power outages and SSDs?

[kingjames488]

is this a thing I should be concerned about?

my power goes out semi-frequently... I've only ever had an issue with data corruption on my hard drive once in many many years, but from what I'm seeing SSDs are more susceptible data loss/corruption or even bricking entirely in the event of a power outage?

is this an actual thing worth being concerned about or the sort of thing that hardly ever happens but can sometimes?

anyone have experience with power outages and SSDs?

[PopinFRESH]

It is largely an issue if you have a consumer SSD with a DRAM cache. They do not have power protection for the cache so anything that is in the process of being written and is in the SSD DRAM cache would be lost upon sudden power loss.

This is one of the specific differentiators with Datacenter/Enterprise SSDs that incorporate a capacitor backed DRAM cache so that upon sudden power loss the drive has enough power in its own capacitors to stay powered long enough to flush the DRAM cache to the NAND.

Usually you're only going to lose / have data corruption for whatever was actively being worked on if it involved disk IO (specifically writes to the disk). What that is specifically is kinda like the lottery; as you don't have control over how the SSD is performing the on-disk caching. If that occurs for example during OS updates, or similar, where system files are being modified then yes you can end up with OS corruption.

In regards to "just completely bricking" the SSD, that is nonsense.

If you have a cheap consumer SSD that doesn't have a DRAM cache then this isn't going to really be meaningfully different than your HDDs.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

No more of a problem then with HDDs. As they all use a DRAM Buffer as well. It's very small on pretty much all consumer drives though so it's doubtful you'd lose any important data.

Best bet practices are try not to use the Move option so much. Instead use the Copy option even if just as a means to copy data from one folder to another. That way should such a scenario happen you wouldn't lose anything and would just have to repeat the copy of data process again. Once such data is copied over to another folder or drive, when the process is completed then you can simply delete the data in the other folder and/or drive.

[plat]

Well, I don't know if this is "scientific" enuff but when I turn off a surge protector, I sometimes see a brighter flash before the light goes out. I don't like these spikes so if the power goes out across the board, you can't guarantee some spike beforehand doesn't happen.

An ssd is vulnerable like any other piece of hardware. However, the odds of this are very low (unless it actually happens to you): I would invest in a good SP or USP (universal surge protector) to modulate and even things out esp since you say power outages are not unheard of where you are.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If you live in an area prone to power outages, you should invest in UPS power backup for your PCs and other sensitive electronics.

[Andrius227]

Yeah. Get an UPS and maybe set up some kind of automated backup just in case. Having backups is just a good idea in general. Ssd’s/hdd’s can sometimes fail even when brand new.

[kingjames488]

from what I'm understanding it can be more of an issue with SSDs because of their usage management moving stuff around, and if it loses power while it's doing that it can corrupt whatever it was moving around at the time? data at rest I believe they call it?

if I have to pay like $600 for an enterprise level SSD or a power backup system I'd probably rather just stick with a hard drive lol.

[Dutchgamer1982]

if you have regulair power outages you should what I did when I was in an area where the power was less stable after some flooding (lets say here 230V means it NEVER gets below 229.96 and NEVER above 230.04 its about that tight a margin..

but in many other nations the net is less reliable.,. and it may fluectuate much more. like 210V at low and 250V at high)

that DAMAGES electronics.. so to solve that you put a travo with a battery in between.

the trave gives constant stable 230V whatever comes in.. and the battery supplies power even when the power drops below the output.

just hang a battery that can power your pc for like a solid 30 minutes and a travo in between your wall and your pc.

that way even with your power out.. you can close down your pc properly.

[potato]

i've never had an ssd fail due to a power outage and i've been using ssds since 2010

[PopinFRESH]

Postat inițial de kingjames488:

from what I'm understanding it can be more of an issue with SSDs because of their usage management moving stuff around, and if it loses power while it's doing that it can corrupt whatever it was moving around at the time? data at rest I believe they call it?

if I have to pay like $600 for an enterprise level SSD or a power backup system I'd probably rather just stick with a hard drive lol.

Correct, that is why this is more of a concern with SSDs that have a DRAM cache than it is with HDDs which also have a small cache. They function differently (specifically the controllers)

An HDD doesn't do wear-leveling, or anything similar. The controllers also handle IO requests differently. An HDDs cache is used to smooth out seeks and non-contiguous writes; but the disk doesn't inform the host that a write has been completed until it has been actually written to disk. That is substantially different to how an SSD controller with a DRAM cache utilizes the cache.

However, again, the notion that this would "brick" the SSD is nonsense; and what you're actually concerned about (e.g. system files becoming corrupted, etc.) is of minimal difference than doing the same thing with an HDD.

Moral of the story:

• Have working backups of important data
  
• Save frequently while working on things which do not have their own auto-save function
  
• If you know you have frequent power outages, or worse consistent power sags, get an in-line UPS for your computer.

EDIT: The above bullets apply just as much when using an HDD...

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Postat inițial de kingjames488:

from what I'm understanding it can be more of an issue with SSDs because of their usage management moving stuff around, and if it loses power while it's doing that it can corrupt whatever it was moving around at the time? data at rest I believe they call it?

if I have to pay like $600 for an enterprise level SSD or a power backup system I'd probably rather just stick with a hard drive lol.

I've yet to see an SSD just up and die because of these scenarios. Even having stuff going on in the OS and just turning the PC off with an external switch; no shutdown process, just power cut off instantly. Nothing bad happens in general compared to what has happened with using HDDs for the past 30 years.

[kingjames488]

Postat inițial de PopinFRESH:

However, again, the notion that this would "brick" the SSD is nonsense; and what you're actually concerned about (e.g. system files becoming corrupted, etc.) is of minimal difference than doing the same thing with an HDD.

except HDDs don't do the wear leveling thing?

I guess that's what I'm worried about... the SSD deciding it wants to randomly move files around and corrupting the system if the power goes out, since that's a thing that HDD do not do.

also I don't really see a small power backup as a solution since I could be sleeping or away from the computer for more than a few minutes when the power happens to go out.

Postat inițial de Bad 💀 Motha:

I've yet to see an SSD just up and die because of these scenarios. Even having stuff going on in the OS and just turning the PC off with an external switch; no shutdown process, just power cut off instantly. Nothing bad happens in general compared to what has happened with using HDDs for the past 30 years.

that's probably the most relevant and useful comment here... thanks :)

[Andrius227]

Postat inițial de kingjames488:

Postat inițial de PopinFRESH:

However, again, the notion that this would "brick" the SSD is nonsense; and what you're actually concerned about (e.g. system files becoming corrupted, etc.) is of minimal difference than doing the same thing with an HDD.

except HDDs don't do the wear leveling thing?

I guess that's what I'm worried about... the SSD deciding it wants to randomly move files around and corrupting the system if the power goes out, since that's a thing that HDD do not do.

also I don't really see a small power backup as a solution since I could be sleeping or away from the computer for more than a few minutes when the power happens to go out.

Postat inițial de Bad 💀 Motha:

I've yet to see an SSD just up and die because of these scenarios. Even having stuff going on in the OS and just turning the PC off with an external switch; no shutdown process, just power cut off instantly. Nothing bad happens in general compared to what has happened with using HDDs for the past 30 years.

that's probably the most relevant and useful comment here... thanks :)

A lot of the UPS’s are specifically designed for pc’s. They have usb cable and software and the pc knows the battery level and can do a normal shut down when battery power runs low.

You only really need a ups that can keep your pc powered for a few minutes.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Yes I know and understand all about UPS'. Not that I know it all. If you catch my drift. But I have used them at home from time to time. As with one place in particular I used to live we had unstable power and experienced numerous outages when it wasn't even stormy weather and such. But aside from having the PC connected I also had my Stereo and Monitors connected to the UPS. It gave roughly 10 mins runtime depending on the load. Usually that much if the PC was under a very high load at the time of the power outage. That's all the time you need. As the purpose is to be able to safely shutdown the PC. Only reason I had the stereo connected to it well was because it was over $1000 worth of equipment and I didn't want to risk it just being plugged into a cheap power strip.

Once I moved I didn't really need UPS' but at first I did replace my old ones when we as a household built new PCs a few times.

I've since done away with them. But I also have worked at plenty of places where we had those as well because of all the PCs we had there.

The bigger issue with power issues though are spikes and also rolling brown-outs. Those can be more dangerous to things like HDDs. I've been using good quality PSUs in our systems for past 20 years or so though which helps. Especially ones that came out around or after the time Intel Skylake came out as they were much better, such as 80 PLUS Gold and Platinum with good over-voltage protection and such.

[kingjames488]

ya, the power supply should smooth out most inconsistencies, that's kinda what it's supposed to do... but idk, maybe the new ones don't do power supply things anymore?

I'm not really interested in buying a UPS specifically to use an SSD though... I've never had any issues with anything being ruined from a power outage and if SSDs are that vulnerable I'm not really interested.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If anything it's always been the other way around. HDDs are that sensitive. As they have moving parts and power spikes or rolling brown outs can cause a HDD to basically "jump around" and experience things happening with the internals it normally would not experience