How long is a SSD lifespan?

SSDs are fast, quiet, and compact in size. Since they do not contain any mech­an­ic­al com­pon­ents, they are con­sidered more robust than classic HDDs in some cases. However, they are said to have a limited life span. Is that true? We'll explain how long SSDs last, how their life span can be extended, and which warning signals indicate an impending failure.

SSD tech­no­logy is well developed today, even if there were premature failures during the initial period after flash memories were launched on the market. Sudden defects occur re­l­at­ively rarely over the years, except during the first few weeks, when pro­duc­tion errors might be no­tice­able ex works, for example. According to current failure stat­ist­ics, SSDs are generally more reliable than classic HDDs in practice.

Nev­er­the­less: The flash cells, which elec­tron­ic­ally store data onto an SSD device, have a clearly defined life span, in contrast to tra­di­tion­al magnetic storage devices. After a limited number of write-erase cycles, this becomes critical, since the flash memory of an SSD ages with every write process. Man­u­fac­tur­ers usually state 1,000 to 100,000 write-and-erase op­er­a­tions.

The con­sid­er­able range in the lifetime of an SSD is related to different storage tech­no­lo­gies:

• Single-level cell SSDs (SLC) have a par­tic­u­larly long life, although they can only store 1 bit per memory cell. They can withstand up to 100,000 write cycles per cell and are par­tic­u­larly fast, durable, and fail-safe.
• Multi-level cell SSDs (MLC) have a higher storage density and can store 2 bits per flash cell. They are more cost-effective than the SLC type but can only tolerate up to 10,000 write cycles per cell.
• Triple-level cell SSDs (TLC) can hold 3 in­form­a­tion bits per memory cell. However, at the same time, life ex­pect­ancy can drop to 3,000 memory cycles per cell.
• Quad-level cell SSDs (QLC) ac­com­mod­ate 4 in­form­a­tion bits per cell. Reduced costs, more storage capacity, and higher storage density are also as­so­ci­ated with a shorter service life with this type of device. Man­u­fac­tur­ers usually only guarantee 1,000 write or erase cycles per cell.

Although the range in SSD life spans is con­sid­er­able, all SSD types have a suf­fi­ciently high life ex­pect­ancy with moderate use (with some lim­it­a­tions, including for QLC SSDs).

The lifetime of an SSD device is cus­tom­ar­ily stated as a TBW value in the IT industry. TBW is an ab­bre­vi­ation for ‘total bytes written’, meaning the total number of bytes that can be written onto an SSD. Today, SSD man­u­fac­tur­ers often state a service life (guar­an­teed write volume) of 256 TBW. With average PC usage, for example, around 80 TBW can be performed within 10 years. In the usage scenario ‘moderate, eight-hour, weekly use as an office PC’ (word pro­cessing, surfing the net, checking emails, oc­ca­sion­al streaming, a few larger downloads, as well as smaller backup and copying actions, but not a high con­tinu­ous load), the hard drive would have a predicted life ex­pect­ancy of ap­prox­im­ately 32 years.

During long-term tests, which con­sist­ently write onto SSDs using special al­gorithms, it has also been revealed that man­u­fac­tur­ers tend to rate an SSD life span rather con­ser­vat­ively. Even lower-cost SSDs easily exceed the man­u­fac­turer’s write limit.

The figures make it clear that the service life of an SSD with normal everyday use is hardly a limiting factor. An example SSD from Intel is still clas­si­fied as com­pletely intact by the HD Sentinel mon­it­or­ing tool after almost 10 years of use (per­form­ance value: 100%, overall condition: 98%). A technical defect in the built-in elec­tron­ics control system (con­trol­ler) or an exchange due to in­suf­fi­cient storage capacity would be more likely than a failure.

However, if you record a large image backup on an SSD every day (e.g., 170 GB on a 180 GB disk), it can actually get tight after a few years. With a view to greater con­tinu­ous use, a DWPD value is often given for SSDs: The man­u­fac­turer Kingston specifies a ‘Drive Writes Per Day’ value of 0.30 for its DC400 DW SSD model (480 GB storage capacity). The value is cal­cu­lated using a formula that includes the TBW value (Kingston adheres to a stand­ard­ised cal­cu­la­tion method based on JEDEC workload when de­term­in­ing the TBW value):

In this specific example for cal­cu­lat­ing a DWPD value, the guarantee period of 5 years flows into the ‘number of years’ (meaning the life span of an SSD that is guar­an­teed by the man­u­fac­turer):

If the cal­cu­lated DWPD value of 0.30 is mul­ti­plied by the storage capacity of the Kingston SSD (480 GB), the result is 144 GB. If you write a maximum of 144 GB to the SSD every day, it will most likely also reach the guar­an­teed life ex­pect­ancy. For ‘Number of years’, instead of the guarantee period, you can also use a different number of years that cor­res­ponds to your re­quire­ments for an SSD in terms of service life and re­si­li­ence.

The values that are cited are not written in stone. The lifetime of SSDs sig­ni­fic­antly depends on the write strategy used. Man­u­fac­tur­ers use special al­gorithms for this, which endeavour to achieve the most efficient ‘write man­age­ment’ possible. The wide­spread wear-levelling tech­no­logy, which is managed by the built-in con­trol­ler or the firmware of an SSD, evenly dis­trib­utes the entries of all memory blocks. By not always writing in the same block, a balanced util­isa­tion and the sub­sequent delayed aging of an SSD can be achieved.

Another measure to extend the lifetime of an SSD is to activate the TRIM function. The TRIM command has provided improved memory man­age­ment since Windows 7 was released. If the operating system was installed directly onto the SSD, it is usually activated auto­mat­ic­ally. You can also activate the command yourself via the command line (fsutil behaviour set Dis­ableDeleteNo­ti­fy 0, if TRIM is de­ac­tiv­ated). Ac­tiv­a­tion is made easier with the tools that SSD man­u­fac­tur­ers offer online for mon­it­or­ing and main­tain­ing solid state disks free of charge.

Over-pro­vi­sion­ing is an optional component of in­tel­li­gent storage man­age­ment. If the function is activated, an op­er­a­tion­al ‘special memory’ becomes available to the SSD con­trol­ler. This can then be used as a kind of cache for managing and re­lo­cat­ing temporary data. Over-pro­vi­sion­ing can support SSD main­ten­ance via garbage col­lec­tion, wear levelling, and bad block man­age­ment, for example. When the function is activated, however, you forego some storage capacity. Not all SSDs support this function.

As a user, you can also do something to increase the lifetime of the SSD. You can outsource backup dir­ect­or­ies for larger and write-intensive data backups to in­ex­pens­ive HDDs. Folders for temporary files and browser profile folders, into which a lot of data is per­man­ently written, do not have to be on an SSD. System-relevant files, which are also re­spons­ible for the per­form­ance of Windows (e.g., pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys), should remain on the SSD in order to guarantee efficient system per­form­ance.

In addition to the most in­tel­li­gent memory man­age­ment possible, other factors are also decisive for the service life of the elec­tron­ic memory. It is important to know how an SSD should be stored and handled. Thermal problems (e.g., high ambient tem­per­at­ures) and high humidity can damage the memory or shorten its service life. Mech­an­ic­al-physical in­flu­ences (e.g., from falling) are less of a threat to an SSD than to a HDD, but damage from mech­an­ic­al forces cannot be com­pletely ruled out.

Elec­tron­ic factors can also influence the lifetime of an SSD. The con­trol­ler (meaning the control unit of an SSD) is par­tic­u­larly sus­cept­ible to surge damage. If SSDs are not used for a long time, data can also be lost if it is not accessed for a while. As a pre­cau­tion, you should check on it oc­ca­sion­ally, use it briefly, or at least boot the device. Otherwise, a loss of cell charge can lead to data de­grad­a­tion. Among other things, this can result in bit errors that, despite error cor­rec­tion, trigger firmware cor­rup­tion and thereby disable an SSD. SSDs should therefore not be used for the permanent offline archiving of data.

Other factors include defective flash semi­con­duct­or memories, in­cor­rectly pro­grammed firmware and firmware updates, and memory man­age­ment al­gorithms that have not been pro­grammed optimally. SSDs are generally tech­no­lo­gic­ally complex. In terms of possible sources of error, mal­func­tions and negative in­flu­ences that can end or at least limit service life, they are inferior to the simpler, classic, magnetic storage tech­no­logy of HDDs. Of course, user errors and other factors can also lead to data loss, such as corrupt files, faulty file systems and file al­loc­a­tion tables, viruses, ac­ci­dent­al format­ting and the unplanned deletion of files, folders, and par­ti­tions.

Acoustic signals that could audibly indicate impending data loss do not occur with SSDs. In contrast to mech­an­ic­ally based HDDs, damaged SSDs do not click or clack. A defective con­trol­ler, which often seals the fate of an SSD, is usually a silent and, un­for­tu­nately, immediate total loss.

However, if you use mon­it­or­ing software such as SSD-Z or HD Sentinel, you can at least observe the degree of wear and tear of an SSD and keep an eye on the operating tem­per­at­ures. Mon­it­or­ing software that is available online and tools from SSD man­u­fac­tur­ers often provide an overall as­sess­ment of the general condition of an SSD (this is mostly colour-coded: green = very good, everything okay; red = caution, there are problems). Your as­sess­ment is usually based on the eval­u­ation of SMART values (SMART = Self-Mon­it­or­ing, Analysis, and Reporting Tech­no­logy). This also includes the current TBW value and the power-on hours (or the entire previous operating time of an SSD). If the overall rating de­teri­or­ates sig­ni­fic­antly over the years, you should replace an SSD as a pre­cau­tion.

In the event of an SSD problem, normal users can first check all con­nec­tions. The SATA con­nec­tion on a built-in SSD may have become loose, or the SATA con­nec­tion on the mainboard may be defective. In the event of over­heat­ing problems, you can clean a dusty desktop PC from the inside, thereby restoring a func­tion­al cooling system.

In the event of a technical defect and the end of the SSD’s service life due to the write limit being reached, data recovery is virtually im­possible or at least con­sid­er­ably more difficult to ac­com­plish. Normal users can usually do very little in this respect. If you want to save your data, only one thing helps: quickly dis­con­nect­ing the SSD from your computer, thereby pre­vent­ing further changes to the SSD that are coun­ter­pro­duct­ive to data recovery. You should then contact a pro­fes­sion­al data recovery service provider.

Since some con­trol­lers now also in­tern­ally use en­cryp­tion tech­niques from cryp­to­graphy (in­teg­rated hardware en­cryp­tion), an often-time-consuming de­cryp­tion and re­con­struc­tion process follows. Only then can the recovered data bundle be made usable and readable again. In some cases, ac­ci­dent­al deletion actions are almost im­possible to undo with newer models or after executing TRIM commands. The chances of recovery are better in the event of a firmware problem, for example.

With regard to costs, it should be mentioned that these can vary con­sid­er­ably. Data recovery is usually much more expensive with SSDs than with con­ven­tion­al HDDs that use magnetic storage (if there is even any chance for success). Sometimes, simpler recovery actions can be completed after a few hours, but more com­plic­ated cases can take weeks and are cor­res­pond­ingly expensive. You should clarify the expected cost framework before com­mis­sion­ing the recovery company and, if necessary, get a cost estimate or a fixed price offer after an initial diagnosis has been made.

If the costs are too high for you, recovery software may also help. However, using such software may be coun­ter­pro­duct­ive if you continue to work with the SSD and the algorithm-con­trolled autonom­ous storage or­gan­isa­tion becomes active again. In the event of elec­tron­ic defects, further booting naturally also implies certain risks for suc­cess­ful data recovery. If you don’t have much knowhow about recovery, you can of course also make mistakes.

Better than any sub­sequent data recovery, es­pe­cially when using com­plic­ated SSD tech­no­logy, is pre­vent­ive data backup, in which you sys­tem­at­ic­ally proceed according to the 3-2-1 rule. The most secure method is to use several dis­trib­uted storage locations and data carriers, although you should also integrate a cloud and make use of its ad­vant­ages. Pro­fes­sion­al cloud providers put your backup strategy on sound footing through automated data syn­chron­isa­tion, mobile data access, redundant data backup, and encrypted data transfers.