In comparison to a hard drive an SSD does not have moving parts so there is nothing physically wearing out. However each of the flash memory cells within your SSD will slowly degenerate with every write. Since this process occurs at the cellular level, and since you cannot see or measure this process directly, it would be helpful to know when the degradation begins. Fortunately, some software applications allow users to access their SSD’s built-in counters for tracking the amount of wear that has occurred and provide estimates for remaining usage in a couple of minutes.
Each memory cell in your SSD has a specific number of write cycles that it can support. When checking the health of your SSD, the application may report how many P/E cycles have been completed on your SSD, and how many remain. This will give you an idea of when your SSD will need to be replaced.
Data stored in an SSD resides in flash memory cells, each of which can only be erased and rewritten a limited number of times (program/erase, or P/E cycles). To make the most of the P/E cycles per cell, SSDs perform wear levelling. Wear levelling distributes writes to each cell as evenly as possible to prevent individual cells from being written too many times. Manufacturers also specify the total amount of data (in terabytes written, or TBW) that can be written to the entire drive over its lifetime. Since typical consumer-grade SSDs are rated for hundreds of terabytes, most users rarely approach this limit. Therefore, the age of an SSD is determined by the total amount of data written to it (TBW) rather than years or hours. It is precisely this metric that is reported by an SSD health check.
All solid-state drives (SSDs) also store their own health-related information through something called SMART, which allows free software to access it. On Windows-based computers, CrystalDiskInfo is the most commonly known utility to check an SSD’s health and the “Percentage Used” or “Health Remaining” number based on wear is shown here. Most manufacturer utilities (such as Samsung Magician, Crucial Storage Executive and WD Dashboard) will give users this same type of information, however they may show the terabytes written (TBW) directly. In addition, on Apple Macs, the drive’s SMART status can be viewed in System Information, and a free application named smartctl provides additional details. What matters most when checking SMART results include the percentage or amount of wear left on the drive, the number of blocks that were marked as being bad or reallocated, and if SMART reports an overall “Good” or has changed to “Caution”.
As long as you’re doing typical use (using a laptop or desktop computer for general use) a new modern SSD should last longer than the computer it is placed into. A good example would be that a modern SSD could easily reach past five to ten years in terms of usage time before it becomes a worry due to excessive wear. It would take an extremely large volume of data written daily in order to reach the TBW limit on a given drive during its usable lifetime. Heavy-write workloads (such as video editors using SSD scratch disks, database driven systems, busy servers) and very cheap, low-endurance drives are the main areas where excessive wear becomes a significant issue. If your health monitoring application states that 90% of the drive’s life expectancy is still remaining after just a couple of years there is no need to replace it yet. However, if you see these values rapidly decreasing, or if they are already at a low level, then begin looking into replacing your drive.
A user will get much less notice before an SSD failure than they do with traditional mechanical disks, which makes being able to identify symptoms of an impending disaster important. Symptoms may include files or folders becoming corrupted or unreadable, the drive switching into read-only mode as a protective measure at some point, the frequency of freeze events while trying to save, or the disappearance and reappearance of the disk. If you see any of these things occurring, coupled with a “Caution” status on SMART, immediately back up all of your important data and replace the drive. Once an SSD has failed or stopped responding, do NOT continue to try and restart it: SSD recovery is possible, but it is both time sensitive and further attempts may damage the controller. The cost of recovering a single SSD or NVMe drive is from £300 +VAT.
You can utilise free tools that display the SMART status of the drive. On Windows, CrystalDiskInfo displays an overall health status and an amount of usage (percentage used) or how much of the total life is left. Manufacturer provided software such as Samsung Magician or Crucial Storage Executive offer similar functionality. On a Macintosh system, you can review the SMART status through System Information, or by using smartctl. Look at the wear indicators and the number of blocks that were flagged as bad. In addition, if SMART is displaying a caution status instead of good, it indicates the drive’s condition.
Generally speaking, the average user will find their SSD’s lifespan is greater than that of their computers, often well beyond five to ten years. This is due to the fact that writing large amounts of data to reach its TBW rating takes a long time and usually exceeds a typical computer’s useful lifespan. However, in cases where there is heavy write activity or inexpensive SSDs that are designed for lower endurance levels, failures occur sooner. If a health tool indicates that most of an SSD’s expected lifespan remains after just a couple of years, there is no reason to think anything is wrong.
TBW stands for terabytes written: the total amount of data the manufacturer rates the drive to handle over its lifetime. SSD wear is based on data written rather than on age, so TBW is the real lifespan figure. Most consumer drives are rated for hundreds of terabytes, way beyond what typical users ever write.
When a file becomes corrupted, cannot be opened, when your drive goes into “read only” mode and freezes frequently while trying to save a document; when your SSD vanishes then reappears online; or if your SMART status says “Caution”, consider this a warning sign that you should immediately back up your data and replace your SSD. (SSDs have limited warnings for failure as opposed to traditional hard drives.)
It is often possible to recover a failed SSD, however less likely than with traditional hard drives, and more time sensitive due to how the SSD’s TRIM function and SSD controller work to limit recovery options. For example do NOT try to continue restarting a dead SSD/NVMe drive. We offer a single drive recovery starting at £300 + VAT after a free diagnosis.
If your SSD has started causing documents to become corrupted, is now in “read only” mode, or has completely disappeared, please refrain from continuing to restart it. Please send it to us and we will determine what is recoverable along with providing a complimentary diagnostics report and fixed quote first.