How long does an SSD last? It’s a tricky question to answer

I’ve been enjoying the lightning-fast speeds of storing and restoring data on SSDs (Solid State Drives) for some time now. For gaming, they offer fast load times, support the latest graphics, and as a bonus, they generate less heat than the older mechanical drives I was used to.

However, when my old HDD (Hard Disk) booted up and failed, it lost data and I now want to know how long my SSD will last. I have a pair on my desktop gaming rig that are about eight years old. So, should I be worried?

Further reading: The best SSD we’ve ever tested

Will my old SSD expire soon?

The short answer is, yes, I should be somewhat concerned about their age, especially since I write them so many letters. This is because each type of hardware SSD has a limited lifespan.

While these storage devices have speed and latency advantages over mechanical hard drives, they are not immune to degradation over time.

The reason for their reduced performance is that, like USB drives, SSDs are flash memory devices that rely on NAND or V-NAND flash memory chips to store and retrieve data.

With use, and after a certain number of program/erase (P/E) cycles, the transistors in NAND wafers wear slightly, and may wear to the point where they lose their ability to hold charge and become less reliable at data retention.

If there’s enough wear and tear, these drives will stop working altogether. You can learn more about flash memory and how it works in our article “How long can the data on a USB flash drive be saved?“

SSD lifespan is not an exact science

Unfortunately, there is no exact way to determine the lifespan of an SSD, but we can roughly estimate the lifespan based on different factors.

Based on theoretical calculations and some popular metrics, manufacturers typically claim SSD service life to be between five and seven years. These include the following factors:

• TBW (total bytes written): The total amount of data that can be written to an SSD before it stops working
• Program/Erase (P/E) cycle: The number of times an SSD can write data before the cells start to fail
• Write endurance: The amount of data that can be written to the SSD before the P/E cycle limit is reached

Research shows that these factors are important factors in determining the service life of SSDs. But for the average user, these indicators will be difficult to follow closely.

A simpler metric is the lifespan of the SSD. Actually, Joint research between the University of Toronto and Google Age was found to be the strongest predictor of SSD longevity.

The study, conducted at Google data centers, found that older SSDs encountered significantly more data retention errors than newer SSDs. Interestingly, it also found that SSDs were more reliable than HDDs, with only one-fourth the replacement rate of HDDs.

Why you can’t rely entirely on manufacturer estimates

Manufacturers’ theoretical calculations often don’t take into account real-world variables and conditions that can affect SSDs.

If the manufacturer expects a lifespan of 5 to 7 years, then with light, infrequent use and no exposure to other adverse conditions, an SSD can easily last 10+ years. But the opposite may also be true: with heavy or frequent use and adverse conditions, an SDD may only last 3 to 5 years.

Finally, the TBW of the drive shouldn’t be too important for home use. In fact, you have to write data almost constantly for 7 years, which is why your SSD will die.

How much information do you need to write? Research shows that, in the best case scenario, a 256GB SSD can take up as much as 1 petabyte (or 1,000 terabytes) of space before failing. Larger capacity SSD More data will be needed.

The type of SDD you use (SLC, MLC, or TLC)—now that’s another story. There is a big difference between the top SSDs and the most expensive types of SSDs in terms of the number of P/E cycles they can withstand. As a rule of thumb, you can use the following as a guide:

• SLC NAND flash memory: 50,000 to 100,000 write cycles
• MLC NAND flash memory: 3,000 write cycles
• TLC NAND flash memory: 300 to 1,000 write cycles

In addition to data and longevity, environmental factors such as temperature and humidity levels, as well as the extent to which the SSD is exposed to stressors such as vibration, also have an impact on its longevity.

How to extend the life of your SSD

As you can see from the information above, using an SSD less frequently and writing less data to it over time are two ways to extend its lifespan. But if you’re like me, you don’t want to do either of those things.

A better approach is to make sure you buy the drive from a reputable manufacturer whose quality you can trust, as quality can also be a determining factor in an SSD’s longevity.

You can also control the environmental conditions the drive is exposed to: for example, keeping heat and humidity to a minimum and using uninterruptible power supplies and/or surge protectors to prevent power fluctuations from causing failure.

It is also recommended to leave a small amount of free space as most SSDs use a process called wear leveling that requires free space to operate.

You can also use tools to monitor the operation of the drive, whether it is an external software program, such as Crystal disk informationor tools built into the drive itself, such as Western Digital’s Dashboard or Samsung’s Magician.

While you don’t have to worry too much about longevity if you’ve just purchased a new SSD, if you have an older drive you’ll also want to keep an eye on key Signs Your SSD Might Be Dying.

Regardless of these steps, you should always remember to back up critical data to external drive. By staying alert and prepared, you can avoid getting into trouble when the worst happens.