Home » Forums » AskWoody support » PC hardware » PC hardware-General Questions » Do we need to replace five-year-old SSDs
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ableinc.
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Kathy Stevens
AskWoody Plus
December 14, 2023 at 1:44 pm #2611760
What is a SSDs lifespan. One year? Five years? Ten years? Longer?
In Susan Bradely’s Newsletter Plus topic Gifts for your computer she states, “Seriously consider replacing any drive older than five years, sooner if your examination of S.M.A.R.T. data reveals problems.”
However, according to Digital Guide IONS, “The figures make it clear that the service life of an SSD with normal everyday use is hardly a limiting factor. An example SSD from Intel is still classified as completely intact by the HD Sentinel monitoring tool after almost 10 years of use (performance value: 100%, overall condition: 98%).”
https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/server/security/ssd-life-span/
However, it is clear that over time SSD drives may become less reliable.
Based upon an internet search, it appears that:
- SSD data retention failures go up the longer it’s used,
- SSD data retention failures go up due to high data read write – a petabyte of total written data,
- SSD non-volatile memory becomes less reliable over time as the transistors wear out / lose their charge-holding capacity,
- The risk of SSD fail increases due to exposure to high heat,
- The risk of SSD failure increases when exposed to high humidity,
- SSD controllers are susceptible to power surge damage,
- Loose SATA connection will interfere with internal SSD performance,
- SSDs experience a higher rates of failure during the first few weeks in use, and
- SSD data loss may be experienced in drives that are out of service for extended periods.
Most of our SSDs are used in workstations and laptops that are in “normal” business working conditions – relatively low daily read/writes.
All are housed within controlled atmospheric conditions with respect to temperature and humidity.
And all are feed by CyberPower uninterruptible power supplies.
All of our computers are backed up at least daily to internal drives and weekly to external drives.
And none are used for gaming.
So, do we really need to replace our SSDs after they have been in service five years?
- This topic was modified 9 months ago by Kathy Stevens.
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Alex5723
AskWoody Plus
December 14, 2023 at 2:23 pm #2611764
There is no need to replace SSDs if they pass the S.M.A.R.T test
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/ssd-endurance-questions/#post-2382161
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bbearren
See AlsoUSB Flash Drive vs SSD: Which One Do I Need?New Hard Drive Failure Statistics Released - IPVM DiscussionsAskWoody MVP
December 14, 2023 at 2:38 pm #2611768
Not a business person, just a computer enthusiast, but I retired from a Fortune 500 company that had international reach and PC’s in the thousands. Their IT methods were scheduled replacement of workstations and laptops, and replacement drives/motherboards for machines that were in between replacement cycles. Windows was locked down tight, updates were pushed by the IT department, not via Windows Update.
If a drive went belly up, an IT tech would come replace the drive, run an image restoration, and turn the PC back over to its assigned user. Of course, all applications were server based, email was on in-house Exchange servers, any user could log in on any vacant PC and have everything s/he normally used in the course of a workday. I often did just that, as my job involved traveling between sites here in central Florida.
My personal method of backup is drive imaging of my OS, Users and Programs partitions. I don’t use incremental backups at all. I also periodically make full drive images of my drives as well as some of my archival data drives. I personally run drives to failure or upgrade, whichever comes first. Having reliable images stored offline gives me that security. I lost two PC’s in a house fire, but not their OS’s, User files, Programs or archival data. They are both still in existence, albeit very much upgraded over the years, both hardware and software.
Just my 2¢.
Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!
We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.
We were all once "Average Users".
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Kathy Stevens
AskWoody Plus
December 14, 2023 at 2:53 pm #2611777
Bbearren
We have an aggressive “backup policy.”
Systems are backed up daily to each computer’s D drive using Acronis.
In addition, computers are backup to external drives on Fridays using Acronis. And data files are copied to external drives on Fridays using File Explorer.
In addition, critical computers are backed up and data files copied daily to external drives daily.
None of our computers are tided to a server.
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bbearren
AskWoody MVP
December 14, 2023 at 3:35 pm #2611786
Again, I’m not a business person, but in my view if you have a couple of replacement SSD’s at the ready, you pretty much have it covered.
Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!
We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.
We were all once "Average Users".
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Kathy Stevens
AskWoody Plus
December 14, 2023 at 10:11 pm #2611831
Our alternative to having to have spare SSDs is to have standard configurations for our computers and spare PCs in reserve.
Then, if one goes down, all we have to do is pull a backup PC off the shelf, recover data files from a backup, setup the appropriate e-mail accounts, and get back to work ASAP.
We can then work on the malfunctioning computer at our leisure.
We have found this to be the most cost effective way to use our time.
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Kathy Stevens
AskWoody Plus
December 14, 2023 at 2:41 pm #2611769
I should have noted that we use 2 TB SSDs and that most are at less than 1/3 of capacity.
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satrow
AskWoody MVP
December 14, 2023 at 4:07 pm #2611789
As you appear to have multiple PCs and presumably multiple 2.5″ SSDs, I’d advise buying a few as spares now, as it looks to me like these ‘older’ SSDs (I’ve been looking at 0.5 & 1TB) are beginning to move back up in price, likely a sign that they’re becoming rare and maybe fewer stores have stock remaining.
Waiting until replacements are needed might land you with double-quadruple the cost, possibly more.
Study those prices, check comparison sites that have history graphs of prices. Buy one or two now as a little short term insurance?
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Tom in Az, 
Kathy Stevens, 
Kirsty
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Kathy Stevens
AskWoody Plus
December 14, 2023 at 10:14 pm #2611834
We in fact have several SSDs in our parts inventory.
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bbearren
AskWoody MVP
December 15, 2023 at 1:19 am #2611867
Kathy Stevens wrote:
We in fact have several SSDs in our parts inventory.
From everything you’ve told us, you have all your bases covered. Just keep on keepin’ on.
Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!
We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.
We were all once "Average Users".
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Paul T
AskWoody MVP
December 15, 2023 at 12:47 am #2611863
All the “issues” you list, apart from data loss if powered off for extended periods, are standard electronic component issues. You take reasonable precautions to alleviate these issues soI see no need to replace your SSDs.
For the potential data loss issues, all you need to do is read all the data on disk and let the disk’s internal ECC sort out any problems, which you do with your regular backups.
cheers, Paul
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Kathy Stevens
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n0ads
AskWoody Lounger
December 15, 2023 at 7:30 am #2611945
I’ve got a 128GB Samsung 850 Pro that’ll be 9 years old come March that’s still going strong in the Dell laptop I use for remote site visits.
The OS has been Win XP Pro ⇒ Win 7 Pro ⇒ Win 10 Pro 22H2 and the SMART data shows it still has 87.5% life left (18.7 TBW out of Samsung’s 150 TBW max for this specific SSD.)
And, although the Dell doesn’t meet the hardware requirements for Win 11 so the SSD will eventually need to be moved to a new PC, at the current usage rate, it should be at least 20 years before it even gets close to 50% life left (which would be my own personal “point of no return” to replace it.)
Just FYI…
Samsung discontinued their 850 Pro line but, at the time I bought it, they offered a 10-year warranty on all their 850 Pro models!
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Kathy Stevens
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ableinc
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December 15, 2023 at 11:20 am #2611997
In a business where data is backed up and replacing machines with spares is easy, I agree I would not worry about replacing SSDs (unless SMART showed problems or near end of life – and get multiple opinions since some software can misreport almost unused drives are nearly used up). Replacing mechanical hard drives after 5 years, or entire machines, could be appropriate for businesses where backup is done less often or where machines are individually configured or users allowed to customize, but when using spare computers is convenient these issues aren’t much worth worrying about.
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