SSDs for data backups

[Lady Fitzgerald]

When I run the 'lsusb' command for my external USB SSD drive, I get:
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 174c:1153 ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge

Is there an easy way to tell if it supports Trim? The enclosure I use is a no-name brand, but it seemingly uses an AsMedia "ASM1153" chipset with these specs: https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/995Y ... 5QN8GhBwRC
Alas the specs don't mention "Trim". I use my el-cheapo Kingston A400 SSD drive in the enclosure.

I'm not sure if I should play Russian Roulette and try the udev trim rule on it anyway? Thoughts?
Thanks!

Trying to use the udev rule on a device that doesn't support trim won't harm the computer; it will just add a bit of background cutter. Before making any kind of a change like that to my computer, I make a Timeshift snapshot so, if something did go alfalfa conductor (aka haywire) or just didn't work, I can simply restore the snapshot.

[Venus Flytrap]

Thank you very much, antikythera and Lady Fitzgerald. Excellent info.

[Marie SWE]

SSD for short time multiple backups may work.... But.. I would never use SSD for long term backups.. and in case of a problem it is easier to recover data from an HDD.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

For long term cold storage, aka archival, I would use archival optical discs (DVDs or BDs) but I have too much data for them to be practical. Tape would be the best archival solution for me and the tapes are not expensive but the hardware needed to write to and read from the tapes is expensive.

The way I deal with it is to not have any cold storage. By actively accessing all of my backups frequently, besides keeping the backups up to date, I will know if the media the backups are on are still viable instead of finding out a long time from now that something went horribly wrong when it's too late to do anything about it. Having multiple backups also dramatically reduces the chances of losing data due to media failure.

After archival optical discs and tape, HDDs are the best option for long term, offline data storage, both in longevity and cost effectiveness. I use SSDs mostly because they are much smaller and lighter, taking up less space and being easier to carry a bunch of them around without blowing out my back or shoulders (being old and handicapped sucks). The added expense of SSDs over HDDs is more than adequately justified by the advantages. Since I power up and read them (actually, my backup program reads them) no more than four or five weeks apart, I'm not worried about losing data due to charge loss.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have a redundant computer with defective circuitry and two good SSDs of 250 GB capacity if I recall correctly. Would it be worthwhile extracting one of the SSDs and encasing it somehow for use as a data backup? Is it even possible to do such a thing with a USB connection to the new computer?...

Yes, you can. In fact, I do exactly that to backup my laptop.

I've found only three enclosures that support TRIM over USB. The ones I use for my laptop are Startechs S251BU31REMD (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071J ... UTF8&psc=1). These are a bit pricey but they have the advantage of being able to connect both by A USB cable and via SATA when plugged into a compatible dock in a desktop computer. These enclosures are built as rugged as brick outhouses. For me, this will allow being able to use the enclosures/drives as a sneakernet solution for syncing data between my laptop and my future desktop machine so they are worth the added expense to me. It is a bit of a pain to install and remove an SSD so SSDs should be permanently be installed in these.

A more economical, and equally good, if not better, enclosure is made by Cable Matters (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CQ ... UTF8&psc=1). This little gem is tool free so installing and removing SSDS is easy peasy, slick and sleazy; just slide off the cover, plug or unplug the SSD, then replace the cover. Or don't replace the cover if you prefer. I often use mine as a USB to SATA cable since I have yet to find a cable that actually does support TRIM in Linux (many claim to but they lie; I've tried a lot of them, including the Startech listed above). In fact, I have four of them with no covers setting on my desk, connected to my laptop about to finish up a backup. I love these little buggers; they are compact and easy to use. I have a total of ten of them, four that have SSDs permanently installed, and six that are used as cables.

Since I label the three edges of my bare SSDs (the two side edges and the end that doesn't have the connector), I cut a notch in the end of the plastic cover (where the ventilation holes are) so I can read the label on the end of the SSD when the cover is installed.

The third enclosure is for M.2 NVME drives and is made by Pluggable (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N4 ... UTF8&psc=1). While I use these without the case as a cable for quickie formatting and testing Rescuezilla images, the only cooling is by air directly on the SSD's chips. The case, when used with a thermal transfer pad, becomes a heat sink. This works best when permanently installing an SSD into the enclosure. So far, I've gotten away with not using the heatsink/case but mostly because I run it only for short times, never more than ten minutes.

Running TRIM over USB is a bit of a pain because you have to create a udev rule for each model of device you use (one rule will cover all of each model). I attached a PDF I put together on how to do this in case you (or someone else) don't know how.


Enable Trim on an External SSD on Linux.pdf

I've found another NVMe external enclosure that also supports TRIM. It a Sabrent EC-SNVE (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RVC6F9Y?re ... tails&th=1). This one opens and closes like a long, skinny clam shell so, unlike the Plugable, a thermal pad can be used, and reused, when the case is closed up. It use the the same, or a variant, of the Realtek chip the Plugable uses; it even has the same Vendor and Product IDs so it wasn't necessary for me to create a new udev rule.

To install a drive in it, make sure there isn't a cable plugged into it, then push the button on the end, open the cover, and lay it all flat on a surface. Plug in the drive. For 2280mm long drives, there is a tiny little lever you turn to lock the drive in. For shorter drives, a little rubber nub, like the ones used in the Plugable, is included to lock them in (I would have preferred the rubber nub for all drives over the lever). Then, close the cover and plug in the cable.

The cover has a resuable thermal pad inside to transfer heat from the SSD to the cover which is supposed to act as as heat sink. I didn't bother to test that, though.

I used Disks to run some bench marks on both a Sabrent 8TB QLC SSD and a Samsung pro 512GB MLC SSD plugged into the USB 3.1 Gen 2 port in my laptop. Both got similar results with reads being in the area of 980MB/s and writes in the 548MB/s range, using both one of my cables and the cable included with the EC-SNVE (the included cable was roughly an inch longer than the cable I already had and ran a little bit slower, no enough to get excited about).

I then bench marked the same drives, using the same cables, to compare the Plugable to the EC-SNVE. Curiously enough, even though the Sabrent used the same, or a variant of the same, Realtek chip, the reads were around 890MB/s and the writes were around 750Mb/s, a rather startling difference of around 200MB/s more.

I'm going to keep the Sabrent in case I ever need to some heavy duty writing to a drive that could generate a lot of heat (not likely) but I'm going to continue to use the Plugables since they write so much faster and I rarely have to do any massive writes on my NVMe drives, negating heating concerns (not to mention I already have three of them). Still, it's nice to know that manufacturers are starting to make enclosures for NVMe drives that are trim compatible.