SSD drive life management question

[maniacalpha1-1]

I'm very very close to ordering my first SSD, and I've got a question about garbage collection/lifespan management.

After I install my games and everything, I do not do a lot of what I perceive as "file creation", so in a typical day I read forums, play a game such as BF2, watch streaming video, perhaps load up itunes and listen to music. Assuming I do not download any files or install any programs, there should be little to no "write" activity going on, right? I mean, there might be cookies saved by webpages, or single player games might write gamesaves, but all of that should be statistically insignificant to the life of the NAND cells...right? Or does playing games and streaming video cause writes to occur that I am not thinking of, or are there other stealth writes that someone might not realize are going on?

There is one thing that concerns me - when you have a game like Bad Company 2, or WoW that runs its patcher to check your install every time you open the game, those won't actually write unless they find a problem- right? And even then, if it fixes the odd corrupt file or two that should again be statistically insignificant?

Additionally, I read the sticky that has tips, I know it says you should not defragment, and minimize the pagefile. Can you also, say there's a program you want to download and use, can you download the executable install program to your HDD, causing the write for the download to go to it, but then direct the installer to put it on SSD? Thus, more or less, cutting the SSD write usage for that installation in half by storing the initial download on SSD?

Just as an aside, the SSDs I'm going to choose from are the Kingston SSD NowV100, or OCZ Agi 2 or Vertex 2. And the only thing I'm waiting for is to see what price the GTX 560 hits the market at and what it does to prices around it; because if I can afford it after the GPU, I was going to get 2 60-64 GB SSDs, one for OS and non-performance essential programs and the other for games and persistently used performance essential programs. If the GPU costs too much though I was just going to get one SSD for OS and be forced to wait for prices to go down to get the other half.

 

[Voo]

First check how many writes you've got by now on your HDD - if it's above 30tb you may run into problems in a few years with some drives otherwise just don't bother (and from your description of what you're doing that's pretty much impossible)

 

[arcenite]

IMO you are way too worried about this. Just install it and have fun.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

First check how many writes you've got by now on your HDD - if it's above 30tb you may run into problems in a few years with some drives otherwise just don't bother (and from your description of what you're doing that's pretty much impossible)

How do you check how many writes? I googled HDD write history and nothing came up, so that must not be the technical term for it.

 

[Zap]

IMO you are way too worried about this. Just install it and have fun.

/thread

Seriously though, under normal usage (whatever that means) it is estimated that the life of an SSD should easily outlast the warranty period.

 

[Nothinman]

/thread

Seriously though, under normal usage (whatever that means) it is estimated that the life of an SSD should easily outlast the warranty period.

That's not a very encouraging statement...

 

[Mark R]

/thread

Seriously though, under normal usage (whatever that means) it is estimated that the life of an SSD should easily outlast the warranty period.

Realistically, it depends.

A small drive, with an inferior controller, may only just outlast the warranty period, even with normal use. I've seen a number of 1 year old Indilinx drives, that are virtually at their 'cycle limit' with normal 'home' use. (Although I've not actually seen a drive failure that I could confidently attribute to this).

A larger drive, with a better controller, could easily be expected to have 95% estimated life remaining at the end of the warranty period (even after 'heavy' workstation type usage).

 

[Voo]

How do you check how many writes? I googled HDD write history and nothing came up, so that must not be the technical term for it.

There's usually a SMART value for it on the lines of "Host writes" or similar (although you'll have to find some sw that reads those reliably, the manufacterer is probably a good starting point if they got the right utility). But if you get a modern controller (indilinx do have problems according to some posts here on the forum though) you just won't run into these problems.

A Intel 32nm 80gb SSD should last theoretically (if we believe their stated WA values - and real life shows it's not that far off) even with 50% security range more than 100TB of writes. And even if you go by their extremely conservative values they actually post, we're still far, far away from anything you'll ever reach with your described behavior. (Intel was only used as an example, e.g. SF should be just as fine)