SSD C: Drive Kaput - Warning!

SO Marcus, that is a great suggestion is a backup to hard drive instead of an SSD. Since I and many others are not to up to speed on this maybe a little further explanation would help. For us using a PC with Win 8.1 is there Windows software to make a backup of the Operating system with programs of our boot SSD that can put the system back if the SSD fails without buying a different commercial program? If not it sounds like many like Acronis. Since I would only need to backuo one time, is there any freeware programs that will make this backup? Will this make a perfect backup that will put the computer back in playing mode as was before an SSD crash.

I don't use Acronis anymore since I don't have a valuable PC rig, but I have several friends who do. Many of them do an automatic nightly backup to their NAS - Acronis has this nice feature of incremental backup so you can store many versions compactly. Acronis also is agreeable to restore to drives of other dimensions than the original.

Yes Acronis is sweet. I personally create a full backup (true image) of the system drive whenever there are some major new software installs, upgrades etc. I let it run overnight. I have had to upsize my system drive as well at one point. Acronis did a beautiful job, Personally I do not use SSD for the system drive. I don't care if it takes a few more seconds to boot. But using an SSD for your render jobs, now that makes sense. Then the only thing you would lose is a render job should the drive crash. Of course once the renders are done, I take the finished goods off to archival storage.

Leaving my machine on all night to do backups (I occasionally leave it on to do uploads) is cost-prohibitive - our power costs are quite high, and I do see significant increases in the bill when I am working a lot.

Interested by the migration back to a spinning drive - even keeping such for my three internal working drives, possiby replacing all 4 drives with such as WD Red Sata 3 (which are twice as fast as my existing ssd's anyway, at least in theory)

The migration from the smaller Intel 320 series SSD to the larger Samsung SSD with AOMEI had an option that would have used all the space, but partitioning options allowed for extended volume if I'm using the terminology correctly so I keep the unused space on the same drive available.

It actually only takes a few hours, but I just let it run overnight with monitors turned off.

I never turn my computer off. I doubt I've had my system off for more than two days in the last two years. Very seldom is it not ftp'ing clips.

I hear what your saying Gene, I upgraded to crucial brand SSD earlier in the year, I have a small boot drive and two terabyte drives, one for editing and one for storage. I backup to my old sata drives but really only to provide working space, the last thing I need when busy is to have to do a re-install on my program drive if it toasts itself. Not had any problems with either IDE of SATA drives previously, but your situation regarding SSD is a worry.

I think I caused my own issue here - shutting off the computer by truncating the main power feed after it had locked up. I was angry at it. Not the first time, either. So I was asking for it. Kinda like taking out my anger at my parents years ago by speeding and getting my first ticket. Real mature.

So reasonable protection from sudden power loss would be either that gizmo for SSD's that Marcus mentioned in a post I can't find, or an uninterruptible power supply. And don't get mad at a machine.

TO respond to Rekindle - look up Aomei backupper. Free. Used it several times. It works well, but make sure to make sure the drive partitioning thing is something you look into.

Well, that could just as well have been a general power outage. There is imHo no excuse whatsoever to not put capacitors at a retail price of $1 on a modern SSD to ensure it can deal with this not uncommon scenario. I honestly believe that in a few years, no SSD will be sold without it. This is one of those things that really work me up. That and adding sugar in milk for elementary school kids. Companies with "do evil" as a slogan.

Anyway, long story short; you're safe with Intel S3500 (or S3700 whose price is counted in units of human kidneys). Most Pro versions of other drives has it too, but why go for the 2nd best. Intel owns the SSD market.

I'd consider a battery backed RAID (LSI MegaRaid or possibly an Adaptec) over a cheap UPS any day. A cheap UPS is just another point of failure. Pros of UPS is of course good protection of power surges (usually), pros of battery backed raid is that you have ~1GB of write buffer you can trust. This gives an immense speed boost, it really saves the drives (in particular SSDs), and arguments for supercap are lessened. The $1 cap to protect the drive has almost as much premium prices as a $1 IR output on a telly to make it 3d. So if you have a few SSD, choosing the non cap version could pay the price for the RAID card.

If anyone chooses the RAID path, please make sure you have the latest firmware on them and that you have the latest drivers in the OS. A burn in test and a careful check that there is not lingering irq conflicts is also a good idea before taking live. Also, please make sure you don't get the cheapest $1 cables from dx.com to connect them - surprisingly many drive problems originate in crap cables.

Also note; RAID5 is a perfectly decent choice for an SSD rig. Even if you have high speed requirements. But never use it without supercap or battery backed RAID.

Pond5 db uses S3700 on top of battery backed Raid: 2x paranoia.

For my laptop, I attached my 480gb SSD via USB dock and then cloned my 250gb SATA laptop boot drive to it. Acronis was smart enough to "expand" the volume to fill the new drive. I then just plugged the new SATA drive into the laptop bay and booted it right up.

On my desktop, when I rebuilt it, I installed Windows, my anti-virus, and essential apps (Office, Adobe, etc..) and base settings for the desktop, etc. I then imaged that as a "base" so that if things went south on my system, I could install the base image and quickly be back up and running. I've got an old USB Drobo attached that I back everything up to and it has worked as advertised. When I had a drive go bad last November, I just replaced it and didn't lose a thing. I'm hoping to get a Drobo 5N by the end of the year (I have one on my desk at work and it's great).