SSD vs HDD in copiers

[SalesServiceGuy]

Konica Minolta just released a new line of i-Series copiers that among many new features replaces the reliable and commonly used 2.5" compact laptop HDD with a 256 GB SSD (Solid State Drive).

I am wondering out loud the pros and cons of this choice.

First off:

1). In all RFPs that I have seen the buyer is requesting a HDD and never a SSD. Konica Minolta is going to have to be constantly requesting amendments to RFPs.

Maybe in the Konica Minolta new design there is the option to switch in a HDD?

2). SSD's are thought to be more reliable than HDDs because there are no moving parts. HDDs, however, are reliable with few failures.

3). SSDs are considered to have a higher cost per GB than a HDD. In the copier business there is always a spec race to the biggest spec with even low end Lexmark A4 desktop MFPS now providing a 500 GB HDD. Buyers usually try and interpret copier specs as bigger and faster is better.

4). SSDs are more compact in size than a HDD but in A3 copiers that small difference in form factor is not much of an issue.

5). SSDs use less electricity than a HDD to conserve battery life but in A3 copiers the small benefit is a non issue.

6). SSDs have a faster data retrieval rate than HDDs. This might be great for massive Data Storage centers but I cannot see how a few milliseconds will make much difference on a copier.

7). SSD vs HDD will buyers really care about the difference between the two storage technologies? In my mind, the copier talk track is now more about scanning and storage to the Cloud like OneDrive for Business.

8). To me, SSD vs HDD is a marketing effort by Konica Minolta not based upon any request by the customer. I could be wrong and this may be the start of a new trend in copiers.

Are there some Pros in the Konica Minolta decision that I have not thought of?

[JLSam]

Interesting thread.

I think SSD would be incredibly valuable to A3 copiers with heavy Operating systems like Xerox, when the boot up time is from 5 minutes and in some cases up to 10 minutes. Especially with the size of that firmware. Xerox techs know what I'm talking about. Just look up "boot up" failure in your BUS STATION in your PWS.

Other than models known for their terrible HDDs, I'm not sure if the extra cost is worth it. But if you're going to spend anywhere from 3k to 15k on a new machine, what's an extra $100?



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[SalesServiceGuy]

I can only speak for Toshiba product but on these models the operating system exists entirely on the 320 GB HDD.

When you format the HDD, you need to reload the entire firmware. The firmware is approx 1.2GB in size and keeps getting larger.

Current copier boots ups from power off are reasonably fast (1-2 minutes) and not an issue. If the copier is in sleep mode, boot ups are much faster.

HDD reliability use to be a problem on copiers from two model series ago (e5055c series) but on the last two generations of copiers, HDD failures have been very low.

When a copier manufacturer is buying many thousands of Storage devices (HDD or SSD) to put in their products, a $50.00 difference is important to profitability.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Toshiba copiers actually use a proprietary Secure Encrypted HDD (SED-HDD) manufactured by Toshiba, the world's 3rd largest supplier of both SSD and HDDs.

If one attempts to place a SED-HDD into another device without first formatting the HDD, the SED-HDD will automatically invalidate itself making the HDD useless and the data thereon permanently non recoverable.

I wonder what would happen if you removed the SSD from a new Konica Minolta iSeries copiers and attempted to read the data from another device.

Many gov't, healthcare and financial institutions are greatly concerned about HDD information security. I suspect the new Konica Minolta iSeries copiers are going to have to jump through a lot of hoops to get approved before being allowed to be placed on the LAN.

[JLSam]

When you format the HDD, you need to reload the entire firmware. The firmware is approx 1.2GB in size and keeps getting larger.

Current copier boots ups from power off are reasonably fast (1-2 minutes) and not an issue. If the copier is in sleep mode, boot ups are much faster.
.

Holy s**t you have to reflash the whole firmware after the format?!

This is why I don't work on Toshiba.

Speaking for Sharp machines, most of our issues seem to SD cards. Thank God. Had few 320GB small form factor replacements though.

Thankfully boot up time is like 20 seconds. And ready from cold boot is anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds.

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[SalesServiceGuy]

Interesting thread.

I think SSD would be incredibly valuable to A3 copiers with heavy Operating systems like Xerox, when the boot up time is from 5 minutes and in some cases up to 10 minutes. Especially with the size of that firmware. Xerox techs know what I'm talking about. Just look up "boot up" failure in your BUS STATION in your PWS.

Other than models known for their terrible HDDs, I'm not sure if the extra cost is worth it. But if you're going to spend anywhere from 3k to 15k on a new machine, what's an extra $100?



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I have lost many a copier deal over less than $2.00 dollars in cost per month. Some buyers are very price conscious. If the new Konica Minolta models go up in price, this could become a problem.

I know for a fact that due to the USA China trade war, current Konica Minolta copiers have already increased in price in both the USA and when imported from the USA into Canada.

[srvctec]

Holy s**t you have to reflash the whole firmware after the format?!

This is why I don't work on Toshiba.

Speaking for Sharp machines, most of our issues seem to SD cards. Thank God. Had few 320GB small form factor replacements though.

Thankfully boot up time is like 20 seconds. And ready from cold boot is anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds.

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Your first sentence was my very first thought as well. We only work on Konica Minolta and if the HDD goes bad, the only thing lost is all the user one touches. Hopefully they had them backed up. But F/W isn't stored on the HDD, thank heavens!!

[SalesServiceGuy]

Your first sentence was my very first thought as well. We only work on Konica Minolta and if the HDD goes bad, the only thing lost is all the user one touches. Hopefully they had them backed up. But F/W isn't stored on the HDD, thank heavens!!

I think maybe in your statement is the kernel of why Konica Minolta would move to a SSD. The firmware is loaded on the motherboard and not the HDD. The SSD/HDD on a Konica Minolta is perhaps only used to store customer variable data?

One of the older criticisms of SSDs was that they were great for storage but with many read/writes they tend to fail faster than HDDs. I do not think that is still true. A copier has to access its firmware many times per minute. A Toshiba copier partially caches that firmware in RAM cutting down the read/writes on the HDD.

Different copier vendors have different system architectures that directly impact performance.

For example, Samsung was the first to introduce a Quad core processor with 8GB RAM using an Android operating system. Copier performance would often lag.

The new iSeries Konica Minolta offer both an increased 8GB of RAM and a Quad core processor and get a significant 8-12% decrease in First Copy Out time.

One thing is for sure is that SSDs are the hot trend of the future while HDDs are not going away anytime soon.

[SalesServiceGuy]

Holy s**t you have to reflash the whole firmware after the format?!

This is why I don't work on Toshiba.

Speaking for Sharp machines, most of our issues seem to SD cards. Thank God. Had few 320GB small form factor replacements though.

Thankfully boot up time is like 20 seconds. And ready from cold boot is anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds.

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Typically, one would use a USB drive to load or update the firmware on a Toshiba copier. The procedure could take up to five minutes, sometimes less. No one has complained about this length of time.

[JLSam]

Typically, one would use a USB drive to load or update the firmware on a Toshiba copier. The procedure could take up to five minutes, sometimes less. No one has complained about this length of time.

I uploaded firmware on a Toshiba once and it was a nightmare for me. I remember I needed to use a thumb drive, and upload the files in a particular order. Seemed too much of a hassle to be honest. I remember it took a long time for me, but that was ages ago.

Toshiba is interesting. I work on Sharp, and whats funny is that the few HDD's that HAVE gone bad, were Toshiba. But that's besides the point. To this comment:

Different copier vendors have different system architectures that directly impact performance.

For example, Samsung was the first to introduce a Quad core processor with 8GB RAM using an Android operating system. Copier performance would often lag.

The new iSeries Konica Minolta offer both an increased 8GB of RAM and a Quad core processor and get a significant 8-12% decrease in First Copy Out time.

One thing is for sure is that SSDs are the hot trend of the future while HDDs are not going away anytime soon.

I completely agree. I had concerns about SSD's to be honest, doing more research it seems that SSDs have less mean time between failures compared to traditional HDD's. Again, I think SSD's would benefit our industry, especially with those copiers with heavy operating systems, and have a high firmware failure, and HDD failure rate like Xerox (in my experience). I know that costs will go up, and you are concerned that the small increase of the price will hurt your sales, but SSD's are most definitely the future, and the future is now (old man ).

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