Which SSD to buy?

[Ink stained Fingers]

If I'm remembering correctly, this article had something to offer about that.

Even though the content is from 2013, it's a very informative read
about longevity and endurance of SSDs.

Although it's from 2013 it is very informative, the tests in the c't magazine were quite similar - they tested lots of drives by wearing them down to their exit - some newer models in 2017 but with the same approach.
The SSD/flash memory market is expanding fast, and the range of models is widening - from low cost to heavy duty - server special types - other form factors, other interfaces , much higher usage ratings etc . Even with microSD cards now at 1TB consumers should be covered very well across all ranges - performance , pricing . I'm doing backups now to SD cards - those once a month backups of system files after the Microsoft patch day, you get pretty good write speeds today - if your card reader/USB connection is not throttled down by poor performing hardware as I reported elsewhere.

 

[SkedAddled]

2) Deciding on which drives to purchase based on the benchmarks run by thousands of peeps. I can get the best bang-for-my-buck and be pretty confident when comparing the performance/$$$

I'll give you that much, to be sure,
but what about MTBF or other parameters such as percentage of physical failure rate?

Manufacturers provide MTBF, which can be useful,
but determining rates of physical failure between makes, or even within makes,
is a unicorn hunt. Name all the 'Big' makers you can think of, and reviews
of each and each every model from every maker will read similarly:
Some are bulletproof, some are DOA, some are everlasting, some are short-lived.
There's not a single HDD maker out there which has shown to be better or worse
than any other, and with increasingly-higher capacities, the reliability appears
to be even more of a crap-shoot due to the physical activities the drive
must do when it's asked to do something.

You can benchmark until the end of days, but such testing puts far more stress
on a physical HDD than the majority of real-use scenarios, thereby leading
to more overall use, eventually leading to a sooner failure.
The same can be said for SSDs, as the testing typically needlessly fills up
and erases memory cells, which in itself, is a cause for NVMe and other such
memory used in SSDs, to break down and fail.

 

[SkedAddled]

You should know by now (EUFI) that my typing fingers sometimes have a mind of their own.

Good enough. It's still termed UEFI, though.

 

[SkedAddled]

You offered no explanation for what is exactly happening with the drive, so advice is limited.

It's a physical hard drive, as mentioned.

It crashed. Some clicking, sometimes it won't spin.
It spins now about half the times it's given power.
Windows 7 was running; it crashed during normal use.
Error one moment, bluescreen the next.
Total failure from the OS afterwards.
Switch to SSD immediately followed.

Sometimes a BIOS disk failure, sometimes a partial startup.
It's been 2 to 3 months since it's been powered, as I don't want to
stress it any more than I already have.

I've used the Linux-based 'ddrescue' in attempt to recover,
but unsure if my setup has enabled a proper log file
to enable continuation later.

I believe I have a USB stick properly enabled with persistent memory,
but am unable to confirm, due to my unfamiliarity with *Nix flavors,
so unable to confirm existence of a LOG file.

When disk is spinning, progress is reported.
Spin may stop at any time, making it difficult to track progress.

 

[stratman]

It's still termed UEFI, though.

Like... DUH!

 

[stratman]

It crashed. Some clicking, sometimes it won't spin.

If the platters do not spin then nothing will help except paying big money to a data recovery business. Even then it is a crapshoot.

Two things come to mind that you can try at home:

1. SpinRite - Low level access. Non-destructive. Payware. May not help with your scenario.
   
2. Freezing the drive - Probable one-shot deal only. An old school temporary "fix" for overcoming platter-head stiction, for an unknown brief time if it works at all, so you might get some data copied off the bad drive. Modern drives may not respond at all due to different technology than in the past and freezing may further damage the drive. Definitely last ditch Hail Mary effort.

I believe I have a USB stick properly enabled with persistent memory, but am unable to confirm, due to my unfamiliarity with *Nix flavors, so unable to confirm existence of a LOG file.

I do not have familiarity with this but thank you for bringing it to my attention.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Clicking noise - that's the end of the drive - try to copy as much data from it as you can but don't use it anymore for any regular work. Access to track 0/the administrative/maintenance track with the partitioning/format information, the pointers to the file tables cannot be read anymore reliably, so the drive is not recognized at all or drops out later. Scanning with recovery software can help which tries to read track by track and to put data sections toghether into files again, even if file allocation tables or similar are not accessible, missing, destroyed, overwritten. Since failure modes can be different some recovery software have an option to do a sector by sector copy first to another working drive and to do the actual data recovery from there, so you are not running the actual file recovery on the almost dead drive. It all takes time, you may get your data back - complete or partially , there is no guarantee.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

some more readings on SSD's - flash etc
https://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-slc-mlc-and-tlc-nand-flash.html
https://www.reneelab.com/difference-slc-mlc-tlc.html

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

If you are running an ADATA SSD or are planning to get one, ADATA offers a Toolbox with maintenance software
for their SSD drives
https://www.adata.com/us/ss/software-6/

And there is a SSD_Life utility providing health data for all major SSD drive types, they offer a trial period
https://ssd-life.com/index.html

 

[stratman]

What's with all the payware, ISF?

Cutting to the chase on software for SSD's...

http://m.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/ssd_tools.html

and

https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-services/ssd-health-check-test-tools