Which (used) boot drive would you choose for a guest PC?

[LongRunner]

So I have an old (2009~2010) PC which one of Mum's clients updated from, which I've decided to repurpose into a guest PC in the lounge at home.
It has a nice Gigabyte mainboard and the case is quite solid for a generic (certainly much better than the SilverStone PS08 or even PS14 ), so I've just had to put in a decent PSU (rather than the original Sun Pro) to make it trustworthy.

I have a 120GB Silicon Power SSD from an old office PC, but I trust enterprise‑grade HDDs (which the early-2000s 7200rpm models mostly were by default) much more than those cheap consumer‑grade SSDs; so even for a guest system, am I in such a rush to risk it with that?
(I've already ordered an Exascend enterprise SSD for my main PC, having swapped in an interim HDD since the Kingston consumer SSD was ailing…)

The suitable HDDs I have to hand are:

• ST380013AS (firmware 3.18, 2004-05-13) in excellent mechanical condition, but with an STMicroelectronics MCU (and a few other parts)
  It'll probably be cooled enough for the MCU to still survive a reasonable time, but if it does fail I'll have to obtain a donor drive to swap the PCB from.
  (Though I was able to salvage the thermal pad from one of my two now‑worn‑out Caviar Blacks, adding it between the PCB [behind the MCU] and HDA like Seagate themselves did on the Barracuda 7200.8/9/10…)
• WD800JD‑00LSA0 (2006‑03‑23) – I've happily used several of these; they aren't quite as hardy as the Barracudas (particularly against humidity), but definitely more‑stable than single‑platter IBM/Hitachis (which cut several corners) and at least their MCU is from Marvell (probably not as bulletproof as Agere, but surely better than STMicroelectronics ) despite using a SMOOTH. (And if that burns out, I already have spare PCBs on its siblings.)
  I could also use two independent units for dual‑booting Windows and Linux (without having to partition both onto a single drive), if needed…
• Samsung HD082GJ (2008-01) which is a single-head drive, in vaguely acceptable condition (no bad sectors, but still somewhat degraded and no longer outperforms the 2‑head Seagate and Western Digitals above) equipped with decent chips (Marvell MCU, motor driver unbranded but possibly Hitachi, and no small STMicroelectronics parts either).
• Samsung HD250HJ (2008-02) which I have three of, but somewhat overkill in capacity and their Marvell MCU gets quite hot (much more so than that on the 7200.7s), so I'd again only really trust it if you added a thermal pad between the PCB and HDA; I won't put them in the poll…
  I prefer to keep the boot drive small, so that I can easily transfer to a small SSD (if I later buy or salvage a quality enterprise/enthusiast model).
• I even have a second‑generation Raptor (WD360GD‑00FLA1, 2004‑03‑07), but it's worse-for-wear and no longer boots Linux quicker than the 7200s do…
• Of course I could also use a partition on the 1TB Caviar Black; but this would be harder to expand later, and I still trust the good early-2000s drives somewhat more… So I won't provide it as an option in the poll, either.

I prefer to save my ST380817AS (firmware 3.42), in excellent health with reliable electronics (Agere+SH6950, and I've replaced its lone STMicroelectronics original part – the +5V TVS diode – with an ON Semiconductor one salvaged from an ST310014ACE), as my top‑tier back‑up drive for special files (including a decent amount of videos from niche creators). Manufactured 2004‑12‑23 it's also close to the last 7200.7s still using leaded solder in the HDA – during 2005 the Barracuda 7200.7 ultimately gave in fully to RoHS, as evident in my youngest ST340014A (2005‑05‑12) and the last revision of the manuals
I have also preventatively refinished the PCB contact pads (by flowing on Sn60Pb40 solder, wicking away the excess until substantially flat, then thoroughly cleaning off the flux) on all my Barracuda 7200.7s made before that full‑RoHS deadline (for those made after then, I'll cross the bridge when I come to it).

In a pinch I could also use a PATA boot drive, but I prefer to save the mainboard's single PATA channel for other purposes (since my main PC is too new to include PATA at all). My ST3120026A (2003‑10‑12 with 'perfect' electronics from the factory, well used by its original owner) is now a recognized veteran – its heads are finally weary (with a noticeably ragged STR graph) of many years of high humidity in the shed, although it still has yet to suffer a single bad sector and apparently passes the extended self‑test nonetheless, so I'll keep it comfortably inside the PC case (but generally disconnected) for occasional offline backups…

[Behemot]

I wouldn't use ordinary hard drive for booting ever again. If possible not even in retro gaming rigs. If any, than some old SCSi enterprise drives (preferably 15k, even despite the noise; problem is, absolute majority are SCA-80 interface and those adapters from fleabay increased in price tremendously!!!).

If I occasionally do that, always reminds me right away what terrible idea that is. Really. Nobody wants to be sitting in front of it, staring at it and waiting minutes before it crunches anything. Put any SSD in there, even the El Cheapos, does not matter really. If you wanna save time in case it does go bad, than as soon as everything is done, clone an image of the system to any of those HDDs, where you'll link documents and other (mostly) static files too.

What makes me kinda nervous is this thread I've run into on one of the czech forums that many SSDs tend to get seriously fucked after few years with lot of data which is not moved around much. I knew that you have to turn anything with SSD on at least once a year so the drive does its maintenance and messes around with data - refreshes the oldest data cells. What surprised me is that this seems to be NON-FUNCTIONING FOR MANY DRIVES!!!! Dunno why, maybe they want to save the speed penalty, so even drives being in use every day, seem to gradually develop symptoms of extremely bad performance and so long access times that OS often labels the cells as bad blocks (?!?). You either have to use some specialised SW to force it into overwriting, or remove all data, do slow rewrite of the WHOLE drive, and put back, since that moment it will run OK for some time again.

But even despite this, especially for system drive, with the current prices when 120GB drives cost few bucks, would never consider using HDD ever again. Two years ago I've placed 7k2 drive into some dirty cheap laptop with Core Solo cause and SSD would really increase its price substantially (and nobody would pay that). Today, I'd most likely place SSD even into such machine, cause they are just so cheap now.

[LongRunner]

If any, than some old SCSi enterprise drives (preferably 15k, even despite the noise; problem is, absolute majority are SCA-80 interface and those adapters from fleabay increased in price tremendously!!!).

Well I tried the WD360GD‑00FLA1 first (since it's the smallest that was easier), but in the end the ST380013AS actually boots Linux quicker – because the Barracuda (like most of them) is healthy and still delivers its original data rate (without missing a beat), whereas my Raptor is worse-for-wear and (although still seeking quickly) has dropped to ≈40MB/s (on par with the Barracuda ATA III from late 2000 ). Therefore I've had to remove it from the poll
Since Linux (unlike Windows 10 and 11 ) is still reasonably well-optimized, it spends the majority of its boot-up time on sequential reading.

(If I was going for a high-RPM SCSI/SAS drive, I'd pick a Savvio 10K.1 (ST973401LC/ST973401SS) – not only were they super cute and even faster than the Cheetahs, but their smaller form factor keeps them on the safe side of platter edge speed: 65mm diameter at 10krpm gives 34.034m/s, versus 35.814m/s for the normal “3.5 inch” 95mm platters at 7200rpm, or indeed 36.757m/s for the ancient Elite's “5.25 inch” 130mm platters at 5400rpm. Interestingly the pioneering IBM 350 Disk File of 1956, with its 24‑inch platters at 1200rpm, comes out at 38.302m/s – the more things change, the more they stay the same
It's a pity Seagate never got the chance to make a SATA variant with desktop-optimized firmware – Western Digital's VelociRaptor grabbed the opportunity in 2008 and handily delivered the performance, but was crippled by major firmware bugs. The “Savvio SATA” was a missed opportunity for sure…)

If I had no intention of ever upgrading to an SSD, I'd just put everything on the 1TB Caviar Black; it's well-known on StorageReview that Hitachi's huge 5‑platter flagships (7K400, 7K500, 7K1000 & 7K2000) surpassed the desktop performance of the smaller Raptors preceding them, and the same goes for the Caviar Blacks themselves Plus this is one of the earlier Caviar Blacks which still supported AAM, so would be quieter too.

Anyway I'll see how much space we actually use on the boot drive, then we can obtain an enterprise SSD of appropriate capacity…

What makes me kinda nervous is this thread I've run into on one of the czech forums that many SSDs tend to get seriously fucked after few years with lot of data which is not moved around much. I knew that you have to turn anything with SSD on at least once a year so the drive does its maintenance and messes around with data - refreshes the oldest data cells. What surprised me is that this seems to be NON-FUNCTIONING FOR MANY DRIVES!!!! Dunno why, maybe they want to save the speed penalty, so even drives being in use every day, seem to gradually develop symptoms of extremely bad performance and so long access times that OS often labels the cells as bad blocks (?!?). You either have to use some specialised SW to force it into overwriting, or remove all data, do slow rewrite of the WHOLE drive, and put back, since that moment it will run OK for some time again.

I know better than anyone – the silent data corruption from that SandFarce-controlled Kingston SSDNow V+200? At least AU$10,000 gone in lost productivity, and heavy trauma to both me and Mum. My last (non‑SandFarce) Kingston doesn't seem to have corrupted anything, but it did slow down below 30MB/s (which the Barracuda 7200.7 can do even on its innermost zones) causing severe lag at regular intervals (at least the Samsung HD250HJ I've temporarily substituted – until the Exascend SSD arrives from Mouser – is just moderately slow all the time, without those periodic several‑second freezes).

Even Samsung has lost it with the 870 EVO (widespread failure to detect) – Crucial seems to be the last one standing in consumer SSDs, but it's only a matter of time – so I see the writing on the wall, and I no longer trust any brand of consumer SSDs.

I understand that you hardcore gamers love those large, cheap SSDs (to install your games onto for the fastest load times); I wouldn't mind if they were sold as specialized game installation drives, with stern warnings not to put the bootloader, OS, productivity applications or important data on them.
But please stop defending the general “consumer” versus “enterprise” distinction – it belonged in the 1980s together with the dreadful MiniScribe 3650, Seagate ST‑277R and Western Digital 93044 drives, and we were so close to moving on from it until Maxtor tried to cash‑in on the post-Deathstar FUD…

(It's just our (mis)fortune that my 2004 shitbox had an ST380011A – with the Agere+SH6950 combination, making it the most‑reliable HDD ever made and unbreakably determined to outlive the rest of that PC (including the Athlon XP 2400+!) despite 67°C heat – then Mum's otherwise well‑specified 2012 office PC came with the SandFarce‑(un)controlled Kingstons. I'm barely a nanometer away from bringing in Hitoha's death glare…)

[Behemot]

My last (non‑SandFarce) Kingston doesn't seem to have corrupted anything, but it did slow down below 30MB/s (which the Barracuda 7200.7 can do even on its innermost zones) causing severe lag at regular intervals

try the badblocks utility with -sn parameters, about two full cycles, if it's the cells worn out by not using them, should get very much better (might do a speedmap firt with HD Tune)

[LongRunner]

try the badblocks utility with -sn parameters, about two full cycles, if it's the cells worn out but not using them, should get very much better (might do a speedmap firt with HD Tune)

Maybe I later will on the Silicon Power SSD; there's little point even trying to save those Kingstons, as they're basically the Maxtor of SSDs anyway

[Behemot]

Never had any single problem with dozens of the cheapest Kingstons. Think yo being somewhat fanatic about brands. Almost all of them make crap as well as good products, there's usually little difference.

[LongRunner]

Never had any single problem with dozens of the cheapest Kingstons. Think yo being somewhat fanatic about brands. Almost all of them make crap as well as good products, there's usually little difference.

Which models, and when were they made? The quality of all consumer-grade SSDs has nosedived since ≈2022, even Samsung and Crucial having finally fallen.
Well done IBM and Maxtor, for so-successfully reifying the distinction between "consumer" and "enterprise" storage, in both HDDs and SSDs

My last Kingston was of the A400 series (made in 2017 but only written-to at installation time), and lagged (almost) 3 years after; why do you think their warranty is 3 years? Even the 2008‑vintage Samsung HD250HJ was much more bearable in comparison (moderately-slow at all times, beats frequent several-second freezes), and since installing the new enterprise‑grade Exascend SE3 (exact model in my signature) my PC is back to consistently lightning-fast again.

As Red Hill put it:

You can treat a good quality part badly and maybe get away with it; you can treat a poor quality part carefully and maybe get away with it — but you can't treat a poor quality part badly and expect anything other than a failure.

So however many pieces you use of something, you have to use it hard to actually prove its quality; I got away with my ST31000528AS for 4 years, but that was comfortably 24×7 – it doesn't mean they won't crash unrecoverably when on/off cycles wear out their substandard head sliders and landing zone
(This is the same failure mode inherited from Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus 9, 10 & 11 and their “enterprise” MaXLine Plus II, III & Pro variants. Just listen )

Besides, the +5V TVS diode in the A400 series is pissant compared to those on the classic Seagates (of all series)
Put an A400 up against a Fuhjyyu'd Antec and see if it survives I bet it'll be blown to smithereens (and the data would be fried with the chips too).

I distinctly remember an old badcaps thread (you can dig it out for yourself) where a PSU repair mishap bridged mains to the +12V output, and an ST340014A still survived after replacing the shorted TVS diode; an ST380011A was less-lucky (its SH6950 burned) but still revived with the ST340014A's PCB
(In the worst case, even if the preamp fries too – as would happen on TVS-less HDDs from other makes – it's professionally recoverable with a head-swap.)