How long does a Samsung EVO 850 SSD last for?

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

Hi Community

So my question is how long would a Samsung EVO 850 SSD last write wise.

For example say i write 30GB onto the SSD then deleted it then write 30GB again then deleted it and did it one more time, what would be the effect?

Also i found this thread on here and wondered if it was true 'Endurance tests have shown recent consumer grade SSD's (Kingston Hyper X, Samsung EVO, etc) to last beyond 800TB total writes before they started to fail.
My current C drive, Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB, has had ~7TB total writes in ~2.5 years. Do the math on that'
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2422317/long-samsung-840-evo.html?xtor=EREC-8889

Regards

laviniuc · Jan 13, 2016

samsung tlc mem cells are i think (don't quote me on it) rated at 1000 write cycles last i checked. so say you have a 250gb drive, you can write (safely) 250,000gb. over tht, you need to start worrying and monitor the smart values from time to time. assuming you use the drive for 5 years that's 13gb each day, every day. there's a problem though, if you let the drive clean up after itself and trim is from time to time, you get the full write cycles. on the other end of the spectrum, using non ahci mode, no trim, and defragmenting the ssd can use write cycles much much faster (you can even end up physically writing three times the capacity which can drastically affect the drive)

http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead real world testing they live much longer usually

edit: another small piece of advice, never fill it up completely, allow it always 10% free space, the more the better

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

What do you mean by this 'if you let the drive clean up after itself and trim is from time to time'

Sakkura · Jan 13, 2016

laviniuc :

That's for planar (2D) TLC. The 850 Evo uses 3D TLC, which should have significantly higher endurance.

Anyway, OP, for your usage the write endurance is irrelevant; the drive will be obsolete before it's worn out.

kyzarvs · Jan 13, 2016

Download the EVO software and it tells you as a percentage how far through the life the drive is?

My main desktop has been on a SandDisk Ultra Pro for over a year and has yet to move off 100%...

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

Sakkura :

Okay the guy above was scaring me a bit about the 1000 write circle. My current SSD has a verified copy of windows 7 home premium on it, so its very fast. I also have put Chrome, Steams main program (games are on my HDD) and Battle net with Hearthstone.

How many GB's of data would I have to write to the SDD till it can't write anymore?

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

kyzarvs :

Ye when i got the SSD i got a disc with a data migration software and something called 'Samsung Magician' or something which is used for 'optimising the drive'.

Does the Magician software show me how my drives doing?

Also is this site correct in say that my Samsung ssd would have to write over 900Tb before it would die? http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

laviniuc · Jan 13, 2016

Sakkura :

yep it's double rated endurance for the 3d tlc and yes, you're correct any modern drive will be obsolete before being worn out. p.s. i did say not to quote me on it

laviniuc · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

on the disk drive tab from samsung magician you have a color button (green usually) and how much data was written to the drive. no reason to worry till you get to hundreds of tb

Sakkura · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

Hundreds of thousands of GB at least, possibly millions.

laviniuc · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

it's not scary at 1000 write cycles, not at all, especially on large (drives over 100gb). i remember my first ssd was a ocz 60gb drive that was rated lower. still works like a charm and i'm way over the rated cycles.

edit: it sounds scary because you dont take into account the size of the drive, 1000 rated means you can write each cell 1000 times before you can expect any of them to fail. so that gets multiplied to the actual size of the drive to get how much you can write to it. divide that by 5 years (before it's definetily obsolete) and by 365 (that's generous too, you won't write each day the same amount of data, so in most cases you're looking at maybe half actual days used fully)

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

laviniuc :

Wayfall :

it's not scary at 1000 write cycles, not at all, especially on large (drives over 100gb). i remember my first ssd was a ocz 60gb drive that was rated lower. still works like a charm and i'm way over the rated cycles.

Could you tell me what a write cycle is and also why people say if you have an SSD you should use ahci (whatever that is)

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

Also in plane and simple text would my SSD run out of writes anytime soon in the future people I am only going to put Fallout 4 on my SSD probably due to the load screens being a *hore on that game, probably also fallout 3 and Skyrim eventually.

Would this have lasting damage on the SSD?

Sakkura · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

A write cycle is just the number of times each memory cell has been written to. If you have a 120GB SSD, then it's 1 write cycle for the drive once you've written 120GB to it (in simple terms; there are some details that can make it deviate a little one way or the other).

Wayfall :

Not any time soon, and installing games on the SSD is absolutely fine. For your Kingston SSD, I'd say it should at least last around 50 years at the rate you've been using it, and quite likely over a century. The numbers would be similar for a 120GB Samsung 850 Evo, and higher if you get a higher capacity version.

USAFRet · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

Sakkura :

Okay the guy above was scaring me a bit about the 1000 write circle. My current SSD has a verified copy of windows 7 home premium on it, so its very fast. I also have put Chrome, Steams main program (games are on my HDD) and Battle net with Hearthstone.

How many GB's of data would I have to write to the SDD till it can't write anymore?

Hundreds of GB every day for several years.

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

So why do some people say I should use some setting in the bios called ahci?

Also would 'optimising' my SSD cause it to use it writes more or is it safe to use that feature every few month or so?

USAFRet · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

Read here:
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/Why-do-i-need-AHCI-with-a-SSD-Drive-Guide-Here-Crucial-AHCI-vs/td-p/57078
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface

Sakkura · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall :

AHCI is just a more modern interface protocol than ooold IDE that predates SATA. AHCI gets more performance out of the SSD and enables more advanced functions, such as TRIM to keep the SSD running optimally.

Not sure what "optimisation" you're referring to. Most likely it's fine though.

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

Is there anyway I can get check AHCI and TRIM are working at the very least TRIM when I get home.

I'm hoping ahci and trim are already on as from researching Intel/Samsung SSD's have trim enable by defaulted.

laviniuc · Jan 13, 2016

only windows xp had issues with automatically setting trim on. if you have the samsung magician installed, the disk info page tells you if the ahci is set properly. the optimize from samsung magician is the same as trim only called manually (you'd need it in case ahci is off)

Sakkura · Jan 13, 2016

Plenty of utilities and benchmarks will check these things. TRIM should be enabled on any modern SSD running in AHCI mode.

Wayfall · Jan 13, 2016

How do I find out if TRIM is on or off and if off how do I enable it? Just in case really but hopefully everything should be on.

Sakkura · Jan 13, 2016

Well, with a Samsung SSD then Samsung Magician would be the natural place to look. Otherwise, I know CrystalDiskInfo shows if it's supported.

If you're really paranoid about it, TRIMcheck is a utility that actually checks in detail whether the command is working right.

http://files.thecybershadow.net/trimcheck/

JohnnyLucky · Jan 13, 2016

Wayfall · Jan 14, 2016

Sakkura :

Wayfall :

A write cycle is just the number of times each memory cell has been written to. If you have a 120GB SSD, then it's 1 write cycle for the drive once you've written 120GB to it (in simple terms; there are some details that can make it deviate a little one way or the other).

Wayfall :

Not any time soon, and installing games on the SSD is absolutely fine. For your Kingston SSD, I'd say it should at least last around 50 years at the rate you've been using it, and quite likely over a century. The numbers would be similar for a 120GB Samsung 850 Evo, and higher if you get a higher capacity version.

'Your Kingston SSD'.....mines a Samsung EVO 850 it says on the title..

How long does a Samsung EVO 850 SSD last for?

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