SSD Life Expectancy and High Endurance SSDs 

Hi Craig, thanks for sharing all that info. You reminded me of that saying,’ A poor man pays twice’. All the best regards Peter.

In 2007 I spent months going through MTBF data on SSDs building a business case for Rockwell Collins to migrate all the HDDs to SSDs for cabin system computing. In flight vibrations were killing the life of the HDDs. Thanks for sharing such valuable information. I am a fan of Samsung for home use because their cloning software is fantastic.

Holy... this video is packed with info. Cant beleive this is free haha. Thanks. Please do more of these videos.

Another point to consider when purchasing SSD's for desktop computers is swap file writes which can add up especially when sessions run short of available RAM capacity which is more common than most users realize. (Example: MacBook M1/M2 Air's which are frequently sold with 8 GB of RAM and have non-replaceable SSD's)

Thank you. I've Been waiting for a video like this. Not every enterprise capable SSD drive needs a label and you have shown us this. Truly useful information

i had no clue those drives exist, this certainly opens my eyes why some look the same yet are not, thank you, i may not need profesional drive because i use little data under 300gb per month. keep it up its allways great to learn new things especially with tehnology going up and it gets more confusing with each generation and inflation.

Maybe I am wrong, but I don't believe there is any objective tests of manufacturer claims about how durable their memory is (TBW). Also, it would have been good to discuss the way data is stored on SSD's and how that relates to durability vs speed. NAND flash memory chips consist of an array of blocks and an array of memory cells within each block. NAND flash memory breaks down into several design types, including "Single Level Cells" (SLC), Multi-Level Cells (MLC), "Triple-Level Cells" (TLC), "Quad-Level Cells" (QLC), and "Penta-level Cells" (PCL), with the difference being the number of bits per memory cell. Each added bit comes with a performance, endurance and reliability penalty. SLC offers the highest performance, endurance and reliability but has a high price per GB and is often used in commercial and industrial applications. MLC and TLC are both cheaper and denser and better options for write-intensive applications. QLC is primarily for read-intensive workloads such as data analytics and machine learning. PLC offers limited endurance and a low cost per GB and is suitable for archival applications. Some manufacturers and retailers will disclose the design type (SLC, MLC, etc) in their specs, so that is something reviewers should mention, as sort of double check of manufacturer TBW claims. Lastly, the SSD microcode that acts as a disk controller is important to be able to correct any errors detected, and the ability to update the SSD microcode via SSD vendor software could be a factor if there is a problem. There have been a few well-publicized problems with SSD microcode controller software that needed to be corrected by the vendor.

This is the most informative video I have watched on SSDs. The server edition SSDs are insane when it comes to write endurance. I'm mind blown.

I'm more interested in life expectency of the drive. Meaning if I just copy my files to an SSD drive and then put it away in a normal heated room temp environment in another box lets say, and then 2 decades later I take it out, put it into the computer and all the files are there with zero bad sectors or anything like that.

Thanks for another great tutorial Craig. I didn't know about the all of the numbers and options I should be looking at when I purchased an SSD.

Craig, you have some the most useful content! Thanks!

I've researched information about DC drives for a while, wondering why they're not used much, especially in a NAS where data is rewriten a lot. Saw something recently about TBW/sector. It explained why the endurance went up as the size of the drive went up. 1.4TBW with a 2TB drive and 2.8TBW with a 4TB drive... but no one seems to cover that and it took me ages to find myself. EDIT: Learned about SLC/MLC/TLC/QLC... Single, Multi. Tri, Quad... essentially 1-4 bits/cell, from what I can gather. The newer one (QLC) is faster, but the older ones seem far better at Endurance. Hope you talked/have talked about this. Also, that 90s music blast in the intro makes the channel seem amateurish... you're better than that, sir.

man thank you so much for your precision you answered every single questions i had

It's like you read my mind, because I've been checking on SSD theoretical durability, based on TBW, for the last couple of days. I was very much surprised about Kingston's SSD's TBW, as I've found NV2 to have lower TBW (I believe it's 320tbw for a 1Tb hard drive) when compared to some of the competition. With DriveDx I managed to see that the my Mac Mini M1 8Gb of Ram and 512Gb of HD, since I bought it has registered 2,9Tb written for 203 days and, based on this information, I wasn't so unsatisfied with NV2 (which I was targeting). It seems that, at my office with my working Mac, I average less than 15Gb of written data and, at that rate, the Kingston NV2 I was checking to use for backups will work forever. So, I concluded that one should measure what they need before splashing out more money than they need to, when choosing a SSD.

I can’t believe this video doesn’t have 5000 views.

I had no idea about this. Very informative, thanks.

Ive had 2 intel ssd's that already died. Only did max 2tb of writing. The mx500 is still doing well. The TBW doesnt apply alwase this way.

TBW is my main focus when looking for ssd

Craig Neidel Thanks Much!

There is a channel in Spanish (@goroware) that test the life of SSDs in real tests. For months it subjects them to continuous writing tests, and also reading tests to ensure the integrity of the data. If you activate the translation of the subtitles you can follow the experiments well. For now, the majority of SSDs tested are from the entry level, but it is surprising how in real-life tests many of the most recognized brands achieve a life cycle several times greater (up to 10) than those specified by the manufacturers' data. It seems they play it safe giving much more conservative values. However, the cheap SDDs tested from Chinese brands do not fare so well. Ah, thank you for this master class :).

Regarding endurance people don't realize how easy in some uses drives can wear out if even fail in some instances. The quickest I've seen a nvme drive be functionally used up was a Firecuda 2TB that had around 2800 tbw written for something that was only rated for 2400 but the kicker was it only had around 7k hours on the clock.

Bought a used SM863a (2018) thanks to you man. If they have a newer version later for sale then I'll be happier haha

I bought a 980 pro a couple days ago for 88.75 total price switching from a mx500 256gb + WD10EZEX 1TB and the difference is night and day although not massive. Its like the fifference between near seemless and seemless. This is for gaming paired with an i5 8600K and an GTX 1060 6GB and 2x16GB 3200Mhz CL16 crucial vengence ram. Mobo being as asrock Z variant idk which one but the 980 pro makes my system just feel fast. I would absolutely recommend but it is complete overkill and a waste of money even in this regard, I'm not too concerned about finnance though because these big purchases are infequent so I can afford it. In-fact, I still use that mx500 for misc stuff and it is good enough despite the 980 being 10x as faster due to the speeds of both basically already being good, making my total system storage 1.1TB~. Also transfering large files for gaming in the gigabytes feels seemless, even when it was done on my ssd bootdrive. So for gaming atleast, harddrives are obsolete and I am against their usuage entirely, even my SATA disk would be better (if it was bigger like 512GB) you don't want to go back to HDDs once you see its preformance.

Just to add a caveat. I use Linux. I selected EXT2 for my drives when I switched over from spinning discs. All well and good. I went with EXT2 to avoid the additional writes journaling brings. No SMART errors for two years, then I got an alert. A warning, not catastrophic. My boot and OS drive was fine. However, my home drive had reached 75% write life expectancy. I neglected to add the 'noatime' switch to the fstab file. That's on me. Even the act of reading a configuration file on program startup updated the table as the file had been accessed, the 'atime' was updated, which equals writes. There are a lot of small files being read from and written to. Write to the file?, a write ( obv. ), the atime gets updated, which would be written at the same time. Access the file, even reading it, and the atime gets updated. Updating that one byte requires a write. Setting noatime in the fstab doesn't disable mtime or ctime attributes, but it does reduce the write amplification. The drives in question are Crucial MX500 500GB 2.5" models. I'm still using the boot drive, but have retired the home drive as an archive, replaced it, and set noatime 🙂 The boot and OS drive has a 4.5 year power on time with 44% lifetime remaining. Not bad.

thanks for sharing the datacenter experience knowledge :)

Hi Craig, this is a question about SSD SATA vs M.2 NVME. Suppose we compare between: 1)Same Brand (Samsung), 2)Same Capacity (any TB), 3)Same WorkLoad (Aprox.1.5 TB / day), 4)Speed & Price are NOT main issues, but Long-Term DATA LOSS (Data Safety) is The MAIN Concern, 5)Form-Factor is NOT an issue, because we will use EXTERNALLY using enclosures, THEN WHAT would you choose: SSD SATA3.0 or M.2 NVME ? Thank You for your Video !

Thank you. I went with intel D3-S4510.. just make sure you update firmare .. applies to D3-S4610 too. S4520 + S4620 are fine but more way expensive like x3 cash

This is one Great Video, Thank You so Much.

the TBW limit does not mean the drive’s gonna fail after that, it means the drive can no longer guarantee the data written to it can be held for at least 1 year (consumer, or 3 months IIRC, for datacenter drives) unpowered

I would want high endurance vs the new QLC crap they are releasing on the consumer market. Then they are working on pentalevel cell. How long will it be before you only get 100 write cycles and absolutely atrocious speeds to go with it???

is DRAM a essential feature for the life span of a ssd? is a ssd without dram bad or are there other important features besides dram?

So what about life in terms of read. I would like to basically create a emergency response first aid storage disk that contains all our important docs, photos etc.

Great video, thank you for this explanation. I wonder, if I use an ssd for backup, I guess I may never reach that write limit. However what’s the probability that I will lose my data? How can I estimate this?

Does the endurance rate of the SSD really matter for long term “cold storage”? (Only reading/writing a few times per year) Would you have any recommendations for that type of storage, SSD vs HDD? Thanks for the vid👍

So, my boot drive is a Samsung 850 Evo 500GB, I've had it since April 2016. Now I'm certainly not a heavy data transfer person by any measure, but this thing has 5855 hours on it, 1539 power on cycles, and......15 TBW. So, apparently I have another 70 years to reach the paltry 150 TBW it was rated for. I get the feeling SATA III support will be gone long before then.

With 2 capacities from the same product line if you notice double the capacity double the TBW rating you might realize one thing. Same NAND chips but the one with double the capacity double the NAND chip count. The higher TBW is because the controller has more chips to spread the data out onto. To simplify it, if you had one with just one NAND chip one with two that have similar specs would have 2 times the TBW rating. Also the kind of memory is a huge factor. These are all going to be MLC (2 layer cell) or TLC (triple layer cell). There is SLC and it would last longer but it is a heck of a lot more expensive!! Also the fewer layers per cell the better the transfer speed. The QLC in the consumer market is going to be a lot slower than MLC unless it can run at a high enough frequency to make up for it. That would result in more heat and shorter life yet! That is unless you have good cooling. A server has powerful fans but they are also *LOUD*. So not only is the server/professional product just better over all for reliability but it the fans in the servers which they are used in will make them last even longer with that added airflow. I am by no means an expert on this or an IT person. I just see the logic behind it and know a bit about the various NAND flash memory types.

you know we all need external drive for miscellaneous storage that is small maybe smaller than a typical 2.5 inch sata drive that holds up to 8 TB, but something that can retain its data even after if it hasnt been powered up for 2 years, and can be rewritten unlimitedly. and made out of a durable casing that could survive fire and waterproof or having its socket metal pins to be corrosive resistance. technically in short an external portable SSD that lasts a lifetime. there havent been that. SSD is like the OLED tech. no matter how much improved the tech is, since they will still use the same type of method and materials to retain and exchange charges that form into "digital" signals, that DETERIORATES in every exchanges. the same as organic isotopes in OLED tech. so then the only solution is to create new type of storage that fits the needs that i mentioned above. using new type of tech and methods to store that electrical signals.

I just bought a micron pro 5300 for about $25 more than the equally sized (1tb) samsung evo. It has 4 times the TBW.

My sandisk Kingston and pny have lasted as long as my Samsung evos and pro...my wd black nvme issues after a year or 2 Although faster...I'm switching back to Samsung pny Kingston ssd 2.5...

What about the SSD drives that Apple put in their iMacs?

Kingston kc3000 2tb has 1.6PB tbw Sabrent Rocket pci4 2tb has 3.6PB tbw

Nice one. Is there an easy way to tell the average amount of writes a day you produce on your pc?

I can't recommend the Crucial BX500 drives, they do not have enough endurance and will start getting slow quickly.

Might get 1 to store media! Thank you

Hi I have a question and i need your advice i came accros a SSD samsung 850 evo 500 gb and toshiba HDD 1To those are the only option i can purchase my main thing is to store in it (image,files,videos) so i can update my laptop to windows 10 and use it for office ( Excel, powerpoint) which one do you recomend for me and thank you

I was ignorant to this upon buying Samsung Evo 860 1TB SSD in 2017. Now I'm wishing I would've or could've done things differently to better prepare for SSD failure.

Windows 11 do more tbw per day, with flutter developement, it consumes 30-50 tbw per day

wow, thank you so much for the info. This video really help me out a lot. but When he comes to the Samsung PM SSDs, can I put either one of those in my 2017 iMac?

Would it be easy to slot it in instead of a HDD in a NAS server? I assume. I preordered a Ugreen NAS.

Do you know which brand does Mackbook Pro 16 M3 1TB SSD is?

A firm believer and just pay a little more and get something quality whenever I go against that I always regret it. I don’t care if I’m buying carpeting tile, electronics anything I always buy the quality stuff and you won’t be disappointed later. But the little longer for 10 I’d rather wait another month or two and then get something quality in rush out and buy a piece of junk

So the tbw only applies to writes, when you put something on the drive? What about games when playing them from the drive?

samsung t7 1tb ssd vs crucial x6 1tb vs crucial MX500 500gb which should i pick if i want a longer lasting drive? and my use will only be for storing photos and videos

Best advice i can give is to go with 512 gb or 1 tb size cuz it max the durability there and the lowest cost for gb per cent. In all brands

I already have 2 dead 4Tb SSD in a span of 2 years. So I don't think SSD is all too reliable.

Hi, i have 500gb ssd and it's not enough for gaming now I'm planning to add extra ssd .. will 500gb more be enough ? i almost play 3~4 online games like football and warzone .. beside that play AAA games offline ( means uninstall after finish that ) and is klevv cras c710 good ssd ? it's very cheap but it has half endurance compare to something like mp33 .. does it really matter in real world and worth to pay more ?

Warning! Music in this video is Extremely High! Don't use headphones :D

Do you have a video for hdd

I never thought about it until seeing this video, but now that I think about it, it's a no-brainer to pick one of these enterprise SSDs for Virtual machines and gaming (which are my two main usages). both consuming lots of space but need just that little speed bump over standard mechanical drives (which will go extinct soon, at least in the gaming industry). I mean games nowadays can be over 100GB, also I use 100GB for my VMs. I suspect it won't take long to kill a consumer SSD, with just installing new games and creating new VMs. but then again, I seen your latest video and it seems that consumer SSDs are also so cheap nowadays so it's not a big deal either.

I bought this drive used from chinese. (SAMSUNG MZ7KM960HMJP) even tho its have very high TBW the write speed is terrible. i dont know about the NEW one because the price is too high

clone that ssd drive for that rainy day

Now the SSD prices have doubled...

PM893 (7,68TB) = 14 PETABYTE = 14000 TB (NOT 1400 !!!!!) = 14000000 GB !!! YES YES YES

sumsung ssd is no joke

they only have a life of about 7 years .. when they crash there gone ..

Your awesome

My ssd is five years old it only lost 10% life Just got new ssd cause my hhd was failing

They are a lot cheaper on Ebay, amazon is way over priced 👎

I have around 30 SSDs in my collection. I'm starting to lose track of the deceased, Microcenter Inland brand is the worst, 2 of 3 250GB NVMe's dead, 3 of 10 128GB Sata dead , 2 of 3 480GB Sata dead, recently 1 intel 1TB just died, 1 TB Sata Kingston dead. And to add to to it all, 1 2018 intel mini Mac dead. STuff is dying faster than its being replaced. Not sure but I think Windows 7 is much faster than Window 10 when it comes to writing SSDs with huge variation in file sizes. Win 10 is more concerned about animating and investigating each file during copy, it often writes at far below 1MB/s then comes back to 20,50 MB/s. I don't feel at all impressed anymore with PCs and storage.

Crucial is shit, dont waste your money.

600 TBW on 1T capacity gives only 600 life cycles🥲