Question GIGABYTE SSD TBW PROBLEM

Sep 13, 2022
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this is gigabyte/aorus 512gb nvme rgb ssd which i have. now problem is regarding tbw with the ssd,

https://www.gigabyte.com/in/SSD/AORUS-RGB-M2-NVMe-SSD-512GB#kf

Gigabyte has advertised ssd having 800tbw rating and my ssd has used 3 percent out of 100 percent life so as per 800tbw rating 3 percent should mean around 24tb of data has been written on ssd where as software shoes only 8tb written, could gigabyte be lying about their products?

https://ibb.co/KVrVDdc

https://ibb.co/0rRRLG1

https://ibb.co/C14FNnz
 
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Sep 13, 2022
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Look at Data Units Written 17.535.600.00
"
capacity 3 percent" doesn't relate to TBW but amount on data on the disk.
sorry i meant rating and not available space for use.

yes data units written is exactly my point i converted it to tb and i get value of around 8.2 tbw which is way too less according to rating of 800tbw for 3 percent i mean 3 percent should mean around 24tbw used but its only 8.2 tbw which means a tbw rating of around 260 overall.Which is different from advertised 800tbw rating.
 
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sorry i meant rating and not available space for use.

yes data units written is exactly my point i converted it to tb and i get value of around 8.2 tbw which is way too less according to rating of 800tbw for 3 percent i mean 3 percent should mean around 24tbw used but its only 8.2 tbw which means a tbw rating of around 260 overall.Which is different from advertised 800tbw rating.
What 3% rating , I don't see any on that picture ? Can you point it in the picture ?
some discrepancy could be because of this
*Note: 1GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual useable capacity may vary."
While formatted in windows 1KB is 1024 bytes.
In any case, estimated TBW is there for warranty purposes, it doesn't mean that it will last shorter or longer than that.
 
Sep 13, 2022
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What 3% rating , I don't see any on that picture ? Can you point it in the picture ?
some discrepancy could be because of this
*Note: 1GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual useable capacity may vary."
While formatted in windows 1KB is 1024 bytes.
In any case, estimated TBW is there for warranty purposes, it doesn't mean that it will last shorter or longer than that.
id 05 percentage used 3

btw its life consumed in percentage and not the amount of storage space used
 
Sep 13, 2022
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That has nothing to do with TBW, that's just percentage of data on total disk capacity counted in base 10 as 1KB = 1000Bytes and not 1024 when formatted in windows. There's also some waste depending on sector size.
it has everything to do with the tbw, you still havent got my point
Its not the percentage of data on total disk capacity i already mentioned that in my comment just above yours

here are more images

https://ibb.co/0rRRLG1

https://ibb.co/C14FNnz

please notice estimated life remaining 97% means 3% life used thats what means in id 05 percentage used in smart details in the image below.

https://ibb.co/KVrVDdc
 
it has everything to do with the tbw, you still havent got my point
Its not the percentage of data on total disk capacity i already mentioned that in my comment just above yours

here are more images

https://ibb.co/0rRRLG1

https://ibb.co/C14FNnz

please notice estimated life remaining 97% means 3% life used thats what means in id 05 percentage used in smart details in below image.

https://ibb.co/KVrVDdc
That's just coincidence, that 97% on first picture is related to life expectancy and TBW is just an element of it. To calculate that number beside TBW other elements čile SSD/HDD's age number of starts as well as effective usage is is taken into account, If SMART doesn't show any anomalies (no yellow or red marks) means it's in perfect working order. So it's quite normal for SSDs.
 
Sep 13, 2022
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Where do you see 8 tb written?

I see about 17.5, which would be between 2 and 3 percent of TBW.

What am I missing?
17.5 is not tbw you have to convert it to kilobytes and then kilobytes into tb to get used tbw which i did and it gave me value of about 8 tb anyway here is a screenshot for you from software itself. look at total host writes value 8361GB means 8.3tb.

https://ibb.co/cwfrWSK

to convert i multiplied the ID 07 of smart which is

17535600x512=8978227200 kilobytes
 
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How long have you owned the drive?

It has been powered on the equivalent of 193 days of 24/7 operation.

I'd guess the average user might write 10 or 15 gb a year. I write maybe 5; some people write 20.

TBW is likely to be a factor in your life during the warranty period....is that 5 years for this drive? If you hit 800 TB written in 5 years, they might tell you to jump in the lake if you make a warranty claim.
 
Ackchually, a "write amplification" of 3 is on the low side for a DRAMless TLC SSD. However it is a bit high for a SSD with RAM cache. Those early Sandforce controllers compressed data before writing to NAND simply to reduce write amplification below 1 on compressible data.
Capture3.PNG
 
Sep 13, 2022
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That's just coincidence, that 97% on first picture is related to life expectancy and TBW is just an element of it. To calculate that number beside TBW other elements čile SSD/HDD's age number of starts as well as effective usage is is taken into account, If SMART doesn't show any anomalies (no yellow or red marks) means it's in perfect working order. So it's quite normal for SSDs.
as far as i know company relies on two things for warranty first one is purchase date and 2nd tbw so there is no 3rd element, now my ssd has warranty of 5 years and its been 2 years since i have been using it and i cant relate that 3% reduced life to any of those two elements except for the fact that company is lying about their product.
 
Sep 13, 2022
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How long have you owned the drive?

It has been powered on the equivalent of 193 days of 24/7 operation.

I'd guess the average user might write 10 or 15 gb a year. I write maybe 5; some people write 20.

TBW is likely to be a factor in your life during the warranty period....is that 5 years for this drive? If you hit 800 TB written in 5 years, they might tell you to jump in the lake if you make a warranty claim.
5 years warranty or 800tbw , its been 2 years btw.
 
8 of 800 about 1 percent and 24 of 800 about 3 percent but 8 and 24 certainly has big difference thats exactly 3 times more.

True, but what is the proper inference?

My SSD is approaching 8 years of age and sports a massive TBW rating of 72. Six dozen.

Total writes; 51 TB, over 70% of the TBW.

"Health status" per Crystal Disk Info: 70 percent

Warranty; 3 years, long ago.

You are writing circa 4 TB a year. Less than most people.
 
Sep 13, 2022
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Ackchually, a "write amplification" of 3 is on the low side for a DRAMless TLC SSD. However it is a bit high for a SSD with RAM cache. Those early Sandforce controllers compressed data before writing to NAND simply to reduce write amplification below 1 on compressible data.
Capture3.PNG
so what your saying is that host writes are about 8 tb but nand writes are 3 times of that meaning around 24tb? is there any way to know nand writes because crystaldisk or gigabyte software wont show that.
 
The total writes are the NAND writes. The drive's firmware keeps track of that stuff, but unfortunately it does not record what the host writes or WAF were for that. Utilities can only query the firmware about what is recorded there.

As an aside, a new consumer SSD can typically be expected to retain data for ~ten years without power, but after the rated TBW is only rated to retain the data for one year without power at elevated temperatures. You can continue to use the drive long after the TBW is exhausted (unless it's an Intel drive that is programmed to brick itself then) provided you are OK with shorter and shorter power-off data retention. If you never power-down the drive in a NAS for example, the firmware will refresh the cells frequently enough for data loss to never be an issue. Unless the power goes out.

This site is almost dead so the charts are gone but I would suggest reading: https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead They wrote 2.4PB (2400 Terabytes) to a drive rated 73TBW and it was still working
IMG0046796.gif

--Found another test where an 850 Pro rated for 150TBW survived until 9.1PB: https://www-heise-de.translate.goog...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 
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The rated life of an SSD can be based on two factors, TBW by the host, and the average number of P/E cycles.

If we assume that SMART calculations are based on a rating of 1000 P/E cycles, then 3% of that would equate to ...

3% x 1000 x 512GiB = 16.5 TB​

That would be the actual amount of data written to NAND.

The NVMe specification defines SMART attribute 07 as follows:

"Data Units Written: Contains the number of 512 byte data units the host has written to the controller; this value does not include metadata. This value is reported in thousands (i.e., a value of 1 corresponds to 1000 units of 512 bytes written) and is rounded up. When the LBA size is a value other than 512 bytes, the controller shall convert the amount of data written to 512 byte units."

So the actual amount of data written over SATA is ...

17535600 x 512 x 1000 bytes = 8.98 TB​

In short, the SSD appears to be using P/E cycles to calculate the remaining life.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
And in the real world, you will not reach whatever warranty TBW number there is before the warranty ages out at 3 or 5 years.

Also in the real world, consumer level SSDs have been tested to actually last far beyond that TBW number.

So...what do you do?

keep good backups.
Use it until it dies.

If it dies within the warranty period (either TBW or age)...free replacement
If outside that..well, it had a good life. Replace.

Keep good backups.
All drives die eventually.
 
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