting that the cells in a flash device are often stacked 384 high (at least that was being talked about a year ago when 256 layers high was standard) so there is little space to isolate cells.
 

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