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I want to know the life span of a SSD. Some where i read that If there is more write on the SSD then it will have less life. Is it true? What are the factors mainly effecting SSD life span. Please give your thoughts on this.

IT researcher
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1 Answers1

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I want to know the life span of a SSD

Ask the manufacturer.

Some where i read that If there is more write on the SSD then it will have less life. Is it true?

Generally - an SSD is flash memory and flash memory has a limited number of write cycles. Also read cycles, but there the limit is extremely high (comically high, nearly). But they do wear out after a number of writes.

How many depends on build. So, manufacturers give guarantees also depending on write amount. Enterprise discs for example handle (over 5 years) a guaranteed 5 full writes per day (as a general benchmark - anything less is not acceptable). Workstation / End User discs generally less.

But things are a little more complex as not ever write is a write on the disc - buffers get into the game (especially on enterprise level where good ssd have capacitators to be able to write the buffer when the power fails) and discs generally have reserve areas (outside the partition). When you get a 512gb disc enterprise level you may only have 480gb - the rest is reserve, which is used to also enable the guarantee you get. Normally failing cells can still be read, so no data loss.

The rest and details are SO well known you just can use google and find them.

Please give your thoughts on this.

Given that you ask about basic facts admins should know, what about facts instead of thoughts?

TomTom
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  • SSD life measured in erase/write cycles. So if i write once it will be 1 erase/write cycle? How exactly is this work? – IT researcher Jan 08 '14 at 09:37
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    It works in a way you do not know. As in - your OS may optimize it, the SSD may optimize it. The write may be similar cells or be split on multiple cells. That simple. At the end it does not matter, thuogh -for servers use server ready ssd and the life expectancy is so high you wont get problems. WHen used as cache, plan in a replacement every 2-3 syears and measure life expectancy after 3 months (there is a SMART counter how much has been written so you can extrapolate). – TomTom Jan 08 '14 at 12:08