Question Crucial MX500 500GB SATA SSD - - - Remaining Life decreasing fast despite only a few bytes being written to it ?

[Lucretia19]

The Remaining Life (RL) of my Crucial MX500 ssd has been decreasing rapidly, even though the pc doesn't write much to it. Below is the log I began keeping after I noticed RL reached 95% after about 6 months of use.

Assuming RL truly depends on bytes written, the decrease in RL is accelerating and something is very wrong. The latest decrease in RL, from 94% to 93%, occurred after writing only 138 GB in 20 days.

(Note 1: After RL reached 95%, I took some steps to reduce "unnecessary" writes to the ssd by moving some frequently written files to a hard drive, for example the Firefox profile folder. That's why only 528 GB have been written to the ssd since Dec 23rd, even though the pc is set to Never Sleep and is always powered on. Note 2: After the pc and ssd were about 2 months old, around September, I changed the pc's power profile so it would Never Sleep. Note 3: The ssd still has a lot of free space; only 111 GB of its 500 GB capacity is occupied. Note 4: Three different software utilities agree on the numbers: Crucial's Storage Executive, HWiNFO64, and CrystalDiskInfo. Note 5: Storage Executive also shows that Total Bytes Written isn't much greater than Total Host Writes, implying write amplification hasn't been a significant factor.)

My understanding is that Remaining Life is supposed to depend on bytes written, but it looks more like the drive reports a value that depends mainly on its powered-on hours. Can someone explain what's happening? Am I misinterpreting the meaning of Remaining Life? Isn't it essentially a synonym for endurance?

�

Crucial MX500 500GB SSD in desktop pc since summer 2019​
Date​	Remaining Life​	Total Host Writes (GB)​	Host Writes (GB) Since Previous Drop​
12/23/2019​	95%​	5,782​	​
01/15/2020​	94%​	6,172​	390​
02/04/2020​	93%​	6,310​	138​

 

[worstalentscout]

life just dropped to 76%..............

16,159 GB written (606GB written compared to 602GB written for last 1% drop in life)........

write amplification...........still at 1.75......

lifespan = 75%

16,779 GB written (620 GB written compared to previous 606 GB)

write amplification...........still at 1.75......

 

[worstalentscout]

lifespan = 75%

16,779 GB written (620 GB written compared to previous 606 GB)

write amplification...........still at 1.75......

lifespan = 74%

17,406 GB written (627 GB written compared to previous 620 GB)

write amplification...........still at 1.75......

 

[worstalentscout]

lifespan = 74%

17,406 GB written (627 GB written compared to previous 620 GB)

write amplification...........still at 1.75......

lifespan = 73%

18,042 GB written (636 GB written compared to previous 627 GB)

write amplification...........still at 1.75......

 

[Lucretia19]

lifespan = 73%
18,042 GB written (636 GB written compared to previous 627 GB)
write amplification...........still at 1.75......

Would you please stop posting your monthly updates? Maybe switch to annual updates? I don't think the updates are of use here unless the behavior of your ssd changes.

Also, the format of your data isn't as easy to use as it could be... I recommend you create a spreadsheet in which there's one row of cells per (monthly) record of data. (I use the Calc module of LibreOffice, which is free.) You could add columns that automatically calculate values such as the overall write amplification, the bytes and NAND pages written by the host pc and by the ssd controller during the most recent month, the write amplification during just the most recent month, etc. It's easy to paste multiple rows & columns into a message here with a single copy/paste operation, and doing that annually instead of monthly would probably benefit both you and the rest of us.

 

[worstalentscout]

Would you please stop posting your monthly updates? Maybe switch to annual updates? I don't think the updates are of use here unless the behavior of your ssd changes.

Also, the format of your data isn't as easy to use as it could be... I recommend you create a spreadsheet in which there's one row of cells per (monthly) record of data. (I use the Calc module of LibreOffice, which is free.) You could add columns that automatically calculate values such as the overall write amplification, the bytes and NAND pages written by the host pc and by the ssd controller during the most recent month, the write amplification during just the most recent month, etc. It's easy to paste multiple rows & columns into a message here with a single copy/paste operation, and doing that annually instead of monthly would probably benefit both you and the rest of us.

roger.................roger...............

my updates were more for myself to take note............

 

[Diceman_2037]

checked on the 500GB i put in a qosmio for the first time in a long while and theres only 31% of life left lmao

ID	Attribute Description	Threshold	Value	Worst	Data	Status
01	Raw Read Error Rate	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
05	Reallocated Sector Count	10	100	100	0	OK: Value is normal
09	Power-On Hours Count	0	100	100	24418	OK: Always passes
0C	Power Cycle Count	0	100	100	201	OK: Always passes
AB	Program Fail Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
AC	Erase Fail Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
AD	Wear Leveling Count	0	39	39	926	OK: Always passes
AE	Unexpected Power Loss Count	0	100	100	92	OK: Always passes
B4	Unused Reserve (Spare) NAND Blocks	0	0	0	45	OK: Always passes
B7	SATA Interface Downshift	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
B8	Error Correction Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
BB	Reported Uncorrectable Errors	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
C2	Enclosure Temperature	0	58	44	42	OK: Always passes
C4	Re-allocation Event Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
C5	Current Pending Sector Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
C6	SMART Off-line Scan Uncorrectable Error Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
C7	SATA/PCIe CRC Error Count	0	100	100	1	OK: Always passes
CA	Percentage Of The Rated Lifetime Used	1	39	39	61	OK: Value is normal
CE	Write Error Rate	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
D2	Successful RAIN Recovery Count	0	100	100	0	OK: Always passes
F6	Total Host Sector Writes	0	100	100	7.77 TB	OK: Always passes
F7	Host Program Page Count	0	100	100	315412429	OK: Always passes
F8	FTL Program Page Count	0	100	100	15513539116	OK: Always passes

What i have come to learn, is that the Pending redirect value is flipped during cell refresh cycles, this refresh is performed in order to keep the disk performant, however on the original mx500's with the initial SM2258 controller, this is performed far too frequently leading to excessive wear compared to the SM2259H