SSD Longer lifespan than traditional HDD? True?

Is this true? I thought SSDs suffered from short lifespan...

I work on my laptop 12 hours a day maybe a bit more, will I benefit from a SSD? I am happy with traditional hard drives. But I wondered if I buy a SSD how long it will last depending on my 12h/day usage.

And then there is the question of which Operating System I should use.

Windows 7 requires a page file. While Ubuntu doesn't. And the changes the page file will be used on Ubuntu are small anyway.

 

Theoretically, yes, they should. But, they're still pretty new to the market, HDD's are warrantied for 3-5 years, so we'll see.

I vote yes.

 

What is the warranty of a SSD? 1y or 2y? or 5y?

 

depends on the manufacturer, some have lifetime I think.

 

I don't think they offer a LIFETIME warranty on an SDD looL!!!:wanker:

 

My super old USB stick still works.

 

I say neither true or false, all about LUCK...

You could have a hard drive last you a few months or even a year or two.

Suddenly it can fukk up, just like that....

Same issue with SSD, could last months or even years...

I've known people having the same desktop with the same hard drives running over 10 years and never have they had any problems whatsoever...

Also depends on the USE of the drive, viruses/spyware/trojans/horses are another factor that could destroy any hard drive...

Then again, you could have a hard drive for 10+ years and have no problem with it...

 

From the ongoing testing at XS: The nand on my drive will last 120 years+ with my daily usage and assuming that the curve remains steady, and that the drive dies when the wearout indicator reaches zero. Providing that there is no other component in the drive that kicks it in the meantime, that's a pretty good lifespan!



Edit: Now that the forum is back up i've updated the graph to the latest version and snagged the link.


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?271063-SSD-Write-Endurance-25nm-Vs-34nm

 

@ DirkGently, your SSD drive will outlive you, lol...

 

I think the book is finally closed on the endurance question. Hopefully people will stop with the FUD now and quit worrying where to put their temp files

 

So actually it is eventually less worse than first expected. I noticed Intel is giving 5y warranty on the 320 series.

My class mates are telling my I should get one SSD for $100 - 60Gb. I only have laptop with one hard drive.

Is there a way I can monitor my daily usage? how much my hard drive has to work etc? So I can have an idea.

 

lol who expected SSDs to be worse then HDDs? I bought Intel SSD almost two years ago and never looked back.

Here is some statistics: I actively use it everyday, total active power-on usage is 4587 hours or 191 days. Swap file is left on SSD, I never did anything else then to format drive and install Windows 7 on it.
Currently Media Wearout Indicator reports 98. It was 99 when I started to use it. I expect this SSD to last longer then I will use it.

 

Traditional hard drives get a lifetime rating from what is called "mean hours". Which works out to around 3 yrs to 5 yrs. SSD's get rated to what is called "load cycles" that depending on the manufacturer works out to something like 5 yrs to 10 yrs.

In short SSD's will last upwards of 50% longer then a traditional HDD..

 

Based on Intel's numbers I've worked out the math and it shows that if I continue at current usage patterns my drive will last for 100 years. Pretty damn good lifespan, and it shows you don't need to worry about tweaking the hell out of Windows just to avoid frivolous writes. The only thing you have to worry about is getting a defective drive, which is somewhat common due to the difficulty of manufacturing these things.

 

Its too early to tell.
They havent been out long enough to find all the common failure modes of the technology, materials and methods used to make the drives, how prevalent the problems are and at what age and/or use they exhibit them.

Another thing you may wish to consider if you plan on leaving a machine off for very long periods or if you wish to store an SSD, is how long cells can retain data without being refreshed.
http://www.techopsguys.com/2011/02/19/

Chances are its not going to matter until the drive is say 5 years or older.
But it does demonstrate that if you wish to preserve an old SSD, it may need powering up every so often.

 

I think the life depends on the constant writing on the drive, delete/write/delete/write but even then you would have to constantly do that everyday for 5 years (theoretically) before it runs down it's life.

 

The write capacity of SSDs are a lot lower than HDDs, however if you're talking about sudden failures, then SSDs are obviously better than HDDs because there's no moving parts. If you drop an SSD, most likely it'll still work.

deltatux

 

SSD's have been used in rough-and-tumble equipment for a long time now, namely military equipment.:nerd:

 

Those are usually SLC SSDs, they're a lot more expensive and last a lot longer. Most commercial SSDs are MLC. They're slower and don't last long.

deltatux

 

For a few modes of failure yes.
Those are not the only ways it can fail though.