This is true, but with most of those other things it's at least possible to get some of the data back. With flash technology, the likelihood of getting any at all is low. With HDD technology it's usualy possible to get most of the data back, it's just extremely expensive and may require disassembling the disk in a clean room or replacing hardware components.

i got my first ssd a few weeks back, so much faster then waiting around 5min for it to load... i do have a 1TB for data and a backup for that and a 2TB for games

This would price such an operation out of the reach of the vast, overwhelming majority of people, making it impractical and effectively inaccessible. Personally it wouldn't hurt my bottom line to pay $10,000 for the recovery of critical data, but percentage-wise I am closer to an exception than the rule. Be as it may, the more sensible course of action would be to bank on reliability as opposed to recoverability. And even that is a supremely bad idea.

What I'm trying to say is that there is simply no substitute for the periodic backing up of critical data. Depending on anything else (be it the reliability or the recoverability) is nearly equally foolish.

I'm using SSD (MLC) for system and HDD for data.

My main (gaming) laptop has three 2TB HDDs (ie. 6TB total internal hard drive space, plenty for having both Windows and Linux installed side by side, and installing as many games I want, plus having any extra shit there too...), and a work laptop with SSD. Plus I occasionally use other people's laptops with SSDs when I maintain them for them.

Yes SSDs are faster, but I prefer having more hard drive space, hence I have only HDDs on my main PC. I abhor the idea of having my hard drives being something laughable like 256GB, which seems to be the norm on SSD laptops, sometimes even just half of that. I'd run out of space in no time, merely from having several bigger games installed, plus some emulator with its games.

With SSDs, mainly I see that Windows itself, and games (which are installed on SSD, and not on a secondary HDD) load faster, but that's it. It isn't like they make the games themselves run/perform faster, like that you would get higher frames per second or something. It merely means that I e.g. wait 15 seconds instead of 5 seconds for a game to load. Fine by me.

I'll move to SSD only when I can get 2TB SSDs for less than 100€. Before that, I consider them too pricey for the benefits they offer (extra speed for loading).

The main dilemma is that SSDs would be great for gigantic 130GB games which have lots of data to load all the time... but people choose to install such big games on secondary HDDs anyway since they simply don't have enough space on the primary SSD for such big games. Hence, they don't really benefit from the speed of the SSD where it would really matter. EDIT: Except, that "Intel Rapid Storage" or whatnot MIGHT help with that, wasn't its purpose to do just that, temporarily move often loaded files from the bigger HDD to the smaller SSD? Not sure how well it works (on SSD/HDD combo machines, I guess it offers no benefit if you have SSD only, or HDD only).

5 minutes for what to load? In real life, for what I've seen, it is more like something (a game, whatever) loading at like 5 seconds on SSD, and 15 seconds on HDD. So yes there is a definite difference, but it is nothing like "waiting minutes, or mere seconds".

I have an SSD for about a year and it is most noticeable when starting up Windows(takes only 10-15 seconds, compared to more than half a minute before), when transferring big files around, extracting archives, opening programs, etc... But I have one issue with it. Many games have mission briefings or gameplay hints on the loading screens, and since the games load so fast now I often can't read them. I once had to move a game to a slow USB stick, so I can read those :D

I don't think 2 gigabytes of disk space is enough to run a modern version of Windows; I hear that even 32GB (found on some low-end laptops) is low enough for space to be really tight if using Windows 10. In fact, I think a modern Linux desktop would have trouble fitting in that little (by today's standard) space; you could fit Linux on there, but you would need to be careful what you install and would likely not be able to run a modern desktop environment.

(Did you mean to say 2TB (2 *terabytes*) perhaps?)

Incidentally, on Linux there are a few other options that don't require extra hardware:
* You can use the loop device; create a filesystem image on the disk, forcing the kernel to go through two filesystems (instead of just one) on each access of the device.
* You can additionally use the device mapper. Use the "delay" target, and accesses to the disk will take longer. (There are a few other targets available, some of which are generally useful (like the ones LVM uses), others (like "flakey" and "error") have similarly niche uses.)

Pretty much all (gaming) laptops come at best 256 GB SSDs. Apart from the OS itself, that room is easily eaten by having just a couple of games installed at the same time. Not to mention if you are into emulators (e.g. the whole MAME collection on archive.org, including CHDs, takes nowadays over 500 gigabytes, compressed)

That is why so many people install their games on the secondary (much bigger) HDD, and not the OS SSD. The big SSDs (I mean 1-2 TB) are still quite pricey.
LOL ok you got me...

SSDs are a must, at least for Windows and commonly used programs. Computer buts up in seconds and is fast from the getgo, no more bogging down while the HDD light flashes.

As a rule, my games are on the larger HDD. If some game has very long load times, then I consider moving it to the SSD.

was thinking about getting an external one for backing up games (don't know which)

should probably get rid of a few things before buying anything

Whilst it really pains me to agree with Alaric.us, this is the one piece of advice that should be emblazoned on every splash screen, startup screen, screensaver etc. Backup, locally, offline to multiple units. Keep other copies in far away locations. If you are unsure if your backup solution does not cover every eventuality, then buy more hdds and make more copies. And don't rely on the internet, do this yourself with your hardware under your control.
I wouldn't use ssds for backup, irrespective of wether the concerns of longevity of data stored on ssds is correct or not, cost per gb is much higher than hdds. I recently brought an 8tb seagate external to make a fixed timepoint back for storage miles away, I.e. Disaster rollback timepoint save. It's was £150. For that amount of storage on ssd you would need multiple drives each costing that price.

I generally start or shutdown my gaming laptop once a day. I just timed it and it takes around 35 seconds for me to boot up to Windows 7 desktop, including login, on a slow 2.5" 5400 RPM HDD. Shutdown takes maybe 20 seconds, but then I don't have to stay there waiting for it to shutdown.

On Windows 10 on this same PC, I recall the Windows start took something like maybe 15 seconds on a HDD, as Windows 10 uses that fancy semi-hibernate mode where it doesn't shut down fully, making the start faster than Windows 7 (also on HDD)..

I personally don't mind that at all, I don't see the point of buying SSD just so that Windows would start e.g. in 5 seconds or so (my work laptop with a SSD and Windows 10 starts up in about 5-10 seconds I think).

Then again, I am not against extra speed either, so yeah when bigger (1-2 TB) SSDs become considerably cheaper, by all means I will primarily use them and at best will use HDDs anymore as USB archival devices. But until then, I very much prefer the extra room on my three internal 2TB HDDs, than investing on a skimpy 256GB SSD for extra speed.
.

External what? SSD? That doesn't make sense as the USB speed would be limiting the potential SSD speed, and it costs much more per GB than an external HDD. As you can see from the previous discussion, even SATA is restricting SSD speeds.

If you meant external HDDs for backup, then yeah, that's what I have as well (now primarily two (manually) mirrored 8TB hard drives).

I don't know if SSDs give warning signs beforehand, but yeah quite often you can also tell beforehand that some HDD might be becoming unhealthy, like it starts becoming VERY slow, or giving extra sounds you didn't hear before, or simply S.M.A.R.T. warns you that it is getting unhealthy. I saved data from one friend's HDD when SMART started complaining about the HDD on every boot up.

Admittedly, I recall once having zapped a HDD instantly, I guess it was some static charge when I put the HDD resting on the metallic PC case, its circuit board probably got zapped. I guess the data itself was still intact on the platters themselves, but I decided not to try to salvage it for money.

SSD usually just go belly up without warning.

If you store critical data on SSD, make sure you have a backup on a compeltely separate power circuit. If a power spike fries the main drive, you don't want to lose the backup that very second too.

My system has a 128 SATA SSD and a 1TB SATA HDD, I use the SSD for Windows and documents and the HDD for installing games, virtualization, torrents & stuff.

And yes, compared to a magnetic disk a NAND Flash-based drive is a completely different universe as for speed.

Reliability was an issue years ago, imo, now it's not that severe. I try to backup my data as often as I can though, just in case...