We have actively and passively spoken to you about the benefits of SSDs and why we now consider them a totally recommended purchase. Unless, of course, you need a lot of storage capacity or savings. Let’s not forget that the overall performance of a computer with all parts interconnected is not only defined by its fastest part, but also by its slowest part, which is the hard drive. However, SSDs also fail, for different reasons, but they are not perpetual drives.
Why do SSDs fail over time?
At first glance, with no moving mechanical parts, an SSD appears much more robust and therefore durable. However, this is only in appearance and it must be assumed that to store information, an SSD uses NAND Flash memory, a type of non-volatile memory that retains information even after it stops receiving power. electricity. So, like RAM, it can be written many times, and like ROM or a hard drive, it retains its data over time.
The problem is that the memory NAND Flash supports maximum types of reads and writes on the same cell. This is influenced by storage capacity. Thus, if our SSD supports one bit per cell, it will have very little capacity to store data, but it will have a longer lifespan and vice versa. This is why chips with a high number of supported reads and writes in their useful life are the ones that end up being more expensive and are often used in environments outside of the home computing market. In other words, in advanced workstations and data centers.
For instance, SSD with SLC cells can bear 50,000 to 100,000 write cycles per cell. If we talk about the MLC the thing can drop the 30,000 on average and if we go to CCM so we can meet below 10,000 cycles. Either way, every flash memory chip is different and not all of them work the same way.
How can I find out the remaining life of my SSD?
To do this, you must use the CrystalDiskInfo benchmark. In the program’s main window, where it says Health Status, it will mark the health status of your SSD, usually with a percentage that will tell you the total number of cells in your storage unit that are not dead after a continuous use. It will therefore serve as an indication to know if one of your SSDs breaks down and if the fateful day to change them is approaching.
Can I avoid the death of my SSD?
You can’t, sooner or later it will die and you will lose all your data. This is why we recommend that you have a backup hard drive to periodically perform corresponding backups. In any case, we leave you some tips to extend the life of your SSD.
disable hibernation
However, one of the things you can do is to remove hibernate mode. This consists of the PC going into low power mode and copying the information from the RAM to the storage device. Therefore, if it is an SSD, it will do it in the cells of its NAND Flash memory and, in addition, if we have programmed it to hibernate in a few minutes, it will be a continuous write. The best way is to disable it by doing the following:
- Hover over the Windows icon in the taskbar, right-click it, and select Windows Power Shell (with administrator)
- Say yes to the dialog to let you continue
- Once in the terminal, you must write: powercfg -h disabled
- Press Enter to confirm the change.
Activate the TRIM function
Another thing you can do is see if the TRIM mechanism is working. Which informs the SSD controller chip which blocks of data are no longer in use and can be erased. To find out if it is active, follow the same steps as to disable hibernation, but this time the command is: behavior request fsutil DisableDeleteNotify.
If the answer he gives you is “DisableDeleteNotifier = 0” this is when the TRIM functions will work, otherwise you just have to write the following to activate it: fsutil defined behavior disabledeletenotify 0
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