Question Life span of NVMe drives?

[1Reality1]

Is 4-4.5 years the average lifespan of a Samsung NVMe drive?

Specifically, a M2 Samsung SSD 960 EVO, if that helps with a determination.

 

[rgd1101]

not by years but by write usage

 

[geofelt]

SSD endurance is no longer an issue for normal non server users.
Lifespan is reached when the ssd nand chips can no longer accept updates. The device can still be read, allowing you to copy to a fresh drive. Larger drives will have longer endurance.
On, say a 1tb ssd, it would take 10-15 years of heavy desktop usage to come even close to wearing out.

 

[Eximo]

Just remember that drives can fail at any time. So make sure to have a backup.

My 1TB 960 Evo died at almost exactly five years. Data was not recoverable. I believe one of the NAND chips died, as the drive would appear in the BIOS occasionally.

 

[USAFRet]

Is 4-4.5 years the average lifespan of a Samsung NVMe drive?

Specifically, a M2 Samsung SSD 960 EVO, if that helps with a determination.

No.
Don't know where you read that.

The 960 EVO was released in Oct 2016, so barely 6 years old.
If there were a rash of them dying at 4 years old, we'd have heard about it.

 

[1Reality1]

No.
Don't know where you read that.

The 960 EVO was released in Oct 2016, so barely 6 years old.
If there were a rash of them dying at 4 years old, we'd have heard about it.

Didn't read it, experienced it and was wondering about it. It's a bit over 4.5 years old at this point and appears to have died. Granted, it was the boot drive and housed only a few apps, other than the OS.

 

[USAFRet]

Didn't read it, experienced it and was wondering about it. It's a bit over 4.5 years old at this point and appears to have died. Granted, it was the boot drive and housed only a few apps, other than the OS.

One off experience.

Thats like asking if Sandisk drives generally die at 3 years. Because one of mine did.


But no...4-4.5 years is not a typical death realm.

 

[geofelt]

Didn't read it, experienced it and was wondering about it. It's a bit over 4.5 years old at this point and appears to have died. Granted, it was the boot drive and housed only a few apps, other than the OS.

If it was 128gb drive, it would have 1.4 the endurance of a 500gb drive.
On occasion, a drive will fail prematurely for quality reasons.

 

[1Reality1]

If it was 128gb drive, it would have 1.4 the endurance of a 500gb drive.
On occasion, a drive will fail prematurely for quality reasons.

Ahhh, that is interesting; thank you.

 

[1Reality1]

One off experience.

Thats like asking if Sandisk drives generally die at 3 years. Because one of mine did.


But no...4-4.5 years is not a typical death realm.

Haha, yeah. Have only had two SSDs so far. And the older one, which is also 4x the size of the other one, is still around.
Wanted to get a consensus of those with more experience, where possible and cast a wider net than would be able to alone.
Thank you for the response.

 

[USAFRet]

Haha, yeah. Have only had two SSDs so far. And the older one, which is also 4x the size of the other one, is still around.
Wanted to get a consensus of those with more experience, where possible and cast a wider net than would be able to alone.
Thank you for the response.

I have/had about a dozen in circulation.
Only 2 of them problematical.

1x 960 GB Sandisk. Died suddently
1x 120GB Kingston. The 2nd one I had. Went disturbingly slow over time.

None of the Samsungs have acted up. All, even the now 8 year old 840 EVOs, still report the same basic performance as brand new.

 

[geofelt]

Ahhh, that is interesting; thank you.

That should have been 1/4 or 25%
You can see why with a 2tb unit, you are not going to run out of writes if the drive is sound.

 

[1Reality1]

I have/had about a dozen in circulation.
Only 2 of them problematical.

1x 960 GB Sandisk. Died suddently
1x 120GB Kingston. The 2nd one I had. Went disturbingly slow over time.

None of the Samsungs have acted up. All, even the now 8 year old 840 EVOs, still report the same basic performance as brand new.

Wow, that's pretty great. Thank you for the info. I need to look a bit more into it; seems quite interesting.

 

[1Reality1]

That should have been 1/4 or 25%
You can see why with a 2tb unit, you are not going to run out of writes if the drive is sound.

That makes more sense! Thank you

 

[PassMark]

Newest SSDs can write at around 5GB/sec.
Lifetime is measured in TBW (Terabytes written). e.g. 140TB.
So if you wrote to the disk at full speed non stop you can expect it to last about 24 hours.

Samsung 960 250GB is 100TBW with ~1.5GB/sec writes. So you could exhaust that in 18 hours of use, if you really wanted to 🙂

Check the SMART data. Most SSD drives track their usage levels internally.

Example,

 

[Lafong]

What good does the "average" life span do you? Not much if all you know is the average.

You'd be HIGHLY interested to know where the deaths are distributed within the range, but I'm not aware of any such public info......not sure of any bell curve.

Would you be averaging 1, 1, 23, and 23 to get a 12 year average or averaging 10, 12, and 14 to get a 12 year average? Half don't last 2 years versus all last at least 10 years.

Warranty claims made to the likes of Samsung, Crucial, or WD might be revealing, but I suspect that information is tightly held.

 

[Ar558]

Most are measured in TBW (Terabytes Written) I think my P5s have a 600TBW limit. I have had mine 8 months and used 3.7TB of writes so I doubt you are gonna use up your lifespan unless you are doing some extreme edge case usage.

 

[hitchhiker0]

High temperatures reduce lifetime of NMVE module.
Keep it cool as you can (e.g. installing a cooler or good air flow)