[geeks] Disks: recommendations?

[Mouse]

>>> [...SSD...], anything not bargain-basement third tier is typically
>>> now rated for multiple full device writes per DAY for longer than
>>> the entire rated service life of the drive.
>> What _is_ "the entire rated service life of the drive"?
> Well, for instance, Samsung 850 EVO drives carry a five-year
> warranty, and their 860 Pro drives are warranted for ten years.

Yeah, I suspected that would be the warranty time.  That's way too
short in my opinion; I have spinning rust drives that date back
decades.  Lots of drives from that era have failed, but there are
plenty left that still work fine.  But see below; I have trouble
stating why this matters to me.

>> Fair point - but stuck drives typically can be made to start another
>> time or two, enough to get one last read of their data.  Do SSDs
>> fail similarly, or do they just cross a line and go from "working
>> fine" to "completely dead" when their firmware decides it's had
>> enough?  I would hope they'd instead flip from "working fine" to
>> "read-only", but I have little faith such hopes would be realized.
> I think SSDs still tend to abruptly and completely fail.  Either they
> work or they don't, they don't really have a "degraded" mode.

That's what I expected, what was afraid of.

Spinning rust does that occasionally, but more often (at least in my
experience) it develops bad spots, with the rest of the drive still
working fine.

I'm having trouble stating, even to myself, why the difference is
relevant to me, but it is.

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