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Blogs Own an Intel SSD? Tell how worn out it is!

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 23 Oct 2009.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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    http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/10/23/own-an-intel-ssd-tell-how-worn-out-it-is/

    Kingston dropped an interesting titbit that we thought we'd pass on to all Intel SSD owners - of which there's soon to be a lot more once the latest value X25-X drives arrive.

    Basically, the biggest unknown factor in NAND Flash technology is wear and tear. The cells have a limited amount of data writes, so don't last forever, even though intelligent wear algorithms mean an MLC drive will last 10 years having written a few hundred GB a day to it - far more than any normal user will do.

    One question that will get more important as time goes on is the second hand market: How can you account for wear if you're buying it off someone else?
     
  2. Tejstar

    Tejstar What's a Dremel?

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    Is it a linear relationship? So, if over 1820 hours it has worn by 3% does that mean at this rate it will fully wear out in 6.9 years time?

    Or does it not work like that?
     
  3. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Entirely depends on use. No NAND is perfect to start with so it may arrive lower than 100 percent.
     
  4. Tejstar

    Tejstar What's a Dremel?

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    Ok, cheers Richard!
     
  5. do_it_anyway

    do_it_anyway Minimodder

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    If thats power on hours, and the wear is linear (which is isn't, as Richard stated), then the drive wouldn't fail in 6.9 years unless it was on 24hrs per day 365 days per year.

    I am slowly coming round to the idea that even if I leave the page file on I will upgrade an SSD before it wears out.
    After all, how many people have got a 10 year old+ mechanical HDD in their computers?
     
  6. Paradigm Shifter

    Paradigm Shifter de nihilo nihil fit

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    Not in my main rig. But I do have a nearly 15 year old HDD in a hardware firewall box that does pretty much 24/7/365 duty. :geek:
     
  7. qupada

    qupada What's a Dremel?

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    Good news is the flag has made it to the G2 Intel SSDs too.

    smartmontools seemed to be the most useful tool I could find in my Linux distro's repository, info from 'smartctl --all /dev/sda'
    Device Model: INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC
    Firmware Version: 2CV102G9

    Code:
    ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
      9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       138
    233 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
    
    (0xE9 = 233)

    Good to know about this value, might check it again once I've had the SSD for more than a week.
     
  8. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    But how much information does your firewall box write to the drive? Because when it's on and doing nothing, it doesn't wear. A typical MLC NAND SSD can withstand a few hundred GB per day and last years with modern random write algorithms (at least that's what Intel rates its NAND to do). SLC NAND can take hundreds of TB afaik. I forget the exact statistic, I have it buried somewhere.

    I'd also suggest your 15 year HDD is doing extremely well!! What brand is it?
     
  9. Blademrk

    Blademrk Why so serious?

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    I've got a couple of old Western Digital 80gb IDE drives still in use along with 2 Western Digital 120gb sata drives that are around 10 years old (seeing as I built the system they're in when I was in Uni, and I've been working for just over 9 years).
     
  10. Paradigm Shifter

    Paradigm Shifter de nihilo nihil fit

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    Not completely sure I can give a 'daily' figure for log size. It depends on whether I'm bored and surfing around a lot. :D A light day when I'm busy elsewhere will be a few dozen entries, a bored day will be hundreds or thousands of log entries.

    It's a bit hard to compare writes on HDDs and SSDs anyway due to SSDs needing to write in blocks of, what, 4MB a time?. But then, a HDD can wear all the time it's on, because the motor needs to keep running. I was just illustrating that I have this habit of never, ever, throwing anything away... :blush: ...and so any electronic equipment I buy needs to last me. :D Bit annoyed ATM - I've just had two mobo's go on me in a week. :grr:

    It's the HDD out of my first ever PC - an old Packard Bell (many memories of vomit inducing gaming in Descent on that system!). The drive itself is a Maxtor. :)

    ...

    I'd be interested in those statistics if you can find them, as I've been slow to consider adopting an SSD as a boot drive for longevity reasons just as much (if not more) as price. :)
     
  11. Skiddywinks

    Skiddywinks Minimodder

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    Wow, handy thing to know! Cheers Richard!

    I am looking to buy a SSD around Christmas, so this is helpful knowledge for then.
     
  12. Ross1

    Ross1 What's a Dremel?

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    http://i33.tinypic.com/16gmzc3.png

    my g2 has been on as much as your 80gb g1 ;)

    given mine is still at 99%, it might stop the posters above worry quite so much about when its going to fail.
     
  13. bobwya

    bobwya Custom PC Migrant

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    Uhmm

    Tidy bit of info. I'm @1% wear with a 160Gb G2...
     
  14. nitrous9200

    nitrous9200 What's a Dremel?

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    I do, I've got a WD200 manufactured on 10 Nov 1999 that AFAIK is still running perfectly (this in a machine that was on 24/7 every day for many years).
    I too am wondering how SSD's will hold up with all of the constant reads and writes done by the modern OS and whether they will even last through their warranty period. I guess it's fine for us consumers if they don't make it.
     
  15. ConservativeOC

    ConservativeOC What's a Dremel?

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    I'm at 98% for 3,645 hours.

    My question is WHY DOESN'T THE TEMPERATURE "GAUGE" WORK on these drives.
     
  16. Guest-23315

    Guest-23315 Guest

    I thought they didn't heat up, and heat doesn't affect them... so why need one?
     
  17. cyrilthefish

    cyrilthefish What's a Dremel?

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    It's quite new, so hasn't got much registered yet, but it looks like that 'E9' function is the same as the intel one :)

    [​IMG]
     
  18. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Because it generates about 1C of heat?
     
  19. Phil Rhodes

    Phil Rhodes Hypernobber

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    I dunno about that - I've run several out of their cases, and the controllers do get quite warm. They may only pull five or six watts, but those five or six watts have to go somewhere.
     
  20. ConservativeOC

    ConservativeOC What's a Dremel?

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    I have run several brands of SSDs in Laptops and Desktops and they all measured the temperature. They are not as hot as mechanical drives, but they DO emit heat. I wanted to measure the heat gain when using an icy dock in a desktop, but was unable to since the SMART temp doesn't work.
     
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