(on topic as I would hope to do the job myself) I asked previously about Windows 11 and got some good advice. I have decided not to replace my PC meantime but to continue with Windows 10. My setup is that I have a 256GB solid state drive and 1TB hard drive. The operating system and programs are on the SSD and data on the HDD.
The HDD is at least 12 years old (transferred from previous PC). I am wondering about a 1TB SSD to replace both, as this is now affordable. However, should I be worried about the HDD at all? Can I assume use is lighter than the SSD and that I will get warning of imminent failure? Obviously, I keep backups.
The SSD must be at least six years old and is fairly full though nowhere near capacity.
I would use both the old SSD and HDD as backup, and regularly make backups. While it's not a remote backup, it should still protect you against disk failure.
SSDs have a reputation of failing catastrophically. All my important data is still held on HDDs.
I have a RAID1 setup, with 2 SSDs. I bought 2 of the same SSD, which is the obvious thing to do, as it will always operate at the speed of the slowest device. On reflection, though, I should have bought completely different brands, so they are less likely to fail at the same time.
Or, perhaps, it's more likely the PSU will pull a wobbly and fry everything in the case?
Anyway, as long as you back up the data externally, and off line, you should be pretty bulletproof.
You may get warning of HDD failure, but I would not count on it. In a general sense you ought to be "worried" about any storage device - while heavily used and older drives are more likely to fail, that does not mean new ones won't.
I have pulled 12 year old drives out of NAS boxes in office environments still going strong with no indication of a problem, and also had a "new"
Scott snipped-for-privacy@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote
No you can't assume that you will get warning of imminent failure with an HDD. But there is no reason that the age would see it more likely to fail now given how it's used.
It might be getting to its wear limit depending on how much physical ram you have and so how much it swaps.
The pagefile in Windows 10, doesn't work in nearly as stressful a manner as in the Windows XP era.
In this thread, the users messed around with their Windows settings and the result was some excessive usage of the SSD. Leaving Prefetch enabled and as a result, leaving the Memory Compressor running, might reduce pagefile usage. That's because the Memory Compressor runs when there are hard faults seen in Task Manager. Memory will be compressed to free up some pages, in preference to pushing it to the pagefile.
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# Powershell, Admin, after Prefetch service running
Enable-MMAgent -MemoryCompression
When I tried to run testcases for pagefile behavior here, the results weren't very spectacular, but I chalked that up to not making very good testcases.
You can't expect a memory compressor to work miracles, as the compressor has to be fast and light. It can't run 7Z quality methods to do what it does. So you can't expect your effective system memory to double or anything, by compressing stuff.
One experiment I ran a few years back now, was running Windows 10 in a VM, with the VM set to only 256MB of RAM. The OS could boot, and I could run Notepad. But if you had Task Manager open, the memory compressor was railed on one core the entire time. And the memory usage recorded in Task Manager was "wavey gravy". It was constantly varying by small amounts, as I suppose various maintenance things would try to run, and they would be stymied by the lack of resources. Still, it shows one corner of OS operation, causing in that case, the memory compressor to be the rate limiting step.
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You can check the amount of wear on an SSD with its "Toolkit". Each brand has toolkits with various levels of merit. The Corsair Neutron toolkit, I liked, but I had to take the drive back to the store. The following picture is the toolkit for my Samsung drive, where the toolkit is not as nice.
I had to work out the percent used manually, as I could not find a view in the tool that does a better job. On a previous version of Samsung Toolkit, the Secure Erase didn't work. Whereas the Corsair Neutron Toolkit, secure erased with one click, before I took the drive back to the store.
[Picture]
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A good display, would dump the SMART table for examination. Even though it's likely to be boring and all. And a good toolkit should give a percent used number onscreen, for quick evaluation.
On Intel drives, like the 545S, the Intel policy is to brick the drive, when all the write life is exhausted. That's an example, of why a person would want to watch the write life, like a hawk. I knew that, before I bought the Intel drive...
Yes I lost the whole lot on an ssd only 4 years in. It was one of those chip type that sat on the motherboard, so when I replaced it I used a normal format ssd of double the size. Both are made by Samsung, but I doubt that this means they are any more or less reliable. I bought a cheap 2TB western digital us b drive to back up on every Sunday on a schedule and this happens in the background. The 1tb drive is a normal one also, but at the moment has nothing of great importance there, and is pretty empty. Handy though if you do need a big file every so often. Brian
Thanks very much. Mind is showing 27.2TB written, which seems far higher than yours. Could you guide me whether this is okay, some sort of record, or no cause for concern.
SSD prices are subtly related to that TBW number. In other words, SSDs are like bog roll, and a "very large roll" costs more money. That's how they work in a sense. These two devices, for example, have the same storage capacity (amount of files), but my 27TB of usage is 5% of the expensive one, or
10% usage of the cheap one.
512GB SSD 300 TBW £100 27TB equals approx 10% life used 512GB SSD 600 TBW £200 27TB equals approx 5% life used
The more expensive drive in that case, lasts longer before it needs to be replaced. When you work out the percentages for yourself, the life is exceedingly long on average. Only a "write accident", some software in a loop for three weeks, can burn one out in a hurry. It takes a lot of Windows Updates to wear one out :-)
We need to know the model number of your device, to offer any additional feedback.
in Windows, you can get something called "Caption" using wmi or wmic, but that's just the same string seen in the picture below. Probably the same caption string as seen in Device Management (devmgmt.msc).
While you can Google on the Caption string and find the TBW number, it is better to use the model number printed on the bottom label of the SSD. As the model number isn't as common in adverts, and so you might end up landing on the manufacturer page a bit easier.
One reason I picked up the 860 Pro, is the consistency of the transfer rate. Both read and write are consistent. Some other drives, the first 20GB of a long write, go smoking fast, then any transfers after that might be at half the speed. That behavior really bothers me (it smacks of sales deception).
The absolute transfer rate in HDTune here, may be wrong, because the calibration got screwed up in Windows 10 on some release, and I don't think Windows 11 fixed that either.
The really funny part, is the Samsung Magician pretends to bench the drive, but after it makes some animations on the screen, it just prints out the "book values" from the datasheet. It doesn't matter then, whether the drive is a month old or ten years old, Magician is always going to report the same bogus numbers.
Doing it with HDTune, like CrystalDiskMark or others of that type, these are softwares that need constant maintenance to maintain accurate bench numbers. While this number is low, I'm not concerned in the least with the absolute number. And just want to point out that the Y axis may not be perfectly accurate. If I switched OSes, I might get a better number.
[Picture] An SSD on a SATA port, benched...
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Summary: Get the model number off the bottom, as well as the caption string. For example, mine would be
Samsung SSD 860 Pro 512G <== caption value DevMan MZ-76P512 2021.05 (manufactured in May) <== model num off bottom
The serial number is unnecessary data, except when you are doing a warranty return, so don't put that in a posting.
Thanks. I am reluctant to open up the PC at this stage if there is no cause for concern. Can I conclude that 27.2TB and 'Good' means there is nothing to worry about?
Also, as I mentioned, I only have the operating system and programs on the SSD (data on a 1TB HDD). Am I protected in the sense that I can reinstall in the event of catastrophe? I do keep backups - Macrium and two pen drives (alternating).
If I thought a new 1TB SSD on its own would be better I would look at one, but it seems there is no need. Am I missing something?
As a general rule OS and Apps on one drive and data on another is a "good thing" - it makes it easier to keep you data backed up and not have it tied into a complete OS install. So should you be forced to rebuild a machine from scratch, getting your data back is easier. Also your data backups will not be inflated by constant OS and application updates.
(you could argue that having two drives you have a slightly higher risk of at least one failing - but in general the benefits outweigh the risk IMHO)
If adding a big SSD, I would tend to do that in addition to the OS one, and not as a replacement for it. I.e. replace the HDD with a SSD if you need the extra file access speed. (probably not an issue unless routinely processing large files - say video editing etc, or lots of small ones - say software development)
840 PRO Model Name (Capacity) MZ-7PD128 (128 GB) MZ-7PD256 (256 GB) <=== could be this one listed capacity 238.47GB ??? MZ-7PD512 (512 GB) Form Factor 2.5 inch Interface SATA 6Gb/s
The older stuff, there's no TBW listed.
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For this one, need to dig a bit.
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"the warrantied terabytes written (TBW) has doubled from 75 TBW ... for the 250 GB"
That's because the 840 Pro was likely pure MLC and not 3D VNAND MLC.
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Samsung 840 series (250GB) [lacks Pro in the name, similar to an Evo version] [Nov.2012]
So right away, we can tell from the capacity, whether we have the right one or not.
You list 232GB, which might be a 250GB one. It's more likely to be this one then, without the word Pro in it.
We can conclude, from all the TBW being the same, that you are at:
27.2TB/72TB = 37.8% used, roughly
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Since each brand includes useful items, we can look at one.
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Crucial-defined SMART attributes described
Attribute 202: Percentage Lifetime Used <=== So you don't have to look up the TBW value, it just tells you the answer.
The SMART definitions don't all have to be the same. Some SMART definitions would be considered baseline, others, less so.
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"Good" refers to predictive failure.
If the unit doesn't have a valid 202 style field, I wonder how the smartctl figures it out ?
Obviously, the drive must have some way of communicating this. It's the human that might not be in the loop. The wear leveling count, might be a way to do it.
If it were running out of blocks to substitute, that would figure into the predictive failure determination as well. But drives like the Intel, which brick even when there is no "trouble" to speak of, you could not rely on running out of substitute blocks as an indication of age. Having a "Percentage Lifetime Used", really is a good SMART parameter to have. In Samsungs case, it almost seems like they were "shy" about telling the truth back then. I think the competition has turned up the heat on this, so that TBW is now part of more adverts.
It would certainly help sell this 12000 TBW device, which hasn't been seen at retail yet :-) It is $800 for 2TB. That's a Flash device specifically engineered for Chia coin mining. The Flash device holds "farm plots" while they are prepared, then they are transferred to regular hard drives.
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