Storage SSDs and power blackouts

[Silly Cone]

Dear SSF lovers,

I am travelling to a place where blackouts are common and might happen up to several times a day. And I might even be spending a year in that area.

Should I avoid consumer grade SSDs without Enhanced Power Loss Data Protection (unless it's a notebook, able to continue running on battery during blackouts)?

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Easiest solution would be either a laptop or an UPS (at least to have time to save everthing).

 

[Silly Cone]

I think I either go with a laptop or a „server grade“ intel SSD in an ITX build. As I want to take it in my carry-on luggage in economy class, leading to weight and size restrictions.

 

[Silly Cone]

I could build a dope ass SFF PC for far less than a Precision 7530 would cost, especially as I don‘t need an eGPU. But no matter what, I want a an excellent (non noisy) CPU cooler which narrows the choice if it‘s gonna be a notebook.

 

[lhl]

Personally I think a laptop is the way to go, since it also means you can keep computing when the power goes out. Something like the new Ryzen Matebook D or Envy 13z seem pretty compact and well priced.

For SSDs, some consumer Micron drives have enough power loss prevention to prevent complete data loss. The Optane 900P might be the best reasonably priced option - it doesn’t have any DRAM I believe making it pretty safe, maybe worth looking into as enterprise drives get really expensive real fast.

One other option if you go with something like a NUC w a 2.5” bay are these cute tiny UPSs. I’ve never tried them but they look neat.

Speaking of which, if you’re going to call your new destination home for a while maybe getting a UPS isn’t a bad idea? Lead acid batteries are pretty cheap just about anywhere...

 

[thewizzard1]

I'm going to make the second recommendation to grab an off-the-shelf UPS (Lead Acid) for battery backup and power filtering, regardless of system choice. You can always ship a unit withOUT the battery to your new location (they are VERY light!!) and purchase a 6v or 12v battery on-site, they are indeed cheap and ubiquitous.

 

[Silly Cone]

Thank you for the recommendations! However a „silent“ cooling solution is a must for me, the main purpose of the machine will be music production.

If going the laptop route, I‘d probably want an i7-8850h. I have been eyeing on a Dell Precision 7530 just for the body. However I read they don‘t sell the drive kits seperately, so I‘d easily end up with >2100€ without any discrete video card, with 16GB RAM and drives just ordered to pull them out and replace them (if ordered as I please, I‘d easily hit 3k €).

Regarding an SSD: I ordered an Intel S4600 SATA SSD today (can still return it, though). 960GB version was 562€ (ouch) which however is far less than half of what those new 905P drives cost... It‘s a retrofit design for archaic legacy systems but for an enterprise drive it‘s quite a good deal, if preferring „safety“ over speed... It‘s surely fast enough for saving my photos and streaming audio tracks. I think I might keep it (it‘s probably also good if put into an external housing, in case I can‘t fit it inside my future machine).

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Honestly, laptop or not, if you're going to invest into high end stuff and will use it with poor quality electricity .... Please invest some money in a decent UPS. Data loss is the least of the possible problems.

 

[Silly Cone]

Good point. However there rarely seem to be serious problems with the older ATX builds of the locals (although not so many are found so my personal statistics may be incomplete).

Most problems over there seem to emerge from climate conditions (hot & wet) and from poor technology (cellphone batteries exploding in the hands of their owners being among the worst).