Opinions on using an SSD for recordings

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cliveb
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Opinions on using an SSD for recordings

Post by cliveb »

I've seen a number of postings from people who use SSDs for their Myth backends.
My use of MythTV is as a time shifting DVR - recording OTA broadcasts, watching and then deleting.
I don't archive recordings long term. Therefore my use involves a lot of write cycles, and until now I'd always believed that was not good for SSDs.
But maybe I'm out of touch with how modern SSDs operate.
The advantage of using an SSD instead of HDD would be the lower power consumption and zero noise.
Any thoughts?
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bill6502
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Re: Opinions on using an SSD for recordings

Post by bill6502 »

I use spinning rust for all recordings. Just my 2¢.
Gribnif
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Re: Opinions on using an SSD for recordings

Post by Gribnif »

My understanding is that the limit on write cycles in modern SSDs is pretty high and if a block becomes unwritable the firmware just takes one from its pool of extra blocks and uses that instead. Furthermore, if blocks do start to go bad, they will appear in the SMART reporting, so you know in advance if you're starting to have problems. While an SSD can of course fail catastrophically just like an HDD can for other reasons, hitting the write limit won't immediately cause a large number of blocks to become unusable.

That said, it's certainly still cheaper to use an HDD, even when you factor in the additional energy use.
cliveb
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Re: Opinions on using an SSD for recordings

Post by cliveb »

Thanks for the responses.
I asked on another forum and the resident hardware expert there confirmed that using SSDs for write-intensive applications isn't generally a good idea.
So I think I'll stick with HDDs for now.
nouglywires
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Re: Opinions on using an SSD for recordings

Post by nouglywires »

I built a new MythTV box a couple of years ago with an SSD, fast (Intel J5040) fanless motherboard, fanless PSU. Power consumption at the wall outlet is 4-12W.

I just checked the SMART data for the SSD:
16,608 power-on hours.
12,336,792,952 LBAs written.
0 errors in all categories: read, write, CRC, ECC, erase fail, program fail, read retry, etc etc
Endurance (% lifetime remaining): 100%.

The response to remote button presses is absolutely instantaneous. You can hop back or forward as fast as you can press the button. It's a perfect viewing experience.
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