SSD as a Router Media Drive

ESEMCE on 07/01/2015 - 08:36

Hi guys,
I have the -$15 DLink DIR-865L which has a USB port capable of powering a USB Hard Drive and iTunes Media Server. Pretty standard fare for mid-high end routers these days.
I'm keen to utilise it for Music Streaming but have been wary of using a spinning drive for fear of failure as I don't imagine that there is much logic to spin down the drive when not required.

With SSD prices dropping again, 60Gb drives are now at a tempting pricepoint to use instead of a spinning drive.

Question is, will an always on environment rapidly degrade an SSD?
My understanding is that SSD's are worn out by write cycles, but I'm aware that my knowledge is fairly limited.

Computing

Comments

  • DrStinge on 07/01/2015 - 08:57

    SSD Life cycles now are largely irrelevant - you would get at least a few good years out of it where (from experience) it would die earlier from the connector interface than the drive itself. SSD are lower powered than standard drives however there are mechanical drives such as the WD Red which are designed specifically for NAS - Umart sells them for $85 starting at 1TB scaling up to for example 4TB at $219, quite decent bang for buck.

    • ESEMCE on 07/01/2015 - 09:03

      For music, I don't need Terabytes..
      60Gb would easily suffice.

      Power is a secondary concern.. why put the Router Power supply under undue load.

      • DrStinge on 07/01/2015 - 09:11

        Depending on your router it should put the drive to sleep when it's not being accessed, when someone clicks to access the drive it wakes it up like a standard PC does.

        On power in general though I would definitely go SSD. Seems like the logical choice.

      • [Deactivated] on 08/01/2015 - 10:17
        +1

        Why not use a high capacity USB memory stick, which are available and reasonably priced?

  • airzone on 07/01/2015 - 09:36

    Generally you're right.

    I've had mechanical hard disks running 24/7 for several years between replacements.

    In either case, you're unlikely to burn out either storage device within a few years of having it stationary and primarily just reading a low volume of data

  • p1 ama on 07/01/2015 - 10:47
    +2

    You're really worrying too much, just get the cheapest external hard drive you can find and it'll serve you for a while.

    • [Deactivated] on 08/01/2015 - 10:18

      I have a NAS box using 4 X 1T WD Green drives that has been humming along for years.

  • ashanrath on 07/01/2015 - 14:15

    My question is, why the SSD? The router will not be able to use even a fraction of it's top speed. Most routers can't even handle the full speed of a modern HDD and the CPU/RAM becomes the bottleneck.

    • ESEMCE on 07/01/2015 - 14:32

      Firstly, note that I'm only interested in music for this purpose, so capacity really isn't an issue (for music a 60-120Gb ought to be well and truly sufficient for most people, so a 500Gb drive is overkill).
      Speed is also not an issue.

      1) fear of a spinning drive spinning itself to death within 12 months - I have no faith that a router manufacturer would include anything intelligent in firmware to spin down the drive when not necessary.
      2) low standby (and operational) power demand. - Similarly have no faith that router manufacturers actually spec up their power supply to handle the rare few who might actually use the full feature set of the device.. ie Marketing adds features after the Engineers have completed the design under the watchful eye of the cost cutting Accountants.
      3) For music storage, the price difference is now into the negligible territory. 60Gb SSD was available at MSY for $40 last week cheapest standard price is $45. 120Gb SSDs around the $70 mark everyday, compared to the cheapest 2.5" HDD 500Gb $55..

      • p1 ama on 07/01/2015 - 16:12

        1) fear of a spinning drive spinning itself to death within 12 months - I have no faith that a router manufacturer would include anything intelligent in firmware to spin down the drive when not necessary.

        No, HDDs can spin 24/7 for years and not die. If you get one that dies within 12 months, you can return it under warranty because clearly you got something defective.

        2) low standby (and operational) power demand. - Similarly have no faith that router manufacturers actually spec up their power supply to handle the rare few who might actually use the full feature set of the device.. ie Marketing adds features after the Engineers have completed the design under the watchful eye of the cost cutting Accountants.

        Power consumption difference between an SSD and 2.5" HDD is negligible. You're talking like a matter of cents per year.

        3) For music storage, the price difference is now into the negligible territory. 60Gb SSD was available at MSY for $40 last week cheapest standard price is $45. 120Gb SSDs around the $70 mark everyday, compared to the cheapest 2.5" HDD 500Gb $55..

        But you can expand with the 500GB HDD, you can store a couple of movies and documents on there if you want. With the SSD, you're stuck in the water. You also have to consider getting an external enclosure to convert it to USB for your router, so the SSD does work out to be more for like 15% the capacity.

        If you don't want to use HDDs, just save yourself the trouble and like use a USB flash drive? Doesn't sound like you need the speed. 128GB flash drives are cheap as chips (excuse the pun).

        • ESEMCE on 07/01/2015 - 16:36

          You have far more faith in consumer grade tech than me. I'd hazard a guess that a warranty claim would likely be rejected based on run time.
          (But that's also why I asked the question…)

          Power consumption I'm more worried about load on the Router Power Supply than cost - the difference may only be 100-200mW, but for a 2000mW Poser Supply that's the difference between running at 80% (which is probably ideal) and 100% (which could mean a quick death on a hot Summer's day)

          Agreed, but I don't "need" movies and documents. I stream almost all my video content (the few I don't I run from my HTPC and my few documents are in the cloud for backup.

          and, check the prices, USB thumb drives are roughly the same price as cheap SSDs now. (USB caddy's are dirt cheap)

        • p1 ama on 07/01/2015 - 17:16

          You have far more faith in consumer grade tech than me. I'd hazard a guess that a warranty claim would likely be rejected based on run time.

          It won't be, as long as it's in the standard warranty period and you didn't like drop it or hit it with a hammer, you'll be fine.

          Power consumption I'm more worried about load on the Router Power Supply than cost - the difference may only be 100-200mW, but for a 2000mW Poser Supply that's the difference between running at 80% (which is probably ideal) and 100% (which could mean a quick death on a hot Summer's day)

          Not really, the difference between 80% and 100% for a 2W power supply is 400mW, not 100-200mW, which is the difference between 80% and 85% or 90%. 80% and 85% is negligible.

          and, check the prices, USB thumb drives are roughly the same price as cheap SSDs now. (USB caddy's are dirt cheap)

          Not really, a good USB3 one will still land you around $20 from MSY.

        • ESEMCE on 08/01/2015 - 07:55

          Yeah, maybe I have been too caught up with longevity, it's one of the reasons the question was posed.

          difference between 80% and 100% for a 2W power supply is 400mW,

          Yep you got me on my made up numbers.. Mathematical genius that I am renowned to be :-)
          But I'm making up the numbers, If the router Power Supply is only 1W, I'm right!
          And less load on the Supply is going to be better. I don't want to kill my free router gaddamit! When is another bargain like that one going to come up?

          a good USB3 one will still land you around $20 from MSY.
          @paulsterio:

          Not even close…
          64Gb - cheapest $35
          128Gb - cheapest $75

          ie roughly on par with an SSD..

          And I'm assuming here that even a bottom end SSD has better error correction and subsequently longevity than even a high end Thumb Drive.

  • techhead on 07/01/2015 - 14:45
    +1

    If you are using it as just a music server, I'd skip the idea of an SSD and just get a cheap USB 128GB Flash drive, if you are reading music only from it it will last at least 10 years. I have used an SSD in a recycled external hard drive enclosure though and it was excellent.

  • PVA on 07/01/2015 - 14:45

    as for power, I use a desktop Seagate on my TP link. Works fine, had it fore 3 or 4 months so cant comment on the life. And I assumed a green drive spins down when not being accessed (smarts for this are in the drive not the pc or router I thought).
    I asked a similar thing, was going to get a portable drive but was advised against it.

    Instead of SSD why not buy a 64gig thumb drive - streaming music would be fine speed wise. An SSD and then an external case would as a guess be more dollars.

    • ESEMCE on 07/01/2015 - 15:00

      I have the same questions about a Thumb drive as an SSD..
      I believe an SSD would have a longer life than a thumb drive, due to better error correction but happy to be proven wrong.
      and Big Thimb drives are a similar price! (factoring in that I already have a USB caddy that could house the SSD)

      • PVA on 07/01/2015 - 15:14

        dickies has a Sandisk Cruzer usb - 5 year warranty (on sandisks site) - $49 http://www.dicksmith.com.au/usb-hard-drives/sandisk-cruzer-s…
        I am sure other known brands are similar.

        • ESEMCE on 07/01/2015 - 15:21

          This whole idea arose from MSY's 60Gb SSD for $40.
          Even if you didn't already own a USB caddy, they can be had for $6 on eBay.
          For a total of $46.

        • PVA on 07/01/2015 - 19:01

          @scubacoles:
          I guess. It was only an example. Toshiba 65g USB ones are $35 and I am sure there's cheaper.

          report back when you have it all going and let us know.

          as I mentioned I have a seagate desktop drive plugged in then all one at home can access it (media server) - ps3 , TV , PCs etc. I also back up to it (but also back up to another drive). It was only $79 for 2TB and I think of them as disposable items even though the only HDD I have had fail was a few weeks back when the PS3 drive failed, been lucky I guess with all external drives.

        • ESEMCE on 08/01/2015 - 07:57
          +1

          @PVA:

          Yeah, I think the moral of this story is "It's less than $100 dude, just buy a HDD already and if it fails, buy a replacement.. we've already "spent" $100 in time talking/arguing about this!"

  • srhardy on 08/01/2015 - 11:19

    The DIFFERENCE ive found (having both regular HD and SSD fail on me) is you get no warning on a SSD but you can usaly hear the ticks and grinds that often warn you of a hardware failure and gives you the chance to do something about copying your info off. But not always as drops kill HD often DOA instantly.

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