Re: The What You've just Bought thread!
That's fine if you don't care about preserving your data but many of us do. I have files going back 5 or more years that would be irreplaceable if I lost them due to a bad drive. Plus just leaving them sitting on a server doesn't accomplish anything, I actually use my pc so naturally I will need to have files on it.
Why shouldn't I store important files on a SSD? For me my critical data and the stuff I need to be fast are often one and the same.
If you have to take special precautions to keep normal usage from damaging a product that product is garbage. I can throw a Samsung 830 or Crucial M4 in a pc and install Windows 7 on it, make no changes or tweaks at all and it will work perfectly fine. I expect that same behavior from any SSD or HDD.
What proof do you have that good (aka not OCZ/Sandforce) SSDs aren't reliable? Although in an enterprise environment if you expect any storage to be immune to failure you are are asking for trouble. However you should still use the most reliable products you possibly can since failures still cost time and money to fix.
I'm pretty sure that there is no difference between accessing pictures and music between a drive and an SSD (because they are so small), or rather if you access every single one of them at every single moment of every single day. I store all of my pictures, music, documents, important saves, emulator saves, resume's, band set lists, guides, reviews, review charts, instruction manuals, important PDFs, chat logs, videos, games, applications, downloaded files, and any other possible thing I might not be bothered to backup on my server. Putting my things on my server IS my backup because my drives are completely reliable. I have been saving electronic things that can be stored since the time I got my own computer which was in 1999. Pictures that have been scanned and burned in my parents fire are on my server, video recordings I made digital that have burned in the fire are on my server, memorabilia that has been burned that has anything to do with my dad that absolutely cannot be replaced is on my server. Trust me when I say, I understand the importance of reliability and that I would not trust any one SSD in the market with anything that important to me. The whole point of me having a file server is because I am the only person at any given time that can do any damage, harm, or change to those files. Each drive is fast considering, and I have a gigabit network and can transfer anything from my server generally around 55-75MB/s. That is plenty fast for me, considering I access my server very seldom.
If you cared so much about your "data", then you wouldn't be trusting such an infant technology with things that are so "precious". That is my whole point. The reliability of an SSD goes as far as doing your day to day tasks such as loading an OS, browsing, gaming, and doing whatever reliably for a given amount of time depending on how you treat the drive. The same can be said for a HDD too. If you lash ant ANY SSD with constant writes and reads for long periods of time they will slow and fail. Just like if you had a running laptop and were tossing it around while copying files you are pretty much doing the same thing to both drives. The technology is different so therefor the weaknesses will be different., therefor the analogy is just.
Now to your first paragraph. I answered the server thing already. The files are readily there via mapped network drives. No different than accessing an actual drive in your system. I have files, I use my PC a lot everyday, and I have no problem with knowing my files are safe and sound away from the internet and day to day activities.
Already answered why you shouldn't store important files on an SSD. If you are so worried about quality then you buy an enterprise class SSD which is guaranteed quality for that purpose or simply use a larger HDD. With my method, I don't need to consistently backup my data. When I need to format, I have no worries. On that note, if you were so sure of the quality of your drives then you wouldn't need to backup meaning that you don't even believe the BS you are spewing.
Sure you can throw those SSDs in there and the difference between how long they will last will be huge. My first gen SSD was technically supposed to be dead when I traded it but since I took all the SSD precautions it lasted me almost 4 years straight. IIRC, those were the SSDs that were only supposed to last 2 years with regular usage. Your SSDs could last 5 or 6 years and with the way I do my setup mine can last longer. I see nothing wrong with taking a few more minutes to preserve my money. Considering my reformat speed is faster than most, really see no difference there.
It's been widely known that SSD's will not last as long as mechanical drives since the time the technology came around. There are some of the first HDDs ever created still going after many many years of regular use. I bet you will not be able to say the same of first gen SSDs in 10 years. Not even the one I had.
I love the SSD as much as the next guy, but you are seriously going way in left field with this "quality" and "reliability" argument. You expect more out of the product than what it's meant for. WD and Seagate green drives are meant for long term data storage. Not your average 80 dollar SSD. Those are meant to make your boot drive and games load faster. Maybe even larger programs if you get a bigger one.