SSD and Lifespan

[jaffajarre]

I have Windows freshly installed on my SSD with updates just installed. I want to install Microsoft Office and Ableton among other apps but I've heard that SSDs have a limited write count, so why do so many people recommend installing apps to the SSD if the lifespan could potentially be reduced, wouldn't it be better to install apps to the secondary HDD to prevent excessive read/write counts when opening up office/Ableton?

If I open and use Microsoft Office and Ableton (as well as any other apps) on a daily bases, surely that would count towards the SSDs write quota and reduce its lifespan, I mean Windows is constantly writing and changing system files to the SSD anyways, installing apps on it would further the damage?

 

[jaffajarre]

Also does anyone know how to change the location of browser cache to HDD instead of SSD?

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, an SSD has a limited lifespan.
However....that "limit" is huge.
http://techreport.com/review/26058/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-data-retention-after-600tb

Your new PC will be long dead before that SSD dies from too many write cycles.
If anything, it will become obsolete due to size, rather than dying from too many writes.

Many people have only SSD's in their system.
Like me...

Best way to keep it from dying is to not fill it up too much. Always leave about 20% free space.

What make/model/size drive is this?

 

[USAFRet]

Also does anyone know how to change the location of browser cache to HDD instead of SSD?

Browser cache?
Irrelevant. Leave it where it is.

The only thing you might need to worry about is size.
Move things that don't need the SSD speed off to other drives.


Your SSD will outlive this system. Period.

 

[Eximo]

Yes and no. Short answer, don't worry about it. If you want certain programs to load faster, put them on the SSD.

Long answer:

Writes are somewhat damaging to SSDs NAND flash cells, reads are quite passive though and don't do much to endurance. So most one time installations are perfectly acceptable. Windows updating itself will only replace what it has to. Given that Windows practically re-installs itself every 6 months now isn't that big a deal.

Drive endurance is measured in Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) or another metric, Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) MTBF is just an average, so the drive could fail tomorrow (That is what backups are for). The chance of failure increases the longer the drive is run.

Now older MLC SSDs which were very common in the early consumer space could easily be measured in decades. The common TLC is a lot less durable, but still should have operable lives of many years. By then you are likely to be upgrading anyway. That said, drives have a lot of features that existed for a long time. Bad cells will be recognized and removed from the drive's knowledge, recoverable data will be copied to working cells. Wear leveling will make sure that every bit is used as equally as possible. It won't re-write to the same spot for every transaction. There is also SLC simulation which essentially only writes one bit per cell for maximum speed. This is slightly less wearing on the flash cells than writing to all cells at once, though that will happen later as part of TRIM procedures. TRIM activities happen outside of drive data read/writes is the drive making efficient rearrangements of data. Like data is preferred so a set of 1s or 0s rather than an intermix whenever possible.

Ling Answer typo: Now I need to find someone named Ling so they can have the Short, Long, and Ling answer.

 

[jaffajarre]

I have an MZVPV512

 

[USAFRet]

I have an MZVPV512

Samsung 950 Pro.

It will long outlive your PC.
It might even outlive you.

 

[jaffajarre]

@USAFret @Eximo I use YouTube a lot andi saw post that having the cache set to my SSD could be bad because that would mean at least 30gb cache written and deleted everyday from YouTube

 

[USAFRet]

@USAFret @Eximo I use YouTube a lot andi saw post that having the cache set to my SSD could be bad because that would mean at least 30gb cache written and deleted everyday from YouTube

30GB per day.

-------------
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/service/warranty/MZ-V5P512BW
B. Limited Warranty Condition (Period and TBW)
5 years or 400 TBW
----------------

At 30GB per day, 400TB is 13,000 days. 36 years.
Not saying it will actually live that long. But that is the Samsung warranty.

 

[Eximo]

Hmm, my HTPC runs on a drive with a lot less durability then a 950 Pro is rated for (Kingston HyperX). About 60% Youtube usage on that machine, also typically on 24/7. Pretty sure the majority of that is going to be stored in RAM, but I would have to look that up. Been about 4 years so far.

 

[USAFRet]

My eldest SSD, Kingston HyperX 120GB.
Originally the OS drive in 2012, then a secondary drive, now the cache and pagefile drive.

My 3 main systems are all SSD only. 8 drives among the 3 systems. All of them together don't total up to 100TBW.
The eldest drive is 6 years old, the youngest is just short of 18 momths.

 

[madmatt30]

Agree with everything said so far, my oldest ssd is some 5+ years old,now with 127tb of writes (used in a htpc which contains a dvb tv tuner & has been used to record daily.

Buying a ssd & not using it because of worries about it's lifetime would be like buying a new car & never taking it out of the garage.