How Much Longer Will Your SSD Last? SSD Life span
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How long does a SSD last?
SSDs are fairly new to the market, meaning manufacturers are still trying to figure out how long they will last. Currently, vendors use three different factors to estimate SSD lifespan: the age of the SSD, the total number of terabytes written over time (TBW), and the drive writes per day (DWPD). Based on which metric you use, the answer to the question “How long do SSDs last?” will vary.
For example, the age of an SSD has proven to be a valuable determinate in its performance and longevity. Current estimates put the age limit for SSDs around 10 years, though the average SSD lifespan is shorter. In fact, a joint study between Google and the University of Toronto tested SSDs over a multi-year period. During that study, they found the age of an SSD was the primary determinant of when it stopped working. Researchers working on the study also found SSDs were replaced about 25% less often than HDDs.
Another way of measuring how long SSDs will last is the total number of terabytes written over time (TBW). TBW estimates how many successful writes you can expect a drive to make over its lifetime. If a manufacturer says their SSD has a TBW of 150, it means the drive can write 150 terabytes of data. After the drive hits that threshold, it’s likely you’ll need to replace it.
The final of the three metrics manufacturers might use when predicting the lifespan of their drives is the drive writes per day (DWPD). DWPD measures how many times users can overwrite the amount of available storage in the drive each day of its working lifespan. If an SSD has a capacity of 200 GB and comes with a five-year warranty, for instance, users can write 200 GB onto the drive every day for the warranty period before it fails. When in doubt, you can use an online SSD lifespan calculator to estimate the SSD’s lifespan.
Do SSDs fail?
SSDs can fail, but in a different way than traditional HDDs. While the latter often fail because of mechanical issues, SSDs may fail due to the methods used to write information. To understand why and how SSDs fail, it’s important to understand more about the way they process, store, and access information in the first place.
As previously mentioned, SSDs use flash memory cells to store data. In this way, SSDs function almost like large flash drives, programming data onto these cells by changing their electric charges. However, once you fill the available memory on an SSD, the SSD can only add new information by erasing older data. This process is called a program/erase cycle, or P/E cycle for short.