SSD drives lifespan

[Argus]

Hi

I'm looking at getting a SSD drive to use as my boot drive
but i remember when they brought them out for desktops the had a read/write longevity problem

where the drive could only last for a maximum number of read/writes

is this still a problem with them?
if so have they improved on the problem to make them last longer?

thanks in advance

 

[Pada]

Yes, the SSD's still have limited writes, but you there are numerous tweaks to increase its lifespan!
I'd suggest that you at least run the SSD in combination with a (mechanical) HDD, so that you can place all the temporary folders on the HDD.

 

[Archer]

Solid state storage mediums have been able to have 1 million writes to each sector before dying since 1998. I would not worry too much

 

[biometrics]

It will outlast most of your other components!

 

[techead]

Yes, the SSD's still have limited writes, but you there are numerous tweaks to increase its lifespan!
I'd suggest that you at least run the SSD in combination with a (mechanical) HDD, so that you can place all the temporary folders on the HDD.

:erm:

@ OP go and read anandtech before you buy a SSD. thats what I did, and its always good to understand exactly what you buying and understand the technology. once you understand, you can not only make an informed choice but also ignore all the drivel that some people post

 

[Ry4n]

The technology has improved since - most SSD's these days have TRIM technology - I had to do a firmware update on mine to get it to work correctly.
If you are serious about SSD's make sure it has TRIM - as the performance of the drive will decrease over time without it.

GL.

 

[Argus]

thanks for the replies

@HTC_guy
thanks i will go and check out anandtech

if its up to 1 million read/writes thats great
i think when i checked a couple of years ago they were only good for something like 50,000 read/writes
but i was looking the desktop/laptop released products and not your professional server products

 

[P924]

More like 10 000 write cycles for an MLC device, and 100 000 for an SLC device. But the firmware on the drive does "load shedding" so that all the sectors get worn at the same rate, increasing life span dramatically. Search for some articles, the effective life span is quite high as long as you keep some free space. If you intend on writing the entire disk space over and over then you will get 10000 write cycles on the cheaper MLC devices.

EDIT: At the end of this article is some more info: http://techreport.com/articles.x/15433

Snippet from intel X25-m datasheet: ftp://download.intel.com/design/flash/NAND/mainstream/mainstream-sata-ssd-datasheet.pdf

"The drive will have a minimum of 5 years useful life under typical client workloads with up to 20 GB of host writes per day"