Do SSD drives have limited lifespans?

[Dometologist]

well, as you can see I'm curious about the SSD + HDD combo. Mainly, my question is if the SSD will wear out over time...if so, how long can I expect to use my SSD?
...I plan to use SSD strictly for booting my OS not for read writes of other media files. Thanks in advance

 

[smorizio]

well, as you can see I'm curious about the SSD + HDD combo. Mainly, my question is if the SSD will wear out over time...if so, how long can I expect to use my SSD?
...I plan to use SSD strictly for booting my OS not for read writes of other media files. Thanks in advance

you should see 4 to 7 years of normal use before the drive wears out. as long as you do what intel and other vensros tell you about ssd...moving the swap file to the slower hard drive and your daily downloads to the hard drive...with an ssd it how many writes the drive has not reads..widows 7 and windows 8 not yet written for ssd or system with a lot of memory that can make a ram drive. things like drfrag is a no no for an ssd that has to be turned off in windows. other things like file indexing are great for a hard drive but slow down an ssd. I have an intel ssd as long as the ssd has good firmware and trim funtions and you let the drive do it garbage colelction. it should wear evenly over the years.

 

[blazorthon]

The longevity of a drive depends on the drive and how you use it. Most newer SandForce drives (excluding Intel's) will probably die before most newer non-SandForce drives. Like smorizio said, how much you write to the drive also has an impact on longevity. A decent SSD, used only as a boot drive, should last a long time.

 

[TheProudNoob]

Basically, don't worry about it. Unless you plan on constantly moving large amounts of media, your drive shouldn't begin slowing down, until after the life of your computer is over (the other components will age too).

Also, reading from the SSD doesn't use up the flash memory. Only overwriting it does. But deleting (with TRIM) also leaves the data there (doesn't overwrite, but simply notes that the data is deleted) so as not to wear out the drive.

The SSD + HDD combo is very comfortable. PM me for help if you don't know how to set your media library locations (My Music, My Video, etc.) to your HDD...

 

[masterjaw]

As mentioned by others, it would depend on your usage and how heavily you exhaust the write capabilities of the drive. OS do write small amounts of data from time to time but that won't be enough to exhaust the drive.

 

[Dometologist]

Best answer selected by Dometologist.

 

[Dometologist]

I appreciate the offer of assistance, I might have to take you up on it...this will be my first build