Windows desktop x SSD endurance

[YanKleber]

Hello!

I finally bought my first SSD and am going to plug it into my PC tonight and install Windows 7 Pro.

I used to be a very organized person but since some time ago I started this (bad) habit of use the Windows desktop as a 'workbench' where I spread my stuff at. So I use is to unzip files, move big files to it temporarily, create working files, etc, what means that it sometimes get into a mess.

However I am concerned about the limited number of times that the SSD cells may be rewriten before to get worn and I would like to know if I should change this habit for the sake of the drive endurance.

Thanks!

 

[ochadd]

Don't worry about it. The amount of writes it takes to significantly dig into a modern SSDs flash reserves is insanely high. Check the amount of writes via SMART data or the manufacturer's drive utility in 6 months to a year and see how you stand. My guess is you'll have a decade or two left.

 

[YanKleber]

Don't worry about it. The amount of writes it takes to significantly dig into a modern SSDs flash reserves is insanely high. Check the amount of writes via SMART data or the manufacturer's drive utility in 6 months to a year and see how you stand. My guess is you'll have a decade or two left.

Wow, LoL, that's cool!

:awe:

This is a small SSD drive -- a Kingston V300 with 60GB. I am willing to put only my operating system (and maybe the applications still to be decided) and since I am completelly noob in SSD realm I am tending to get scared on make crap.

Anyway, two decades is WAY more than I expect it to live with a decent performance. Actually if it goes fine for two YEARS or so I will be more than happy!

Thanks!

:thumbsup:

 

[smakme7757]

Yep, it's not a concern. As most people say, you're more likely to buy a new SSD before the current one stops writing data.

Plug it in, install Windows and enjoy!

 

[Whisper2]

Wearing out an SSD is not a concern. I have been using an Intel X25-M SSD for over 3 1/2 years in a desktop that I use every day. Intel's SSD software (Toolbox) shows that the drive still has 100% of its life left.

 

[YanKleber]

Yesterday I installed Windows 7 twice (my crap) and started fresh with a total of 65GB of writing in my brand new SSD. Today after a whole typical day using my PC (coding, browsing web, downloading stuff, putting some stuff in the desktop, editing some music, etc) along 10 hours I am about to finish with barely 4GB wrote to disk. Too much less than I supposed (I had imagined something around 10GB).

Considering that Kingston announces a life of 32TB for this drive in this pace it would give me 21 years (ochadd nailed it). I am more than happy since most probably I will be buying a new one between 2-4 years. It's great to know that it is not going to worn out too soon.

 

[JackMDS]

It's great to know that it is not going to worn out too soon.

Few decades from now the current era of American History would probably will be known as the Drama Queening/Kinging era.

I know that it is hard, but currently it is important to be able to discriminate between Real Technology and Drama Queen Technology.

Unfortunately most of Online info across all life's domains is of the "Drama" type. - - :whiste:

 

[Red Squirrel]

For anything that you manually do in terms of I/O I would not worry as it's not like you're sitting there copying and deleting files all day.

What I would worry about it large I/O operations that are automated like VMs, swap file, defrag etc... you want to disable all that stuff, and if you're going to run VMs, you want to be using spindle drives (preferably in raid). Defrag is probably the biggest offender as you can't really defrag a SSD so I think it will just keep trying. Not sure TBH, never tried it, but best to ensure the auto defrag is disabled. (It's on by default in win7).

 

[dave_the_nerd]

if you're going to run VMs, you want to be using spindle drives (preferably in raid).

Why?

Is I/O load and/or write activity on a VM any different than I/O load and/or write activity on a desktop?

I mean, if I had a rack of SSDs in a server I would want to minimize unnecessary vmotions and stuff, and I'd weight the cost/benefit of any write-intensive workloads before I put them on an SSD-backed datastore, but in the desktop world, using an SSD for your vmdk is just about the only thing that makes the performance tolerable.

 

[code65536]

if you're going to run VMs, you want to be using spindle drives (preferably in raid).

So it's just a fluke that the entire VPS industry is rapidly switching to SSD-based VMs...

Some (most?) virtualization platforms let you specify that a virtual disk is located on a SSD, in which case they'll make sure the virtual disk appears to the guest OS as a SSD, and most guest OSes (including Windows 7) are smart enough to not do Stupid Things when they detect a SSD.

Microsoft's VHDX virtual disk format even understands TRIM.

If anything, I'd say that virtualization is uniquely suited for SSDs and that they are a poster child of what SSDs are really good for: high concurrency.

 

[SimMike2]

Where do people get this opinion that SSD is so vulnerable? Strange.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Where do people get this opinion that SSD is so vulnerable? Strange.

It's because there is a hard, designed in limit to NAND endurance. Even though the real-world average lifespan of an SSD is as good as or better than the real-world average lifespan of a typical consumer HDD, the fact remains that HDDs don't have a set lifetime counter, and any computer geek will have had a few last a really long time.

So people see the SSD lifespan counting down day by day and get really nervous. Psychology.

 

[oynaz]

I actually have a customer who have decided to put a database with very heavy write activity on SSD disks in a SAN. It is the first major implementation of databases on SSDs I have seen, and I am curious as to how big their endurance problems will be.

 

[YanKleber]

Being a noob in SSD world is natural that I was scared at first specially after to read so many terrifying fairy tales that are out there about how quick an SSD health can be sucked down the drain.

However after one more typical computer daily usage I got only other 5GB of writing. This is pretty awesome and I am pretty convinced that SSD worn out is not a reason of concern for the regular user.

Now this is definitive: I am going to uninstall CrystalDiskInfo from my system as I don't need one more thing in my life to get me paranoid.