SSD Life Expectancy

[sidratulmuntaha2026]

Hello guys,

My plan for upgrading my computer is to get a 120GB SSD dedicated to Windows. I know that SSDs can wire out over time and I'm concerned about my computer usage habit.

The only things that stay in the C drive are the Google Chrome and Office 2016. I can allocate other apps on the HDD. However, I download movies and videos a lot and all of them are saved in "Downloads" before moving to their destined folders (HDD). Let's add some other tasks like heavy browsing on the internet and cleaning browsing history once a week.

In the worst case scenario (depending on my usage habit), how long should I expect my SSD to survive?

 

[Pavkata882]

I got my sandisk in 2015 and it is holding strong ever since. Note that it was 50 euros, and im pretty satisfied with it.

 

[SkyNetRising]

However, I download movies and videos a lot and all of them are saved in "Downloads" before moving to their destined folders (HDD).

You can relocate download folders to your HDD and it will go directly there without downloading to SSD first.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

SSDs are usually rated in TBW (terabytes of writes,) not in a time span.

Look at the specifications and it should tell you how much data you can reasonably expect to write to the drive.

With reasonable use, you can expect many years of use from an SSD.

If on the other hand, you abuse an SSD, such as repeatedly filling it to near capacity, benchmarking it daily, defragmenting it, or other excessive write heavy operations, you can wear one out inside of a month.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Not possible to use all SSD writes in a month. But in a bit less than 2 years - totally possible.
https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Not possible to use all SSD writes in a month. But in a bit less than 2 years - totally possible.
https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

The OP is asking about a 120GB SSD. The SSDs used in the tests at your link are older 240 and 256 GB models, some of which are using 25nm MLC flash. Endurance goes up with both capacity, size of the flash cells, and cell design (MLC vs TLC, etc.)

Tom's was able to kill a newer 256GB drive in 42 days. Still, a much larger capacity drive than the OP is asking about.

With abuse, the drive could be dead in a month.

Is this likely to happen? No.