Is a USB3 drive as good as directly installing one?

[KDH]

I am shopping for a dedicated machine for BI set up. I have seen numerous comments suggesting that a SSD is preferable for running the software. Obviously I'll need a HD for the footage though.

My question is, do I need to be looking for a machine where I can install both, or am I just as good (performance wise) finding a well powered CPU with an SSD and buying a WD Purple drive and sticking it in an enclosure with a USB3 cable?

I'm having trouble even figuring out if most machines would even have multiple slots for several drives, and having the HD as an external just seems like an easy solution. But I don't want to compromise my installation from the get go.

 

[Mr_D]

USB 3.0 has plenty of bandwidth for a spinning hard drive. The downside to USB is that it has slightly more CPU overhead than SATA.

 

[looney2ns]

It is not recommended to record via USB.
OS and BI on SSD, then record to an internal purple.
Don't record to an SSD.
Search is your friend, as this has been discussed many times here.

 

[aaronwt]

I've been recording to SSDs with BI for many years. I only have SSDs in my BI machine. A 1TB and a 500GB. I've had zero issues reading/writing to them 24/7/365, the last few years with my fourteen cameras. The Samsung software reports that they are in still great shape.

 

[nejakejnick]

I personally use SSD only for software and BI's database, but if Anandtech is right and Samsung 500GB 850 EVO has 2000 NAND P/E Cycles (PRO has 6000) then it should theoretically last 500*2000*1000/3600/24/365/5 = ~6 years for 5 MB/s of writes, but practically it could be perhaps 10x more as NANDs last more if they are rewritten more rarely - on the other hand, the data might not be readable after some time.