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I've been wondering about this for some time: Do higher-capacity SSDs last longer than smaller ones of the same type under the same operating conditions?
I would want to believe so because a larger SSD has more memory cells available, but is there anything with the higher-capacity SSDs or flash memory chips that offsets this? For example, do higher-density flash memory chips have shorter lifespan per memory cell?
On the other hand, is the higher capacity simply enabled by putting more NAND chips in the drive, with a commensurate increase in endurance?
bwDraco
Posted 2012-10-25T15:19:18.380
Reputation: 41 701
2Intel says you can write 20+GB a day to their consumer level drives for years without exhausting their write capacity, and that number is a few years old now. I'd imagine nobody is going to exhaust the life of a modern SSD with reasonable levels of use in the lifetime of the part. – Shinrai – 2012-10-25T15:28:04.577
See the edit to my question. I personally suspect, but am not sure, that higher-density ICs have shorter lifespan per memory cell. – bwDraco – 2012-10-25T15:29:12.157
2They do (on average). But higher capacity can be do to more old density chips, or larger but smaller density chips. And even with the higher density chips we are promised that the drives will last a long time. – Hennes – 2012-10-25T15:34:04.083
Even if it cuts the lifespan by a factor of 10, which I doubt, I imagine that you would have a hard time exhausting a SSD with reasonable use. 10,000 write cycle is a lot. – David – 2012-10-25T15:40:44.247
what do you mean "ram disk?" – Keltari – 2013-09-02T18:02:36.420
@Keltari Well spotted, I mixed up using RAM as a super fast Hard Drive and using a SSD as slow RAM. I have corrected my answer. – David – 2013-09-03T14:58:45.280