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    SSD lifespan

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by Bergerking42, Jul 29, 2010.

  1. Bergerking42

    Bergerking42 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I want to get SSD's in Raid 0 for my alienware but I am a little concerned about life span, especially because they are pricey! So how long do you think these will last? I'm a game dev using Adobe PS, Adobe Flash, UDK, CryEngine3, 3ds max, games, etc.

    Thanks,
    -Mike
     
    Bergerking42, Jul 29, 2010
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  2. bkvarsne

    bkvarsne Notebook Geek

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    SSDs are in their early years and only time will tell really how reliable they are. Lab tests are not as good as consumer feedback over time, but Intel has stated stated 5 years at 100GB/day for their 80GB X25-M. This was before they made some firmware changes that likely reduce the lifespan. However, chances are you won't use more than 30GB/day and we are being generous--in that case you are looking at least 15 years of use.

    But that is only related to the writes to the disk. It can fail at any moment due to internals frying (like any electronic component). I think it will outlast my use by far, as I to this date never have used a harddisk more than 3-4 years.

    Only time will tell and I will take part in that :) They are just too awesome to not have.

    edit: backup, backup, backup... no matter what you use, remember backups ;)
     
    bkvarsne, Jul 29, 2010
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  3. Bergerking42

    Bergerking42 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok, I'm going to get them. They are pretty awesome. I bought a 1TB external HDD for backup. =D

    Thanks for the reply,
    -Mike
     
    Bergerking42, Jul 29, 2010
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  4. FalconMachV

    FalconMachV Notebook Evangelist

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    Raid 0 and SSD is something I would look into. Not sure if there are potential issues with this. If anyone has a postive or negative article please post.
     
    FalconMachV, Jul 29, 2010
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  5. nzgeek

    nzgeek Notebook Evangelist

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    The biggest problem at the moment is that the Intel RAID manager doesn't support the TRIM feature of SSDs. (It was announced that there were drivers to support this, but this was an error and Intel announced a correction.)

    When you delete a file on a normal drive, the OS doesn't do anything with the data. It simply marks that space as "free" and lets that space get used by something else.

    TRIM does the same thing at a hardware level with an SSD. It marks a cluster of cells as free, and lets the drive overwrite the previous contents without a check. Without TRIM support, the OS has to perform this process instead, which makes things slower.

    Depending on how full your drive is, you may find that without TRIM you'll only go a few months before things start slowing down. I don't know how much, but it will get noticeable over time.

    Until such time as Intel RAID properly supports TRIM, the usual advice is to simply run the drives in a non-RAID configuration, so that you get the best speed out of them long-term.
     
    nzgeek, Jul 29, 2010
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