Aging SSD or other issue?

Layback Bear · 31 Aug 2014

No problem Bryan.

When SSD's first came out their were all kinds of stories and ideas all over the web.
Most were worried about wearing out the SSD prematurely and with some of the older ones it might of been true. Now over time and quality I'm thinking they will last longer than hard drives. A hard drive has disc a spinning and a arm jumping all over the place.

A SSD just has a gazillion of little electrons jumping around having affairs with transistors or what not. No moving parts. If the components that make up the electronics of the SSD are of quality they should last longer than a hard drive. The electronics of a cpu work for many years under extreme heat. SSD's run cool so in my opinion will last a very long time.

I have 4 SSD's and other than using the programs that come with them I never have done speed test or the like because it doesn't matter. They are quick. I lean more to the reliability side. I pick ones that have a good record for reliability.
I'm using Intel and Samsung.

essenbe · 31 Aug 2014

Yes, Bryan, no problem at all. Jack is right and that tutorial was written over 4 years ago. SSDs were a different animal then.

carwiz · 31 Aug 2014

Crucial has had several firmware updates on the M4. I've had the C300 since about Jan, 2011 and it's down by 3% and I used to bang the heck out of it. I would suggest moving the browser cache off of it and maybe "Save As" any downloads to a spinner if you do a lot of downloads. I lost 2% in the first two years because I did quite a few dump downloads which promptly get removed when finished. I also had the browser cache on it. Since moving downloads and the cache to a spinner, I've only dropped 1% in the last 20 months.

Another process you must NOT do is force a defragmentation on a SSD. That is an unnecessary waste of "life" for a SSD.

altek · 01 Sep 2014

carwiz said:

Crucial has had several firmware updates on the M4. I've had the C300 since about Jan, 2011 and it's down by 3% and I used to bang the heck out of it. I would suggest moving the browser cache off of it and maybe "Save As" any downloads to a spinner if you do a lot of downloads. I lost 2% in the first two years because I did quite a few dump downloads which promptly get removed when finished. I also had the browser cache on it. Since moving downloads and the cache to a spinner, I've only dropped 1% in the last 20 months.

Another process you must NOT do is force a defragmentation on a SSD. That is an unnecessary waste of "life" for a SSD.

I do those both. I am just baffled at a 14% drop. That is enough to worry someone about their hardware. My M4 is almost 3 years old, but still. It runs like a champ. I had one issue with it and it was something with firmware, which solved immediately once I upgraded the firmware. It's starting to slow down a bit I can tell with the age. This rig has been running 24/7 for almost 3 years. With a month break here and there when I was out of town. I'll keep my eye on it, but don't want to shell out the cash for a new SSD now when I plan on building a new rig within a year or so. And I'll have to re-install everything on the new drive.. and I just hate that now. Unless it's a brand new rig. :P hehe

LMiller7 · 01 Sep 2014

From a performance perspective an SSD is an almost perfect match for typical pagefile usage patterns. Pretty much the reverse is true for a conventional drive.