hard drive or solid state?

My 10 year old desktop failed last week.

The video card had failed but I have recovered machine using a video output on the motherboard, allbeit at a lower definition.

The machine was made for XP but upgraded to 7 and upgraded to 10 last year.

Can I reuse the key for the 10 on a new machine? If so where do I find the key?

If I buy a new machine then what is the current view on hard or solid state storage?

Solid state are faster and less likely to go wrong for mechanical reasons. But are more susceptable to damage / corruption from out of spec power to the chips.

The main difference is when they have failed and data has to be recovered.

With a hard drive failure vitally important data can be retrieved by putting the disc(s) into another drive. Requires special equipment and knowledge and is very very expensive.

With a solid state drive it depends on the internal circuitry if data can be recovered. If it is a single chip with onterface, drivers and memory cells all on the same piece of silicon then recovery is almost certainly impossible. Many domestic market solid state drives are single chip ( cheaper to manufacture )

On the other hand aircraft black boxes the memory cells, the drivers and the interfaces are in separate chips so even if the interface and driver chips are damaged at impact the memory is almost certainly intact and with new drivers can be recovered.

Both Tony!!

SSD's have come down massively in price but I'd still go with a smallish (120 or 250GB) SSD for the boot drive and at least a 3TB mechanical drive for storage

Thanks folks.

But what about the key for the Win 10 ?

Definitely an SSD. You'll never want to go back after using one.

No idea about the Windows 10 key, I flat out refuse to be involved with 10.

bernardgreen said:

With a solid state drive it depends on the internal circuitry if data can be recovered. If it is a single chip with onterface, drivers and memory cells all on the same piece of silicon then recovery is almost certainly impossible. Many domestic market solid state drives are single chip ( cheaper to manufacture )

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Please show me one single SATA SSD using a single IC. Let's look inside some of the cheapest on the market (chinese crap excluded):

I think that to be realistic it is necessary to take into account the cheap Chinese SS drives!

If I buy an assembled desktop then I expect the SSD will be about the cheapest possible!

Do they have a reputation for reliability or not so much?

Agile said:

If so where do I find the key?

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Try http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

It will retrieve it.

I believe I am right when I say that the licence key (from an upgrade) is specific to the hardware on which it was originally upgraded. For example PC "A" was upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Windows showed as activated. Hard drive failed on PC "A". A clean install of Windows 10 (the same version as previous) automatically activated when connected to the internet. I.E. Big Brother is Watching You!

As for SSD/Mechanical, I would go for SSD every time.

I'm not sure on the upgrade, with Windows it used to be if the software was OEM then it was for 1 machine use only. If it was the full price software it could be transferred.
AFAIK the Windows 7 key can be used to activate Win 10 if you had it as a free upgrade.

The issue with SSD as mentioned, when they go wrong they really do.

Recently set up a new computer and decided on twin SSD drives in a raid config to allow data to be striped which gives a lot quicker read and write speed but offers no redundancy.

For actual important data I bought a Symbology with a pair of NAS grade 4TB drives in the mirror each other (Raid0 if I remember right). Well worth the extra cost.

Agile said:

Can I reuse the key for the 10 on a new machine?

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Highly unlikely, and if you buy a new machine it will generally be supplied with Windows installed anyway.

Given the low price of SSDs now, it would be ridiculous to not have one. As for failures - all hard drives can fail. Attempting to recover data from it should not ever be necessary, since that is what backups are for.
There is no guarantee of recovering anything from a failed hard drive regardless of what type it is - and even if data can be recovered it will cost a fortune.

SammyInnit said:

For actual important data I bought a Symbology with a pair of NAS grade 4TB drives in the mirror each other (Raid0 if I remember right). Well worth the extra cost.

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Raid of any type is not a backup.
Mirrored drives will not help you if the power fails, a virus destroys your data, the Raid controller fails, you delete something by mistake, the device is stolen, damaged by flood, / fire or countless other possibilities.
It may be of value if the drive fails due to old age. However since you have 2 identical drives, the chance of them failing within a short time of each other is rather high, typically just after you replaced the failed one and the other is being used excessively while duplicating the data to the new one.

flameport said:

Raid of any type is not a backup.
Mirrored drives will not help you if the power fails, a virus destroys your data, the Raid controller fails, you delete something by mistake, the device is stolen, damaged by flood, / fire or countless other possibilities.
It may be of value if the drive fails due to old age. However since you have 2 identical drives, the chance of them failing within a short time of each other is rather high, typically just after you replaced the failed one and the other is being used excessively while duplicating the data to the new one.

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Id imagine that's why RAID is so unpopular and big biz doesn't spend thousands on it?

RAID for data redundancy is one element of a comprehensive system for data security. One RAID array isn't going to be as secure as 10 arrays with UPS support on servers with ECC memory and dedicated virus detection but it's certainly a lot more secure that not having even two drives in an array.

Yeah. Two drives could fail, that's why you use three, or four. It's dependant on how much of a chance you're going to take vs. cost you're willing to cover.

Again, it's better having one than not at all.

The reliability of SSD cheap or otherwise vs. spinning rust (conventional hard disk) is irrelevant, neither can be guaranteed not to fail, so the relative MTBF (mean time between failure) comparison is pointless. You have to backup your drives, an inexpensive portable USB3 disk or similar is perfect for backup. Even if you have RAID 1 or 1+0 or 5 etc or even triple mirror. You still need a backup. You need to protect from Logical failure (failure caused by you, your software or the Operating system) as well as physical (device failure).

Tony - your machine built for XP, which is now too old or slow to run windows 10 etc.. may run Linux min 18 - project Sarah very well. https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php its an open source (free ) alternative to Windows based on the Linux platform (the no1 OS for enterprise servers )

You can get 120gb SSD for <£40 which will be 10 times faster than a typical 7200 rpm drive. I'm currently running the above on an old DELL i5 laptop.

It boots in under 20 seconds. running windows 7 it was taking about 1 minute.
it is very hard to catch a virus, because its linux not windows.
its very similar to a mash up of windows XP, 7 and Mac OS in look and feel
It has lots of great software for free (equiv. of word, excel powerpoint, photoshop, imovie etc ) are pre-installed and free.
It will play any video format, not just those approved by Microsoft.

I'd seriously consider trying it in your current machine and forget the whole windows key thing until you have.

In terms of hard disk - its really size vs speed. a 1TB disk is about the same price as 120GB SSD. So how much do you need. With desktops you also have the option of hybrid - OS and programs on SSD and data, pictures etc on HDD (rust).

Agile said:

Thanks folks.

But what about the key for the Win 10 ?

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"Activation helps verify that your copy of Windows is genuine and hasn’t been used on more devices than the Microsoft Software License Terms allow. Depending on how you got your copy of Windows 10, activation will use either a digital license or a 25-character product key.
Digital license (called a digital entitlement in Windows 10 Version 1511) is a method of activation in Windows 10 that doesn't require you to enter a product key." Read on, here :- https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12440/windows-10-activation

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