Solved SSD Life and Storage Used

Hello all,

I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about computer in general. However I do have to admit that SSDs are one thing that Im not really on the up and up about yet. Ive heard from a couple different people that the amount of space used on an SSD will effect its life span. Ive searched other forums and websites and have found conflicting answers and opinions on this.

Right now I am using 104 GB of my 180GB Intel SSD leaving 62.4 GB free (after partitioning and everything else that zaps a bit of space before anything is even put on it.) My question is, should I be concerned? Should I look at taking some stuff off of it? Or is it fine the way it is, and how much more space could I safely use if any?

This drive is in my Dell Latitude E4310 laptop which has only one HDD/SSD bay.

In my personal opinion, the amount of space used on an SSD will not effect its life span

The usage of an SSD may effect it's lifetime but probably not enough to be meaningful. SSDs do have limited writes but this is so high that it rarely makes a difference in real world situations. In most cases the drive or computer will have been replaced for other reasons long before the drive wears out. Members of this forum have been using an SSD for 5 years or more and have done nothing special with it.

In most cases, the SSD will out live you.

Leaving 10 - 20 GB free is a must for windows to work and function properly anyway, so at least that much is necessary for SSD too. Now, most SSDs already have a part that is not reachable and is used for "Over-provisioning" and stores data temporarily during "Garbage collection" and "Wear leveling". GC is used to completely destroy deleted data and make cells available for new writes and is automatic and triggered by Trim command from OS.
WL is to ensure that use of or storage cells are used evenly and so prolong their life as each storage cell has finite number of writes but is pretty large in contemporary SSDs.
Best thing you can do is to keep that much free space and make sure SATA port/controller used for SSD is set to AHCI mode, windows drivers for it are fully functional and Trim command is enabled in OS.
Other than that, there's nothing else than has to be done comparing to HDD in it's place. Use and enjoy the speed.

broe23 said:

In most cases, the SSD will out live you.

Click to expand...

For SSD Endurance read Tech Reports SSD Endurance Experiment: Search - The Tech Report=

Cliff S said:

broe23 said:

In most cases, the SSD will out live you.

Click to expand...

For SSD Endurance read Tech Reports SSD Endurance Experiment: Search - The Tech Report=

Click to expand...

nice info bro :thumb:

Thanks everyone. I already knew this about garbage collection and wear leveling. I just wanted someone else to confirm it for me and give me a bit more insight.