SSD & Hybrid questions

[JK7521]

I've done some research on SSD's and Hybrid drives and was just wondering some few things. How long is the typical life span on an SSD and Hybrid drive? I know that writing to the SSD is the main thing that kills the lifespan but with the hybrid It stores things on cache, is that the same as writing to the SSD? Like if I open a lot different applications all the time and than the hybrid is constantly writing to cache, will that destroy the lifespan of it? and should I of just gone with and SSD and put all of my applications on there than? Basically I mainly want to know which one has the longer life span?

 

[Quarkzquarkz]

Several years ago, SSD's had a lifespan of a couple years. These days reputable companies such as (Samsung etc) build these with such quality that they now have a lifespan of approximately 5-10 years. To the best of my knowledge, HDD's are known to last for about that same time, depending on usage. And yes, SSD writing shortens the lifespan but doesn't necessarily kill it.

There are several factors that you have to consider such as the quality of the drive to begin with, how full it is, and how much usage is being applied. For some higher end SSD's as of 2014, some manufacturers are saying they will last you your whole life, but I wouldn't bet on that; However, it is safe to say that SSD's these days can now live as long as HDD's under reasonable conditions.

Lastly, the only downside for hybrid hard drives I see is that when new data is being written, it acts like a HDD. The only time it would act as fast as an SSD is when it caches that information which can be difficult for some users because it can be tedious to configure. For those looking purely for speed, an SSD is the way to go. For those who don't want to mess with multiple drives, then Hybrids are the way to go, and if those who are short on cash and would like capacity, stick with good ol' HDD's. ~Good luck!

 

[Dereck47]

The 1st consumer-grade SSDs (Intel X25-E) were released in 2008.
1st generation SSDs were SATA 2 (3Gb/s) and had no TRIM.

You can do a Google or Bing search, or even search this forum and you won't find any posts where a SSD user's drive died because they ran out of P/E (Program/Erase) cycles.

You can also look at reviews on Amazon.com and Newegg.com.
There are posts every day of SSDs dying but I've yet to come across a post where a SSD died because the user "wrote too much" to it.

Here's an article on SSD endurance: http://techreport.com/review/25889/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-500tb-update


With regards to hybrids, everything is written to the HDD. The programs and data that you most frequently use is cached to the SSD to improve Read/Write performance.