# SSD Life



## billymukers (Mar 5, 2019)

How long do SSD's usually last? I mean their life?


----------



## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

I have no idea but my oldest son put one in his pc several yrs ago and it still works fine. He put one in mine a few months ago.


----------



## Colbyt (Jan 27, 2014)

They are rated based upon MTTF = Mean Time To Failure and TBW = (terabytes written) values. Most of the better brands have specs like 1.5- 2.0 MTTF and 500 TBW or better.


The TBW amount can vary widely within a product line.


For the WD models the expected life is about the same or better than a hard drive.


I just put a very small one in the wife's computer which is old and slow and the boot and shutdown time are both much faster.


----------



## supers05 (May 23, 2015)

As it's been said, it depends on how it's used, and the quality of the line. (brands have quality of product lines.) 

The more you write to it the faster it'll start to fail. For most people, just surfing the web, doing office type work, or playing games it'll last a long time. (some expect them to last 5-10 years.) For things like video editing, it may only last just a few years. My Samsung 850 pro (1TB) has been powered on for 704 days. (according to the drive.)

(Note that the smaller drives will actually have a better life expectancy. With the way the data is packed in the newer technologies, mean time to failure is actually dropping. There's some good YouTube videos that explain it well if you're curious.) 

Cheers!


----------



## ZZZZZ (Oct 1, 2014)

Mechanical hard drives will be officially obsolete in a couple of years, like a floppy disk drive. Sure, it may still work, but new systems won't use them.
.
.


----------



## stick\shift (Mar 23, 2015)

Mine was installed in January of 2013 and still working just fine.


----------



## SPS-1 (Oct 21, 2008)

supers05 said:


> Note that the smaller drives will actually have a better life expectancy.



That is not consistent with what I have read. SSD's have a finite limit on how many times you can write to them. They have internal firmware to evenly spread data across the range, so then doubling the size of the SSD means each spot is written to half as often.


----------



## supers05 (May 23, 2015)

SPS-1 said:


> That is not consistent with what I have read. SSD's have a finite limit on how many times you can write to them. They have internal firmware to evenly spread data across the range, so then doubling the size of the SSD means each spot is written to half as often.


The problem is the multiple data layers now. (multi-level) Each "cell" isn't just 1 bit, but is now up to 4, and soon to be more. That means each cell is often written to more often, than a single level cell. It also means that a defect in 1 cell, takes out 4 bits. (4x the damage for the same defect in a single level cell.) 

There are mitigations, and the better controllers use only the first level at the beginning, and move on the the more challenging layers as required. (the more levels per cell, the slower the read/write, so this also improves performance.) Even with these mitigations, the mean time to failure and overall performance is lower on QLC Memory. Due to cost and size, TLC and QLC are more popular on larger drives. SLC for the same capacity is 4x the price. (depending on the exact manufacturing methods used.) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_cell?wprov=sfla1

You are right about now the controllers attempt to evenly wear the drive, and compensate where needed. That aspect hasn't changed. 

Cheers!


----------



## Dave Sal (Dec 20, 2012)

I built my PC in June 2014 and chose an Intel SSD. I use the Intel SSD Toolbox program to run trim weekly. The last time I did it showed it is at 75% life remaining, so it looks like this SSD is projected to last about 16 years or so. Fingers crossed.


----------



## chiraldude (Nov 16, 2013)

Wear leveling is accomplished by rotating through "extra" drive space. The total capacity of a drive will always be more than the rated capacity. This extra space is rotated in and out as data is written and deleted. Also, when sectors go bad, the extra space is utilized to maintain the rated capacity. 
One aspect of SSD lifespan then is how much extra capacity is included. A cheap thumb drive may only have 10% but a high quality hard drive might have 50% or more.


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

I have installed SSD's in Workstations since 2011, sold over a hundred in 2018 alone.
I had one single failure (Adata) in all those years. Probably built 300+ machines with SSD's.


----------



## That Guy (Aug 19, 2017)

My old computer has a samsung 500gb 840? SSD its atleast 6 years old and works fine.


----------



## That Guy (Aug 19, 2017)

If you want the best, best performance and available locally, you can pick up the samsungs from best buy, for under $100...I have a PNY 500gb ssd, my samsungs make it look slow...


----------



## SPS-1 (Oct 21, 2008)

Dave Sal got me thinking on how I can check the health of my SSD. ADATA has a utility that is supposed to be able to check any brand of SSD. My ADATA SSD is 3 years old and its showing it has about 90% of its life remaining. 


https://www.adata.com/us/ss/software-6/


----------



## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

I bought mine October 1st 2015 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KHRYRLY/ref=twister_B00KR6XXZ6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

No problems at all and the SSD life test still says it's in perfect shape. Has a ten year warranty on it so I wasn't too worried. I'm confident enough that I'm planning to get the 980GB for video editing later this year.


----------



## supers05 (May 23, 2015)

Mystriss said:


> I bought mine October 1st 2015 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KHRYRLY/ref=twister_B00KR6XXZ6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
> 
> No problems at all and the SSD life test still says it's in perfect shape. Has a ten year warranty on it so I wasn't too worried. I'm confident enough that I'm planning to get the 980GB for video editing later this year.


Word of caution. That's one use case that kills SSDs really quickly, depending on your usage. If you're just editing a video or 2 a day, it's not so bad. However, if you doing it as a day job, then be prepared for a shortened lifespan. 

Cheers!


----------



## jecapereca (Mar 28, 2019)

A long time. My SSD is 2 years old as of 2 days ago and with 7355 power hours and 1522 startups, it's still showing 99% health. Worth every penny.


----------



## carmusic (Oct 11, 2011)

mine is 1.5 year old but already down to 75% of life (computer is always on, no sleep)


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

I got two M.2 Samsung SSD's in my Machine that I rotate every 4 months or so.
Looking very healthy to me:


----------



## Colbyt (Jan 27, 2014)

For those of you who may be interested there are a couple of free programs you can download to test the health and transfer rates of your HDD or SSD.


https://crystalmark.info/en/


The names indicate which. Mark is the tests and info is the health one. I have installed both and Norton found them safe to run.


----------



## Calson (Jan 23, 2019)

SSD's have blocks that fail and these are removed from the allocation table and new blocks are added from the reserved section of the drive or storage pool. The commercial SSD's have twice as large a reserve of blocks and so have a longer life in high transaction environments, like an enterprise server with thousands of clients.


----------



## ajaye (May 19, 2019)

They do have a lifetime, but one way to mess up your SSD's is to do a DE-FRAG, scandisk yes, DEFRAG NO, never no never. on ordinary HD's yup,
but a defrag will reduce the lifetime of your SSD by half



billymukers said:


> How long do SSD's usually last? I mean their life?


----------



## jecapereca (Mar 28, 2019)

So, just recently learned about this. Based on my reading around, it depends on certain factors like the manufacturer itself (not all SSDs are created equally, as this source says), programs used as some take up more on the memory, physical damage and age. In normal use, the SSD should outlast your system. Fair enough I would think considering their price.


----------



## That Guy (Aug 19, 2017)

knock on wood..

I have been running SSDs since 2015.. not a single failure.... across 6 SSDs that are RARILY if ever 'turned off'


----------



## ShadowTiger (Sep 9, 2019)

I work in a PC Repair / Data Recovery center, and I get a lot of people with failing hard drives come in for recovery. So pardon me if this post is going to sound like a case of "If all I have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I very rarely get SSDs in, and when I do, someone has indeed been abusing it, such as using it for video editing, as it was said.


Ultimately, SSDs are a fantastic way to breathe some new life into a computer. I'm replacing hard drives with them left and right. I seem to have the situational luxury of saying "Out of any possible upgrade, an upgrade to an SSD is going to give you the most tangible, observable benefit." As long as it can be cloned over successfully, of course. I use Macrium Reflect for that and a SATA to USB adapter. Works great, as long as both drives are healthy and the new drive is formatted properly.


----------



## supers05 (May 23, 2015)

ShadowTiger said:


> "If all I have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." .


Regardless, it's still accurate, and you're spot on. SSDs do in fact do improve the performance the most for the average Joe. With every penny in my opinion, now that the prices have come down over the years. 


Cheers!


----------



## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

I love my SSDs (and no I'm not doing massive amounts of video editing for a job, just gaming videos for lolz/helping.) 

SSD cut my boot time to basically nothing, I can't imagine going back to an HDD honestly.


----------



## jecapereca (Mar 28, 2019)

Mystriss said:


> I love my SSDs (and no I'm not doing massive amounts of video editing for a job, just gaming videos for lolz/helping.)
> 
> SSD cut my boot time to basically nothing, I can't imagine going back to an HDD honestly.



Agreed. The difference in boot time alone won't make me miss an HDD. I don't need a lot of memory anyway.


----------



## ajaye (May 19, 2019)

update on my SSD, no problems since May
I had to swap back to my old HD
oh fuq was that bad


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

I did a bit of playing around with CrystalDiskMark since I upgraded my Computer. I knew that SSD's are much faster than the regular Hard drives, but what about the new M.2 Nvme Drives?

So here are the Results:

Regular Hard Drive, so you get an Idea:


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

Now the SSD, I'm using Crucial 3D NAND M.2 500 GB:


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

And finally, the Crucial 3D Nand NVMe PCIE 500 GB SSD:


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

The Nvme convinced me 100%. That's what I'll be using from now on for performance systems. Very nice result indeed.


----------



## ajaye (May 19, 2019)

70's with my HD
200's with my SSD


----------



## ajaye (May 19, 2019)

the nvm is hot !
my tosh is too old for nvm


----------



## user_12345a (Nov 23, 2014)

deleted.


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

user_12345a said:


> deleted.


Got something to add, post it.
:wink2:


----------



## user_12345a (Nov 23, 2014)

i commented that sata 3 can't possibly handle that kind of transfer rate/wondering how you're getting 600mb per second, missing the PCIe part.


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

user_12345a said:


> i commented that sata 3 can't possibly handle that kind of transfer rate/wondering how you're getting 600mb per second, missing the PCIe part.


With this one:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B075MDH28Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

:vs_cool:


----------



## user_12345a (Nov 23, 2014)

i thought those pci-e ssds natively fit into desktop slots. guess not.


----------



## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

As I understand it, it's a speed trade off if you use a sata cable for an M.2 atm. Sata 3.0 cable is capped at 600mb/s. The PCIe card add-ons get the M.2s to around 2Gb/s, vs a native mSata slots on the MB getting you to 6GB/s.

The new Sata 3.2 specs will be better suited to work with ALL SSDs and supposedly will get around 6GBs (aka the same as the mSata slot.) Though I think it remains to be seen if that's going to be used with the M.2 drives or not. I rather suspect we'll just get faster [traditional] SSD drives and the MB developers will have to figure out a way to speed up the M.2 slot's capability or it'll get phased out for everything but all-in-ones and "Ego builders"


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

user_12345a said:


> i thought those pci-e ssds natively fit into desktop slots. guess not.


It does fit, I just needed the Adapter Card to clone from M.2 to NVMe.
Speed is the same.
:wink2:


----------



## user_12345a (Nov 23, 2014)

huh?

all i knew of was sata and assumed card style ssds fit into regular pci-e. 

Now I'm learning there's a special slot for them?

What's the difference between M.2 to NvMe?


----------



## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

These might help:

On the MB:

















On a PCI-e adapter card:









that thing plugs into a PCI-e slot on the mb:









Then there's the "less preferred option" of quasi-jerry-rigging to work with a standard Sata data and power cable:


----------

