[fjorder]

The last I checked the MTBF on SSD's was substantially longer than for hard-drives. Barring firmware bugs you should probably strike that off your list of reasons for not using a SSD.

Even if you do think SSD's are horribly unreliable, they're so fast that they're still worth using. Just put your OS and programs on a SSD and store your data on a HD. If the SSD fails, you've lost nothing you can't reinstall easily. I started doing this a couple of years ago and there's absolutely no going back.

[wmf]

Unfortunately almost all SSD models have had noticeable firmware bugs. But they're still worth it; just have backups.

[qq66]

We've had 3 SSD failures out of 5 SSDs, and 0 magnetic failures out of 8 magnetic drives in our office over the last 2 years. We definitely keep only OS, programs, and VMs on SSDs.

[jcnnghm]

Your sample size is too small, and your data isn't independent. Both magnetic disks and ssds fail, multiple backups are the only way to protect data.

[barrkel]

I've had 3 failures out of 8 HDDs and 0 out of 2 SSDs (Intel X25M and Samsung 830) in the same period.

At this point I would recommend buying SSDs that have proven track records; don't buy cheapest on the basis that any SSD is better than any HDD.

[qq66]

We bought all of them on reliability track record alone.