SSD reliability in the real world: Google's experience

Page 1 of 6 123 ... LastLast

    SSD reliability in the real world: Google's experience


    Posted: 25 Feb 2016
    Using data from millions of drive days in Google datacenters, a new paper offers production lifecycle data on SSD reliability. Surprise! SSDs fail differently than disks - and in a dangerous way. Here's what you need to know.

    SSDs are a new phenomenon in the datacenter. We have theories about how they should perform, but until now, little data. That's just changed.

    The FAST 2016 paper Flash Reliability in Production: The Expected and the Unexpected, (the paper is not available online until Friday) by Professor Bianca Schroeder of the University of Toronto, and Raghav Lagisetty and Arif Merchant of Google, covers:

    • Millions of drive days over 6 years
    • 10 different drive models
    • 3 different flash types: MLC, eMLC and SLC
    • Enterprise and consumer drives


    Key conclusions

    • Ignore Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (UBER) specs. A meaningless number.
    • Good news: Raw Bit Error Rate (RBER) increases slower than expected from wearout and is not correlated with UBER or other failures.
    • High-end SLC drives are no more reliable that MLC drives.
    • Bad news: SSDs fail at a lower rate than disks, but UBER rate is higher (see below for what this means).
    • SSD age, not usage, affects reliability.
    • Bad blocks in new SSDs are common, and drives with a large number of bad blocks are much more likely to lose hundreds of other blocks, most likely due to die or chip failure.
    • 30-80 percent of SSDs develop at least one bad block and 2-7 percent develop at least one bad chip in the first four years of deployment.


    Read more: SSD reliability in the real world: Google's experience | ZDNet
    Brink's Avatar Posted By: Brink
    25 Feb 2016



  1. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #1

    Interesting article although I am not sure what to draw from the conclusions.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       #2

    I guess I got a little taste of the bad block syndrome that went on to kill it's self :)
    Another one on the way on sure if it's new or refurbished the invoice is pricing a new @ 134.22 sure hope Crucial expects payment

    I take it from the article backup..... more news at 11:00.. :)
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       #3

    Well it is interesting information to me.
    But like whs I don't know what I'm going to do with the information.
    I'm quite sure my ssd's will never be used as hard as a Google data centers ssd.

    I would like to know what ssd's were tested and how many wrights and reads were done and how old the ssd's were before things starting going south. I presume that these ssd's were in a temperature controlled rack somewhere in the world.
    I wonder if storage capacity and free space showed any difference on wear and tear.

    Na it really doesn't matter I'm going to keep buying Intel because they work for me.
      My Computer


  4. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #4

    Jack, we are the two clueless in this thread, LOL.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       #5

    Yes for sure I belong to the clueless, but I'm curious.
    The article gives just enough information to tickle our curiosity.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 3,187
    Main - Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-Bit; 2nd - Windows Server 2008 R2
       #6

    Key conclusions

    • Ignore Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate (UBER) specs. A meaningless number.

    No problem, I will.


    • Good news: Raw Bit Error Rate (RBER) increases slower than expected from wearout and is not correlated with UBER or other failures.

    Nice.


    • High-end SLC drives are no more reliable that MLC drives.

    This is the most useful bit of info here, if you ask me.


    • Bad news: SSDs fail at a lower rate than disks, but UBER rate is higher (see below for what this means).

    If the UBER rate is to be ignored, where is the bad news here?


    • SSD age, not usage, affects reliability.

    I'd count this as a plus, since age is easier to keep track of than usage. A negative would be that you might be wasting your money by putting an SSD in a computer with light usage you plan to keep for years.


    • Bad blocks in new SSDs are common, and drives with a large number of bad blocks are much more likely to lose hundreds of other blocks, most likely due to die or chip failure.

    The same is true for mechanical drives. Once a mechanical drive develops bad sectors it's time to schedule its replacement - and soon.


    • 30-80 percent of SSDs develop at least one bad block and 2-7 percent develop at least one bad chip in the first four years of deployment.

    Sorry, but any statistic mentioning a range of 30-80 percent tells me they really have no idea what the actual number is. 30-80 percent of girls might say "yes" if I ask them out on a date. Should I make dinner reservations?
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 7,781
    Win 7 32 Home Premium, Win 7 64 Pro, Win 8.1, Win 10
       #7

    I know SSD's are a lot faster, but from my perspective, I don't see a reason to get one because of the high prices & they last about as long as a regular HDD. When the prices come down & they start outlasting the spinners, then I would opt to get one. In the meantime, I'll just wait the few seconds longer it takes for my OS to boot.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 880
    Windows 7 Professional 64bit
       #8

    Brink said:
    SSDs fail differently than disks - and in a dangerous way.
    This is all I need to know about SSDs (and I knew this already as I've had defective SSDs in the past).

    The rest IMO is meaningless unless one is doing something differently like creating a RAID or JBOD using SSDs for some critical purpose. In which case I'm inclined to use Intel just cuz I like 'em.



    But for individual day-to-day use, whether personal or work-related, just buy whatever's appropriate at the best price and then BACK THE THING UP REGULARLY! which is always best practice, but AFAIK is downright critical for an SSD which can disappear without a trace at a moment's notice (failure).
      My Computer


  9. Lee
    Posts : 1,796
    Win 7 Pro x64, VM Win XP, Win7 Pro Sandbox, Kubuntu 11
       #9

    I Read this stuff with a grain of salt. . .reason being is I have been running an Intel M 80 as my main OS drive since October 2009 without any problems whatsoever. I do keep another SSD cloned just in case. . . As to the cost, that is becoming a none issue. A 1terabit is cheaper then the M 80 was six/seven years ago, thus to me that is just a lame excuse to not spend the money for one.
      My Computer


 
Page 1 of 6 123 ... LastLast

  Related Discussions
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

© Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 16:31.
Find Us