SSD endurance test

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Many naysayers here are spreading FUD about SSD:s, especially the cheap TLC models.

In a heated argument about the claimed short liveness of the Samsung EVO series I dug up an endurance experiment that was an ongoing project as you can only write and erase so much data in so much time. Sadly it lacks the exact model but it does have a TLC based 840 on it.

So how has the experiment gone? As expected the TLC based Samsung died a horrible dead long time ago while... no wait! What's going on? It's still working and still as fast! The Intel 330 which was rated only for a 22Tb write life has survived for 300 Tb and has virtually no dead cells? Even the cheapest TLC is still running great after 300Tb.

http://techreport.com/review/25681/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-testing-data-retention-at-300tb

If we take my personal usage patterns as an example and use 10X write amplification as a worst-case scenario, it would take nearly 35 years to write 300TB to the flash.

[Debrody]

Idk... considering, the SSD uses the same technology as the RAM... RAM isnt famous for dieing after 100 rewrites.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Idk... considering, the SSD uses the same technology as the RAM... RAM isnt famous for dieing after 100 rewrites.

Ram and flash are totally different tech. Ram is volatile and flash is non volatile.

[Debrody]

My bad, thanks.

[guncrasher]

cool that the ssd is performing above specs.  but will it work with every new mobo?  I keep seeing reviews about conflict with some and I can recall you mentioning something about controllers.  I have also seeing some about not working perfectly with amd in some cases.

what is it that we should look out for as compatibility goes?


semp

[SirNuke]

I partly read this (I'll keep for work) but I didn't see mention of how much time it took to reach 300TB?

[gyrene81]

I partly read this (I'll keep for work) but I didn't see mention of how much time it took to reach 300TB?

doesn't look like the typical home desktop user or power user would be hitting that mark very quickly...assuming they aren't doing a lot with torrents and large video editing.

To be fair, our endurance experiment has lower write amplification than typical client workloads. Anvil's test is comprised almost entirely of sequential writes, while real-world desktop activity involves a lot of random I/O. There isn't a whole lot of data on the typical write amplification for client workloads, but everything I've seen and heard from SSD makers suggests a multiplication factor below 10X. If we take my personal usage patterns as an example and use 10X write amplification as a worst-case scenario, it would take nearly 35 years to write 300TB to the flash.

considering the testing methods used, most computer users would be happy with a tlc based ssd for a long time. tlc nand may not be ready for heavy enterprise level usage yet but, if manufacturers continue to over overprovision spare space to the same degree on terabyte drives as they are for those 240gb drives, ya just never know.

[Pudgie]

So far the 2 SSD's that I have running in my box have run flawlessly for over a year (installed them in my box on 10-'12).

They are OCZ Vertex4 256Gb SATA III MLC SSD's

They are set up w/ the 1st SSD having the OS, apps, drivers loaded on it & the 2nd SSD is being used for data storage & has the page file set up on it.
I don't do any video editing or movie stuff or CAD or tasks of the nature that typically calls for a ton of writes.

I mostly fly AHII, surf & listen to Pandora on this box w/ AHII doing most/all of the writes to the SSD's.

This is my way of testing these out.................so far they're cherry. Was looking to get a small SSD to use for page file only to really test them........may still do it.

My Asus ROG Series Rampage IV Gene mobo had no issues recognizing them, even after 2 BIOS upgrades.

My experience thus far....................

 

[Gman]

I've read here someplace that Skuzzy/HTC didn't recommend running AH on an SSD due to all the small writes being bad for the drive.  I had already been running AH on a Samsung 830 128 gb drive for about 6 months, and it's been about 6 months since then, and it's still alive and kicking.  The drive is cheap enough that if it caks I'll just replace it with a bigger/faster/newer one.  I should get around to moving AH to my other regular spinner Caviar/Black drive I suppose, just in case, as my OS is on the SSD as well, and it would mean a system wide reformat most likely if it died.

I've been really lucky, I've never had a component go "bad" on me before I've gotten rid of it, not since the days of the Commodore 64, and that's a LOT of computers.  I blew out a joystick port once by wiping the screen of my old school monitor while holding the stick, and the electric static shock blew the port, but that was my stupidity, and not the fault of the product.

Are failures really all that common?

[2bighorn]

Many naysayers here are spreading FUD about SSD:s, especially the cheap TLC models.

In a heated argument about the claimed short liveness of the Samsung EVO series I dug up an endurance experiment that was an ongoing project as you can only write and erase so much data in so much time. Sadly it lacks the exact model but it does have a TLC based 840 on it.

So how has the experiment gone? As expected the TLC based Samsung died a horrible dead long time ago while... no wait! What's going on? It's still working and still as fast! The Intel 330 which was rated only for a 22Tb write life has survived for 300 Tb and has virtually no dead cells? Even the cheapest TLC is still running great after 300Tb.

http://techreport.com/review/25681/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-testing-data-retention-at-300tb

Bleh. Test with 6 SSDs LOL. Says nothing about longevity of SSDs because most of them die suddenly with no warning (controller failure). Cell wear is really only small part of the complex problem.

From one of the big data centers:
45% of 1st generation SSDs died after a year, only 5% made to 3rd year.
2nd generation is roughly 50% better, no data about 3rd gen yet (still ongoing).

As for the consumer market, SSD return rate was slightly higher than for the HDs, especially some brands (OCZ - no wonder they went tits up). That same data suggests Intel SSDs are still the best when it comes to reliability and longevity.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Bleh. Test with 6 SSDs LOL. Says nothing about longevity of SSDs because most of them die suddenly with no warning (controller failure). Cell wear is really only small part of the complex problem.

From one of the big data centers:
45% of 1st generation SSDs died after a year, only 5% made to 3rd year.
2nd generation is roughly 50% better, no data about 3rd gen yet (still ongoing).

As for the consumer market, SSD return rate was slightly higher than for the HDs, especially some brands (OCZ - no wonder they went tits up). That same data suggests Intel SSDs are still the best when it comes to reliability and longevity.

The controller failures were due to bad firmwares which have been fixed a long time ago. If the return rate was only slightly higher than HDs considering all the firmware related deaths one can pretty safely say there are no endurance problems to speak of. Or reversely if there is, you have to raise hell about HDDs also, how come nobody does that?

[2bighorn]

The controller failures were due to bad firmwares which have been fixed a long time ago.

That's what OCZ marketing guy would say. But the truth is, whilst some bugs were fixed, new ones emerged. Things are improving but not nearly as fast as SSD manufacturer are claiming.

If the return rate was only slightly higher than HDs considering all the firmware related deaths one can pretty safely say there are no endurance problems to speak of.

That's like talking about winning a marathon after running less than a mile. Premature. SSDs weren't around long enough.

Or reversely if there is, you have to raise hell about HDDs also, how come nobody does that?

Because SSDs were considered to be superior in any imaginable way but capacity. Why would anyone complain about old tech HDs?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

That's what OCZ marketing guy would say. But the truth is, whilst some bugs were fixed, new ones emerged. Things are improving but not nearly as fast as SSD manufacturer are claiming.

Source for your information, please.

That's like talking about winning a marathon after running less than a mile. Premature. SSDs weren't around long enough.

They have been here for 50 or so years. Implemented in super computers in the early 80's. That's ancient history in computer terms. Flash based SSDs came around 1995, again ancient history as far as computers go.

Because SSDs were considered to be superior in any imaginable way but capacity. Why would anyone complain about old tech HDs?

Or to rephrase that: Fear of unknown makes people cry about things which are not a problem in reality. Nobody is spewing doomsday scenarios about hdd:s.

[Skuzzy]

SSD's and HD's both suffer from one prevalent problem.  They can die on you, without warning.

I have dealt with customers who have had them fail.  They ran the Windows OS off of them, without moving the swap partition to another drive.  Worse, they fixed the size of the swap partition.  A good thing to do with a regular HD, but a bad thing to do with an SSD as it makes all those writes and deletes happen in a very small area of the drive.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

SSD's and HD's both suffer from one prevalent problem.  They can die on you, without warning.

I have dealt with customers who have had them fail.  They ran the Windows OS off of them, without moving the swap partition to another drive.  Worse, they fixed the size of the swap partition.  A good thing to do with a regular HD, but a bad thing to do with an SSD as it makes all those writes and deletes happen in a very small area of the drive.

All modern SSDs have had for a long time a wear leveling system where blocks are never reused twice in a row. If you append or refresh a file it gets written to an another set of memory cells. This way the ssds prevent failing from common tasks.