Data Doctors: Do Solid State Drives (SSDs) wear out?

Q: Is it true that SSDs will eventually wear out and if so, what should I be watching out for?

A: The introduction of the Solid State Drive brought greater speeds with no moving parts to the computer world.

Unless you’re buying an entry-level computer these days, it’s most likely to have an SSD as its storage device.

Traditional hard drives (HDD) use spinning magnetic platters with small read/write heads that float just above them — like a record player.

Over time, these moving parts would often be the point of failure, which was eliminated with SSDs.

This created the notion that SSDs were much more reliable than HDD and we didn’t need to worry about them wearing out.

While it’s true that they won’t suffer from mechanical failure, they can still ‘wear out’ electronically in several ways.

Program/Erase Cycles

The ‘P/E’ cycle in SSDs estimates the number of times data can be written and erased to the individual flash memory cells before it may become unreliable. This number can vary dramatically (1,000 to 10,000 cycles) based on the manufacturer and the technology that they chose to use.

SSDs have trillions of cells, so if each one can be written and erased 1,000 times, it translates to a lot of activity.

Think of each cell as a piece of paper or a chalkboard that can be written on and erased multiple times; over time, they degrade with use.

Terabytes written (TBW)

There’s a parameter for the total amount of data that can be written to an SSD before it’s likely to start failing called the TBW.

There are various types of flash technology used in SSDs that can determine endurance: SLC (Single Level Cell), MLC (Multi-Level Cell), TLC (Trible Level Cell), and QLC (Quad Level Cell)

SLC is used in the most expensive drives and has the highest endurance, while QLC has the lowest endurance and cost.

Real world needs

Unless you are regularly performing disk-intensive activities such as video editing, building a high-performance server, or using your computer in a harsh environment, the P/E and TBW ratings along with the type of flash technology used will far exceed your actual needs.

The manufacturer’s warranty is typically 3 to 5 years, but the average consumer could likely go at least 5 years before an SSD could start to ‘wear out’.

Backup is more important with SSDs

While there are lots of technical advantages to SSDs, there is one area of concern you should have if the device fails. Data recovery on SSDs can be very challenging, much more expensive, or in some cases, impossible.

This means your only option may be a current backup of some sort. I always recommend automated online backup services because they don’t rely on a human to remember to do something.

Signs of failure

Unlike mechanical drives, they don’t make noise when they start to fail. Common indications that an SSD could be failing include frequent crashes or read/write errors, system freezes, files that can no longer be accessed or have disappeared and noticeably slower performance.

Windows blue screen errors that mention things like ‘UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION’, ‘INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE and STATUS_DISK_CORRUPT_ERROR’ also point to a drive problem.

Ken Colburn is founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services. Ask any tech question on Facebook or Twitter.

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