I'm unaware of any issues with X-ray systems and SSDs.  Given the large number of people who are putting their SSD equipped laptops through airport X-Rays I think one would have heard long ago if there were any significant data loss concerns.

The last time I saw any numbers--and these are all manufacturers estimates from a couple of years ago, so take it with a huge amount of salt--SSD's were said to have a Mean Time Between Failure of about 2,000,000 hours vs 1,500,000 for traditional hard disk drives.  Your mileage might vary wildly.

Actually failure/replacement rates are highly proprietary for any of those vendors.  You'd need to be the NSA to get at that data.   Or a company as big as Apple who's deployed hundreds of millions of those drives and have their own internal statistics.

Arthur Gaer
[log in to unmask]

Senior Systems Manager 
Harvard University
Department of Mathematics
Science Center
1 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-1610


On Jan 13, 2016, at 2:35 PM, CJB <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks folks for your opinions and expertise. What's the risk of
> losing all data stored in a SSD going through an airport x-ray machine
> or worse? And what's the expected longevity (i.e. of the integrity of
> data recorded) compared to a high end spinning mag. drive? Let's say
> at the Terabyte level of storage. Thanks - Chris B.
> 
> On 13/01/2016, Arthur Gaer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Mac laptops can only be configured with Solid State Drives now.  They
>> haven't put spinning hard drives in laptops for several years, though you
>> can get the SSD's up to 1terabyte in size.
>> 
>> The one exception you shouldn't waste money on: it's a single low end model
>> that hasn't changed since 2012, heavy, with a slow processor and slow
>> memory, low res screen, etc.  It's not a modern computer.  Even Apple's
>> cheaper laptops take SSD's.
>> 
>> The fact that Apple, which has to service their own systems, has gone to all
>> SSD's should tell you a lot.  SSDs have no moving parts so less prone to
>> failure, especially in a laptop environment where they're subject to all
>> sorts of physical stresses.  They're also roughly 5-10X faster than a
>> spinning hard drive, use far less energy (which increases battery life in a
>> laptop) and put off far less heat (which means less cooling and thus greater
>> battery life in a laptop).  They also don't add vibrations and they take up
>> a lot less space in the confines of a small laptop.
>> 
>> SSD's keep getting faster and even more reliable while the prices keep
>> dropping precipitously.  There's only three hard drive manufacturers left in
>> the world.  I'd be shocked if there were still production lines in 10 years.
>>  I wouldn't be at all surprised to find them gone in five years.
>> 
>> Arthur Gaer
>> [log in to unmask]
>> 
>> Senior Systems Manager
>> Harvard University
>> Department of Mathematics
>> Science Center
>> 1 Oxford Street
>> Cambridge, MA 02138
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Jan 13, 2016, at 1:38 PM, Adam Jazairi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>>> The technology is similar (both are non-volatile solid-state memory), but
>>> the flash drives you'll find on a laptop nowadays generally have more
>>> storage than an SD card and are much faster. That said, a 1TB SSD will
>>> cost
>>> a premium compared to a 1TB HDD. It's been a couple years since I bought
>>> my
>>> Macbook Pro, but I think it was something like $200 extra just to upgrade
>>> from 128GB to 256GB.
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 1:07 PM, CJB <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Thank you - but aren't flash drives the same as SD cards?
>>>> 
>>>> But a 1TB conventional drive seems OK.
>>>> 
>>>> CJB
>>>> 
>>>> On 13/01/2016, Stewart Gooderman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>> MacBook Pro 13” can be gotten with a 1 TB hard drive.
>>>>> MacBook Pro 15” can be gotten with a 1TB flash drive.
>>>>> 
>>>>> DrG
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Jan 13, 2016, at 9:14 AM, CJB <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> BTW if anyone knows of a brand (not Lenova with in built spyware) that
>>>>>> offers laptops with proper hard-drives do let me know. As others have
>>>>>> opined re: SD cards aka solid state 'drives' of limited robistness,
>>>>>> please let me know.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> CJB.
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Adam Jazairi
>>> Digital Collections & Preservation Librarian
>>> Boston College University Libraries
>>> (617) 552-1404
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>