SSD Longer lifespan than traditional HDD? True?

Discussion in 'SSD and HDD storage' started by djjonastybe, Jun 14, 2011.

  1. TDurden

    TDurden Guest

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    If you are talking about a decade or more when you say MLC SSDs dont last long then OK. Because thats how much it can take for SSD to wear out in a typical home user PC usage pattern.

    I don't think many HDDs last for so long.
     
  2. djjonastybe

    djjonastybe Master Guru

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    So a SSD is like high performance but has to be powered on regularly if you do not want to lose your data. Which means a SSD is less reliable if you plan on using it as storage and putting it away for long long time.

    I have seen hard drives surviving for 15 years. But what I do have much experience with is that a HDD is so easy to kill. Even when placed in a laptop and you move a lot.

    Since I joined university, I destroyed like 4-5 mechanical hard drives just by going to school. Having to pack, unpack etc.

    I certainly will buy a SSD, but damn they cost so much. I would like to have at least a 256Gb SLC SSD. I like to have dual boot. I can't do that on a 60Gb SSD

    What about defragging on a SSD? How often do you defrag? Eventually every file system needs to be defragged, also ext4 gets fragmented.

    Let's say once a month?

    Maybe next year I will upgrade to a newer notebook with SATA III equiped. And hopefully SSD's will have a greatly dropped price.
     
  3. Mufflore

    Mufflore Ancient Guru

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    When an SSD is new, it is claimed that it will hold data for 10 years or so without refreshing.
    As it wears and/or the higher the temp, this drops.
    Temperature looks to be pretty crucial as well as wear!
    Note: the following data relies on a 2005 datasheet for Non Volatile Memory, no distinction is made between the different SLC and MLC SSD types so this is a ballpark.
    http://communities.intel.com/message/95107
    125C higher temp equates to around 1/10,000th of the life (if accepting Freescale Semiconductors findings), so this looks crucial.
    ie if you store an SSD in a safe and there is a fire, its data may be destroyed even if the safe isnt penetrated.
    Its wise to put the SSD in a temperature isolating material that doesnt burn easily.
    After a fire, its a good idea to get the data off it quickly.

    From the PDF dated 2005, linked on that page (http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/doc/eng_bulletin/EB618.pdf), it can be seen that the life expectancy difference between 25C and 55C storage temp is around 18x for both types of bake test, meaning that temperature alone will theoretically reduce the life of data by 1/18th moving from 25C to 55C.
    If the 10 year data retention specs are rated at 25C, we now have an approximation of the projected life of data at higher temps, while the SSD is powered off.

    So with a new SSD, if the specs say 10 year data retention at 25C, this will reduce to just over half a year at 55C according to this 2005 study.
    Who knows how this deteriorates as the SSD ages though.
    To be safe, store well away from sunlight and radiators and other heat sources.
    fyi


    If you install Win7 on an SSD, it will disable defragmenting on that drive.
    Because there is no seek head to move, there is very little need to defragment.
    It can also cause excessive wear so is ill advised.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2011
  4. djjonastybe

    djjonastybe Master Guru

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    What happens around thems of 5-15*C which is the average of my country?
     

  5. Passion Fruit

    Passion Fruit Guest

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    It'll burst into flames as you remove it from the packaging and turn to ash in your hands....

    /facepalm
     
  6. Veteran

    Veteran Ancient Guru

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    I have had loads of hdd's over the years and i have never had one drive fail on me...honest.

    I always thought ssd's didnt last as long as hdd's.
     
  7. djjonastybe

    djjonastybe Master Guru

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    I think I will have to jump over to SSD anyway. Otherwise I will never know.
     
  8. TruMutton_200Hz

    TruMutton_200Hz Guest

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    Those who are smart will still put a carefully selected collection of small temp files on a RAMDISK, especially temp files that are very frequently being written to. The true reason why they do this is not because they want to avoid the unnecessary wear on the SSD but because it boosts performance one heck of alot while it avoids the unnecessary wear on the SSD at the same time also.
     
  9. djjonastybe

    djjonastybe Master Guru

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    Makes sense actually!
     
  10. att_user

    att_user Banned

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    I bought my SSD´s on 26.09.2009 and look at the SMART attributes. They show very little signs of use and i had them in RAID0 since i got them. They where never TRIMed and once i defragmented them. :D

    SSD1 SMART
    [​IMG]

    SSD2 SMART
    [​IMG]

    Seems like they will last forever.
     

  11. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Can't really say considering they're still a relatively new technology. I'll get back to you in about 5 years from now.

    HDD's have a lifespan of at least 5 years or more....even 10 years....
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2011
  12. PortBaron

    PortBaron Guest

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    The new 3rd gen intel 320 series SSDs that came out this year are supposedly the most reliable yet. They come with a 5 year warranty. Keep in mind that SSDs for computers have come a long way even in the last 2 years, so info from 5 years ago doesn't apply much to the newest SSDs.
    If we're talking long term storage (decade+) it would be hard to trust SSDs or HDDs...gotta do other physical media or use server space.
     
  13. davetheshrew

    davetheshrew Guest

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    I got a patriot inferno 120gb, it had a few months constant use before I had it and Ive had it a few months also and to be totally fair its freaking awesome and hasnt missed a trick.

    In the meantime Ive had a 320gb hitachi die after a year and a half use and one of my sammy 1tb drives are flaking out after just a few months use..clickety click.. you catch my meaning?

    SSD's FTW untill someone proves otherwise, personally I cant wait to make all my storage ssd. No worrys on cooling here so I think Im good :)
     
  14. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Here's my OS drive fwiw...a 6yr old Seagate.....;)

    Prob time I retired it to mass storage duty tho.....

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2011
  15. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    No doubt when Intel made that statement they were referring to Laptop drives, in which case I believe they'd be correct. SSD's do benefit from larger amounts of memory as this will reduce pagefile use. You can always use the argument the pagefile can be disabled, but you can't really do that with less than a decent amount of RAM, at least 6 or 8 GB anyway! in which case pagefile use is minimal (for typical use) anyway.

    Laptops can be knocked around a bit, even when on. Since movement of the HDD isn't a good thing when its on this can cause issues! Also laptops suffer from excess heat which can be soaked up by the drive, which definitely isn't good for it. On top of that, people go for the cheap or wrong options for a laptop and then believe it can do more than a laptop can actually handle, leading to excessive pagefile use. Also superfetch meant programs were continually loading and unloading (not so much with 7 but definitely on Vista), which further compounded the issue.

    Of course, people tried to run Vista on 1GB/2GB of RAM with these laptops, and try to use them like an ordinary computer (they're designed for portability, if you're going to leave in on the desk 24/7, or just move it to the bed to watch a movie, buy a desktop an plug it into the TV!).

    Another thing is you have the start/stop cycles. Having a hard drive spin up and down all the time for power save mode also kills it. Remember that when its spinning it only has to overcome wind resistance and the resistance of the bearings. When you start up the drive, it has to overcome those, plus spin the weight of the platter up to its speed (5400/7200 Rpm etc) in an extremely short time.

    - SSD's may be less sensitive to heat
    - SSD's aren't affected by movement or knocks (unless its a really hard knock)!
    - SSD's don't need to spin up, although start/stop power cycles like with any electrical devices has to be at least a little considered!

    You'll find the life expectancy info for the SSD isn't truly reflective of reality. I'm only assuming this, but the graphs would represent the likelihood of the drive not failing at the time. At 1 percent, say 115 years, you have a 99 percent chance that the drive may fail anytime soon!

    Its like mechanical hard drives with the MTBF (mean time before failure). My hard drives have a rating of 1,000,000 hours MTBF, which again equates to around 115 years!

    JUst like you won't be using the drive for the next 115 years to see if the graph is true, I won't be using the drive in 115 years either.

    Like I said, its a likely reliability scenario. Best case scenario (no power ups/downs, consistent clean stable power, little actual read/write use!, cool temperatures, no movement) the drive could very well last 115 years, like I said when the drive is constantly running it doesn't take much effort for the drive to keep running, and the same goes for the SSD.

    In any case, Intels statement would be true for the average laptop. For a well maintained cool, and properly set up PC using decent mechanical hard drives (green drives aren't typical rated as high as standard drives for use/reliability, and definity not as much as enterprise drives), I'd still say for the moment the mechanical one would win out.

    Of course, mechanical drives can fail, but the same goes for SSD drives! Anyone know what happens if one chip fails? is it the same scenerio over all chips? etc. How does peoples use of the drive in ide compatibility mode (because of the default bios) affect reliability over AHCI mode? etc.
     

  16. TruMutton_200Hz

    TruMutton_200Hz Guest

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    That is correct IMO. http://ssd-life.com/eng/how.html

    Personally, if I had an SSD then I would probably be writing alot more data to it alot more often than most people. This is because I would choose one that's very fast but at the same time also has very limited storage capacity (maybe 64 GB tops), so that I'd be frequently forced to delete files to free up space before being able to write more files.

    The smaller capacity SSDs usually have slower write speeds than their bigger capacity counterparts but this would not be a problem to me because I'd be spending the vast majority of the SSD's write cycles on merely copying files from harddisk to SSD anyway, so for the SSD's sustained write speeds to become a real bottleneck I'd first have to invest in extra harddisk read speed (RAID 0). So basically, I would simply upgrade from two harddisks in RAID 0 plus a single SSD, to four harddisks in RAID 0 plus two SSDs in RAID 0. That way, the SSD sustained write speeds would stay more or less in balance with harddisk sustained read speeds.

    The reasons why I would prefer a fast but small capacity SSD (other than the fact it's fast) are easy to explain.

    First off, it's cheaper than a fast big capacity one and thereby I can invest more money elsewhere (GPU power, for example). One can argue it's still much of a hassle to copy so many files over and over again to free up space but copying them would nevertheless be fast and besides, file copying tasks are easy to manage through a file manager (software), perhaps in combination with Bitsum Process Lasso to more effectively control the load from these tasks (as well as from all other processes, which is why IMO this paid software is worth its price anyway).

    Secondly, it's possible to copy only some of the files that are inside a software installation folder rather than all of them, without breaking the software as a result. This can be done using symbolic links. The freeware tool called Link Shell Extension makes them much more comfortable to work with, by the way (and so does combining them with hard links). It really doesn't require that much experience nor effort to keep them tidily organized. You can also relatively easily find out which files are worth putting on the SSD and which ones aren't (the ones that visibly slow you down are), using for example the freeware tool called Process Explorer to monitor file access etcetera.

    The bottom line: if you must wear out that SSD before it's fully antiquated, you might as well choose to wear it out for all of the proper reasons (a.k.a. speed versus money). lol

    EDIT: I forgot to mention, using symbolic links to move a carefully selected collection of files off of the SSD can also help to spread the load more effectively because, if an app accesses multiple files inside its installation folder simultaneously, both the SSD and the RAID 0 of harddisks can operate also simultaneously to serve the same app.

    Since a copy of some of the files on the SSD still also resides on the RAID 0 of harddisks, a quick adjustment of the symbolic links will let you decide whether to hand the load over to the SSD or not (for example if the SSD is already under heavy load that might take a while to complete, you could decide to not hog it up any further, by letting the RAID 0 of harddisks stick out a helping hand).
    Stupid Response Technology FTW! xD
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2011
  17. Clawedge

    Clawedge Guest

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    so what happens when the media wear level hits 50? does the capacity shrink with that number?
     
  18. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    Ummm, nope. You can do all the testing you want, but the end results will still be inconclusive until the drive actually survives that timeframe.

    Look at it this way. "Traditional" harddrives typically have a 3-5yr warranty. This is how long the manufacturer expects the product to last before failure. Samsung gives a 3yr warranty on their 470 series....which means they expect the drive to last at least 3yrs even though the MTBF is 1,000,000hrs...
     
  19. TruMutton_200Hz

    TruMutton_200Hz Guest

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    ^ Yeah, my point exactly. Because hardly anyone uses symlinks the NAND will probably last longer than the crappy SandForce chip that almost everybody has been jumping up and down about on these forums anyway. lol
     
  20. TDurden

    TDurden Guest

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    You are only partially correct.
    If we would follow the "waiting until new device survives given timeframe" rule then we would need to wait every time a new HDD series, a new chipset etc show up.

    It's not like SSD controllers were developed yesterday. For example Intel released it's consumer X25 SSD series three years ago. And it's not like they give 5 years warranty for the new Intel SSD controller based 320 series out of the blue.
     

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