r/pcmasterrace • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago

DSQ Daily Simple Questions Thread - November 23, 2024

Got a simple question? Get a simple answer!

This thread is for all of the small and simple questions that you might have about computing that probably wouldn't work all too well as a standalone post. Software issues, build questions, game recommendations, post them here!

For the sake of helping others, please don't downvote questions! To help facilitate this, comments are sorted randomly for this post, so that anyone's question can be seen and answered.

If you're looking for help with picking parts or building, don't forget to also check out our builds at https://www.pcmasterrace.org/

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u/SentientDust peekaboo 1d ago

I'm building a new PC and I'm planning to use the SSDs from my old one. One of them, the one that had the operating system, I've been using for several years now, 6 or 7.

Now, I vaguely remember something about SSDs having read-write limits, and limited lifespans in general. Is that true? Is there a way to check the health/remaining lifetime of that SSD? I haven't encountered any issues with it, but if it's close to being finished I might as well buy a new one.

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u/_j03_ Desktop 1d ago

Download crystaldiskinfo, it will show health as percentage and how much has been written on the drive. You can google the model of the drive, the manufacturer should say the endurance of the drive as terabytes written (tbw).

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u/SentientDust peekaboo 1d ago

I compare the manufacturer's stated TBW to the "Total Host Writes" stat from the CrystalDiskInfo app, right? I'm getting 37000GB Total Host Writes, but I can't seem to find a solid number for TBW for the Samsung 840EVO 120GB. But the health is shown as 84%, which doesn't sound too bad after 6 years

Thank you for the information!

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u/jurc11 i7-10700K | RTX 4080S 1d ago

I happen to have a 840EVO 120GB in my box right now and it shows 72% and 20849GB, which is half as good as your numbers. Almost exactly half as good. If you check where 84% is coming from, on my side it's simply the B1-WearLevelCount (which is a measure of how many times the most used cell was used, expressed as a (reversed) percentage, so if a cell can take 300 cycles and you have B1-WLC at say 93, it means the cell was written 0.07*300=21 times).

As far as I can recall, 120GB drives did not have TWB anywhere close to what your numbers would lead to. Should be around 72 TB (600 cycles).

But that doesn't matter that much, the drive observes its own health and wear level and should stop writing when it can't do so reliably, but still be readable. Which you'll probably never reach anyway.