Good information guys!
Do the SSD drives last as long or more than the mechanical 7200RPM drives? I think I read that the SSD drives wear out?
Not really sure about how long they last. The problem is that everybody has different luck with every different type of mechanical drive. Some hate WD and love Seagate, others are the exact opposite. A lot of times it is because they have had bad luck with one of their drives, but the thing is that there will always be those few people who have bad luck with drives, and it happens to every brand.
Many consumer level hard drives, including Caviar Blue, Caviar Green, Barracuda, and Barracuda LP all have a 3 year warranty. The higher end drives, like the Caviar Black and Barracuda XT, both have a 5 year warranty. OWC SSDs have a 3 year warranty, and they also have a RAID Ready SSD with a 5 year warranty. So basically, SSDs can have the same warranty as mechanical drives. Sorry I don't know for sure how long they last, but the warranty is still important.
As for them wearing out, I am guessing you are referring to the degradation problem.
This article talks about SSDs and the degradation problem in more detail, and explains it much better than I do (but I'll still try
). The link is to the degradation part, but you can go back and start from the beginning. It is a very long article, but it is worth reading if you have the time.
The main reason for the degradation problem is because on an SSD when you delete something and then add something to the drive, it does not over write what you deleted. Where as on a mechanical drive, it will over write it. So the more you write to it, the less free space on the drive, even if you delete stuff. Now, it won't say there is less free space, but the stuff you deleted will still be on the SSD, much like something you delete will still be on a mechanical drive but it just won't show up.
So if you have a 120GB SSD and write 120GB to it and then delete 10 GB, it will still be full. Then when you write to it again, the drive will then remove the stuff you deleted from the drive and then write to it. The extra time the drive needs to remove the old data that was already deleted is why they "wear down." It is because it takes longer to perform the writing action, but only because it first has to remove the data, and then write to it.
There is something called the TRIM command which will actually remove the data when you delete it. This is what fixes the degradation "problem." Currently, Windows 7 supports this, but Mac OS X doesn't (hopefully it will soon).
The OWC SSDs and OCZ Vertex 2 have the Sandforce controller for their SSD. This controller has sort of a garbage collection, almost a built in TRIM. I think other drives have this controller, but am not sure which, these are the only two I know of right now. Since it has a garbage collection, it will make it much faster when you write to the drive when it is already full (although still has free space). This will make the degradation problem not a big deal at all. But remember, it is only on the drives that have the Sandforce controller. The Intel x25-m does not have this and will degrade.
So if you are gonna get an SSD, I would suggest an OWC SSD or an OCZ Vertex 2. Not only do they have the Sandforce controller, but they are also faster than the Intel x25-m in a majority of benchmarks.
Hope this helps!
