What is more reliable hard drives or SSD?

[Allen_Wentz]

I'm wondering what is more reliable hard drives or SSD? What last longer hard drives or SSD? I know SSD are faster than hard drives and that is one of the reason everyone is switching over to SSD. But what is more reliable hard drives or SSD? Do hard drives break down more than SSD?

How long do hard drives or SSD last?

Short answer is SSDs are more reliable, by a lot. But you ask a complex question of "reliable," "last Longer," and "break down more." And there is an additional very important variable: quality of the device and its attachment to the processor. With multiple parameters in the question the answers become very complex.

Actually, the first question that needs to be answered is: What are we trying to do? What we are trying to do involves storing data, and drives used are incidental. If we want to store lots of data at least cost least risk, some RAID configuration of multiple less expensive (each individually less reliable) HDDs might be optimum.

A single drive scenario is a different landscape of failure probabilities. Even with the complexities added, clearly SSDs are generally more reliable in single drive scenarios.

All drives fail; sometimes early in the expected life of the component. So the much, much more important question is the quality of the backup protocol, including off site.

Note that RAID configurations change everything about reliably storing data. And despite other comments here, RAID 0 or JBOD may be very good arrays to choose from (for images, for instance).

 

[Black_Mage]

SSD are awesome, but I found out the hard way that they can fail too. In 2015, I bought a 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO for a gaming desktop. It worked with no obvious problems until early 2024. I turned my computer off one day, and it would not boot into Windows. The SSD died after 9 years of use, even though it was nowhere near the write limit. I still swear by SSDs, but that taught me that just because a SSD is rated to work until it's written so much data doesn't guarantee it will last that long. Back up your data no matter what you use to store your data.

The happy ending to that short story is I didn't lose any data because my screenshots were saved thanks to OneDrive's sync feature. I get that a lot of people don't enjoy that feature, but it saved my data.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Do you have data to prove that?

I mean SSDs have a limited read/write lifespan, where as hard drives do not.

The 2TB HD of my 2019-20 iMac is still working as it should. Maybe when I have the time I will replace its HD with an SSD, just to make it a little faster. I have been spoiled by my M4 Mac Studio and been neglecting the iMac.

As I mentioned before, I have never had any hard drive failures since the late '80s when I began using Macs with their very reliable Toshiba hard drives. While I prefer the speed of SSDs, I don't trust them for long term storage.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Are Solid State Drives / SSDs More Reliable Than HDDs?

It's good to know the difference between HDDs and SSDs and understand how the different SSD technologies affect reliability.

www.backblaze.com

SSD certainly tend to last longer than HDD.

Regardless, keep important data backed up.

Do you have data to prove that?

The 2TB HD of my 2019-20 iMac are still working fine. maybe when I have the time I will replace its HD with an SSD, just to make it a little faster. I have been spoiled by my M4 Mac Studio and been neglecting the iMac.

As I mentioned before, I have never had any hard drive failures since the late '80s when I began using Macs with their very reliable Toshiba hard drives. While I prefer the speed of SSDs, I don't trust them for long term storage.

SSD Edition: 2023 Drive Stats Mid-Year Review

Explore the 2023 Mid-Year SSD Drive Stats, reviewing failure rates, average age of failure, and key insights from our data analysis.

www.backblaze.com

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q2 2023 | Hard Drive Failure Rates

Read the full Q2 2023 Drive Stats report is here, and we've added some data points and new drives to the data.

www.backblaze.com

 

[bzgnyc2]

I mean SSDs have a limited read/write lifespan, where as hard drives do not.

It's really just writes - SSD can typically be read all day long again and again. However, the NAND chips they use typically start to fail after 3K write cycles in TLC mode (the most common). With some other overheads one typically sees consumer SSD with write endurance around 500-1500 x capacity (e.g. 1200-2500 TBW for 2TB SSD).

What's interesting with SSD is that they are so fast that their write endurance limits becomes like a consumable. Run flat out (100% write 24x7) at 4GB/sec sustained (e.g. something like an SN8100), a 1200 TBW SSD could fail in <4 days.

Of course an HDD would do neither of those things. Typically 20x slower so just writing that 1200TBW will take it several months. However, enterprise HDD historically could sustain 24x7 operation for 5 years or more which will be a lot more than 2500 TB even at their lower speeds. However, I have noticed HDD starting to put TBW limits on their drives, which I don't understand.

Which all goes back to the situation/use case/problem to be solved. For a mobile and/or 99% read situation, I much prefer the SSD for reliability. On the other hand, HDD are workhorses for surveillance video logging situations (probably the most common 100% writes use case).

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

I'm wondering what is more reliable hard drives or SSD? What last longer hard drives or SSD? I know SSD are faster than hard drives and that is one of the reason everyone is switching over to SSD. But what is more reliable hard drives or SSD? Do hard drives break down more than SSD?

How long do hard drives or SSD last?

Generally, I've found SSD's to be very reliable for heavy data use –unless it's a SanDisk (WD) or Hynix SSD. Multiple failures within 18 months. The only mechanical drives I've had fail were 3.5" Maxtors, and a couple WD-era HGST Ultrastars. The best SSDs IMO are a couple Angelbirds that I bought in 2015. I've also had good luck with the Samsung EVO 860's, but I only use them for data and clones. For PCIe SSD's, the Samsung 960's, 970's, and 990's have been great. I have several Seagate HDDs that are all between 12 and 20 years old. Never a problem, but I those are now only for cold storage clones.

 

[Harddrive]

Not sure what apple is using but their MacBooks seem to hold up over time quite well and they switched to SSD years ago.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Not sure what apple is using but their MacBooks seem to hold up over time quite well and they switched to SSD years ago.

The older MacBooks and iMacs I used for many years had Toshiba hard drives. There were glitches with the software and the OS, but the hard drives were quite durable.

Also, the original iPod's storage was a hard drive. I have such an iPod loaded with music, and still works without any problems (does not have a camera), 28.4 GB, Model MCOO8LL.

 

[Nekronos]

SSDs have lower mean time between failure (MTBF) rates by a good margin. I have not had a single SSD failure and ~10 HD failures.

• HDDs: ~300,000 to 1,200,000 hours (commonly quoted ~1M hrs).
• SSDs: ~1,000,000 to 2,000,000+ hours (enterprise models often >1.5M hrs).

HDDs and SSDs longevity is not measured the same way

Longevity of either is going to depend largely on use case scenario as HDDs are not as limited by write cycles the same way SSDs are. If you are using HDDs for regular backups or cold storage it's going to last longer than an SSD doing the same thing.

 

[Harddrive]

The older MacBooks and iMacs I used for many years had Toshiba hard drives. There were glitches with the software and the OS, but the hard drives were quite durable.

Also, the original iPod's storage was a hard drive. I have such an iPod loaded with music, and still works without any problems (does not have a camera), 28.4 GB, Model MCOO8LL.

I had a iPod Classic that I gave to a friend after getting an iPhone she said it still works fine.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

I had a iPod Classic that I gave to a friend after getting an iPhone she said it still works fine.

I had a iPod Classic that I gave to a friend after getting an iPhone she said it still works fine.

I have around 13 GB of music in my iPod (above) and listen to it on long drives in the interior of Alaska. My wife gave it to me as present years ago, and back then I could manually move files and folders in its hard drive, which is not longer possible. As the newer model iPods incorporated a camera, I lost interest in these new models since the iPhone already had a camera.

 

[psingh01]

SSD is more reliable because it doesn’t have moving mechanical parts that can break.

 

[phrehdd]

Do you have data to prove that?

I mean SSDs have a limited read/write lifespan, where as hard drives do not.

Early on, SSD had a far short life than traditional consumer level hard drives. However, as both size and tech increased, SSD often last 10 yeas or more while typical mechanical HDD last 3-5 years with similar usage. I could say this is experience via working enterprise level IT/IS (which I did and found what I said to be true) but you can read various reports now. Yes there is a formula of degree of available usable space on an SSD but hard drives can too have wear and also the mechanical failure exists where SSD have none.

On another note - I have had very good luck at home with hard drives, internal to machines, external and NAS RAID boxes. In fact, I had a few low rated slower Samsung drives in a RAID 5 NAS that I gave to a friend after some usage and he kept it as is for 7 years with no failure. I have had early years of OWC SSDs with two in a Mac Mini where one failed only after about 2 months.

Again, plenty of reports out there and lab reports to better answer your question than a few of us with some hands on experience as we can only rate our own experience and not really be considered a trend or viable statistical find.

 

[MacMorrison]

I've had some OWC SSD fail on me, too - memorably, several Aura drives in MacBook Air (early ones from about the 2011 era). Other OWC SSD are still working for me, more than 10 years after they were installed.

I find the Backblaze reports useful for general trends in consumer hard drive reliability - here's the latest one:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-2025/

 

[knappeduivel]

For daily use: ssd
For long term storage and backup: hd

 

[phrehdd]

For daily use: ssd
For long term storage and backup: hd

Hmmm we will have to disagree. There is more to go wrong with a mechanical drive even one that is barely used over the years than an SSD. SSD will do far better where it is write a few times and read often in terms of longevity. If data is not to be changed but merely stored, then archival discs last far longer than both of the latter. (CD, DVD, and some larger data discs).

 

[Bubble99]

For daily use: ssd
For long term storage and backup: hd

Was it there website showing how long hard drives last? The average life span of hard drive?

 

[MacMorrison]

I did a quick search and the industry norm seems to be 3-5 years (some estimate 4-7 years). It really depends on your use case. I'd expect a hard drive that's being used as a boot drive to fail sooner than one that is powered up infrequently for cold storage or backups, for example.

You can read the various specifications on the manufacturers' websites. For example, Seagate lists the following ratings for their Barracuda consumer hard drive (under reliability/integrity in their data sheet): Load/Unload Cycles, Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits, Power-On Hours (per year), Workload Rate Limit (TB/Year), and perhaps most important, Warranty Coverage (2 years).

https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/products/hard-drives/barracuda-hard-drive/

These numbers are purely a measure of the expected work load the drive is expected to do - it's not a guarantee of any kind.

I have an old Parallel ATA hard drive from the 2008 era that is working just fine, but it's only used for archival purposes so it's not plugged in or used frequently - there are much older hard disk drives around that are also working just fine, but in general, the older the hard drive, the less you should rely upon it.

People are more likely to retire their hard drives because they've run out of storage or they're upgrading to something faster than having it fail catastrophically on them after they've used it for a few years; e.g., an 80GB drive isn't very useful to most people in 2026.

 

[bzgnyc2]

You can read the various specifications on the manufacturers' websites. For example, Seagate lists the following ratings for their Barracuda consumer hard drive (under reliability/integrity in their data sheet): Load/Unload Cycles, Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits, Power-On Hours (per year), Workload Rate Limit (TB/Year), and perhaps most important, Warranty Coverage (2 years).

https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/products/hard-drives/barracuda-hard-drive/

Note I would not recommend Seagate's Barracuda drives -- they used to be their mid-to-high-end but they are now their bottom rung. In the general case I would spring for something in the Exos line. Possibly the Iron Wolf Pro.

The Exos are one of the few drives left rated for 24x7 x 5 years with no TBW/WRL rating. That used to be the norm for hard drives but over the years manufacturers found they could sell a cheaper drive if they relax quality here and there.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Coincidently, I ended up playing with an old HDD this past week and it reminded me a few notes I wanted to share here:

• Don't get an HDD that uses SMR (it should say it uses CMR or PMR or possibly HAMR)
• If you do get or already have an SMR HDD, do not use APFS on it (e.g. use HFS+, exFAT, etc)
• If you need to use APFS, do not get an SMR HDD (see above)
• My general recommendation is to get an SSD unless you know why an HDD is better for your use case
• Unless you need 8TB or above, just go SSD -- even at today's prices, it's hard to justify a 2TB HDD over a 2TB SSD even if the former would be sufficient
• Do not get an SSD with QLC NAND -- only TLC NAND (or better but SLC SSD are rare and no one makes MLC anymore)
• Go for an SSD with an endurance rating at least 600x its capacity (e.g. 1200 TBW for a 2TB drive)
• Frequently recommended brands/models of SSD are the WD Black SN850X, Samsung 9100 Pro, and WD Black SN8100 (these have gotten superexpensive)

 

[Hajj.david]

Do you have data to prove that?

I mean SSDs have a limited read/write lifespan, where as hard drives do not.

SSDs "limited read/write lifespan" is grossly overstated/exaggerated. On my mac server that I run 24/7 and host around a million documents/records that are being pulled and pushed to constantly throughout the day I was using roughly 1% a year when checking the SSD read/write capacity. Meaning my drive (if it continues linearly) will die in roughly 90 years from running out or read/write lifespan, and given that it was an old mac mini with limited RAM I regularly saw 10-15 GB worth of SWAP.

Average customer computers I've seen 1% every 3 years which means a 300 year life span if thats the only point of failure.

To make a long story short we upgraded the server after about 10 years to a new M4 mac mini with like 90% of read/write capacity on the old mac mini. Don't worry about it or even swap, you will replace your computer LONG before thats a problem.

 

[Hajj.david]

Hmmm we will have to disagree. There is more to go wrong with a mechanical drive even one that is barely used over the years than an SSD. SSD will do far better where it is write a few times and read often in terms of longevity. If data is not to be changed but merely stored, then archival discs last far longer than both of the latter. (CD, DVD, and some larger data discs).

You want HDDs for backups because they are dirt cheap for TONS of storage space and, unlike SSDs, dont lose their data if they dont have electricity, plus they are in a thick metal enclosure making it easy to swap and leave them laying around. That said I havent used an HDD in years except for my security camera for obvious reasons

 

[phrehdd]

You want HDDs for backups because they are dirt cheap for TONS of storage space and, unlike SSDs, dont lose their data if they dont have electricity, plus they are in a thick metal enclosure making it easy to swap and leave them laying around. That said I havent used an HDD in years except for my security camera for obvious reasons

I guess we see things a bit differently.

The only advantage (referencing your post) that HDDs have is that they are cheap and can come in larger volumes. That is all. Both HHD and SSD require electricity to read and write. HHD has no advantage here. SSD do retain data when not connected to any electronics. Perhaps you are thinking of Random Access Memory (RAM) which is volatile and does require current. In today's market, both consumer and professional/enterprise, there are SSD drives with good cases. Also, NVME can be put in strong cases and be used as well a the original/traditional SSD formats. As for your use of HHD, I have zero reason to be critical or a neigh sayer. Best choices for archiving are neither as mentioned that archival discs last longer. CD/DVD with some up to 100 years. Last - given HDD vs SSD used in the capacity of WORM for back up, SSD wins hands down with less to go wrong with it (assuming they are made for long term usage). WORM as in Write once, Read many. Given the latter, and if it was to be for decades of store, again archival discs are a far better way to go. cheers

 

[knappeduivel]

Was it there website showing how long hard drives last? The average life span of hard drive?

It is not about longevity of the drive. Data on ssd's degrade if they are not powered up regularly. Files become corrupt.

 

[Bubble99]

SSDs "limited read/write lifespan" is grossly overstated/exaggerated. On my mac server that I run 24/7 and host around a million documents/records that are being pulled and pushed to constantly throughout the day I was using roughly 1% a year when checking the SSD read/write capacity. Meaning my drive (if it continues linearly) will die in roughly 90 years from running out or read/write lifespan, and given that it was an old mac mini with limited RAM I regularly saw 10-15 GB worth of SWAP.

Average customer computers I've seen 1% every 3 years which means a 300 year life span if thats the only point of failure.

To make a long story short we upgraded the server after about 10 years to a new M4 mac mini with like 90% of read/write capacity on the old mac mini. Don't worry about it or even swap, you will replace your computer LONG before thats a problem.

That what I hear that hard drives only last 5 years where as SSD last about 10 years.