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- Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2019 8:57 am
- Real Name: Paul Landergan
It really varies depending on the type of drive and how heavily used it is. Different drives use different types of memory internally that have different endurance characteristics (MLC flash tends to have more endurance than TLC, and both MLC and TLC 3D NAND tend to have more endurance than their 2D equivalents). Most SSDs also include a certain amount of spare blocks that are automatically used once certain memory blocks on the drive start to fail. But the amount of spare blocks varies across different manufacturers and drive models which also affects the overall drive life.
Most SSD manufacturers as part of their drive specifications include a terabytes written (TBW) figure which should give you an idea of how much recording you can expect to do before the drive might fail. Most of these TBW specifications from manufacturers tend to be on the conservative side, with real world testing often significantly exceeding the specified endurance ratings:
https://www.ontrack.com/blog/2018/02/07 ... ally-last/
https://techreport.com/review/27909/the ... e-all-dead
You can also take a look at the drive warranty periods. Drives with better endurance specs tend to have longer warranty periods (5 years rather than 3 years).