Need long-term reliability instead of speed for music server, SSD or HDD?

[Nalens Oga]

I know SSDs are preferred in most cases but this will be a drive that's on 24/7 to stream music (and maybe movies) over a home wifi network connected to a RPi that's always on and it also will not be moved. I may also run Pi-Hole (DNS adblocker) from the hard drive directly.

In this case, would you guys recommend an SSD or an HDD? From what I understand, SSDs have a shorter life but are less likely to fail and are faster. For the purpose of this, I don't need speed since the music files are just mp3s. I just want something I can plug in and leave without failing for years.

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[SniperHF]

I'd get 2 drives and run a RAID 1. That way if one fails you'll have the other drive mirrored and can rebuild the array with the one you get back on warranty/new drive.

The actual type of drive probably doesn't matter much. SSD lifespans are quite long and that problem was always overstated. They do have a limited number of writes but that number is pretty high even on cheap drives.


The SSD Endurance Experiment: Casualties on the way to a petabyte
Even the crappier drives from 4 years ago lasted well into the hundreds of terrabytes.

For cost reasons I'd probably just go with mechanical drives though since I'd want 2 for that RAID array.

 

[JaegerDice]

I'd still go SSD.

I know there's been some reported problems, but over the long haul Ill always go with the option that has fewer moving/mechanical parts.

 

[Nalens Oga]

For cost reasons I'd probably just go with mechanical drives though since I'd want 2 for that RAID array.

I already have a 240 GB Samsung EVO 850 so I can get a 2nd 240 GB SSD, they're always on sale for around the same price as a 1 TB HDD anyways though you have to pay for a 2nd enclosure.

The pain in the ass with the raid setup though is doing it on a raspberry pi since I don't have a devoted NAS and am basically using the Pi as a NAS (which I've heard is a terrible idea but it's just for streaming music not high bit-rate video).

 

[Kestrel]

I already have a 240 GB Samsung EVO 850 so I can get a 2nd 240 GB SSD, they're always on sale for around the same price as a 1 TB HDD anyways though you have to pay for a 2nd enclosure.

The pain in the ass with the raid setup though is doing it on a raspberry pi since I don't have a devoted NAS and am basically using the Pi as a NAS (which I've heard is a terrible idea but it's just for streaming music not high bit-rate video).

The big reason I'd go mechanical is the amount of storage space - but if you're pretty sure you won't go over that much space, you're fine with what you have. Music, I doubt you would need more space than that unless you have a massive collection - movies could be a different story. If you decide that's all the space you need, I'd maybe buy the cheapest drive with the necessary space regardless of what kind it is, and use it as a backup - even if the NAS scenario isn't ideal, you can still do a manual backup every so often - just make sure you remember, and actually do it.

 

[guinness]

c) A cloud service, like Google Play Music. Can access from anywhere, and in the case of GPM, IIRC, you can backup like 50 GB for free.

For local storage, I'd get a NAS grade HD, still bigger and cheaper (per GB than an SSD). In a couple years, I will gladly welcome my TB SSD overlords, but that time isn't now.