Life expectancy of SSDs vs HDs

Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Your Mac's Specs
Mid-2010 15" MBP; late 2012 11" MBA; iPhone 5
Apple's release of the Retina MBP, with its standard SSD drive, made me wonder about SSD vs HD life expectancies. I know that SSDs are far more durable than spinning HDs, as far as withstanding physical trauma like bumps and drops. There are no moving parts to wear out or get misaligned. But what about repeated access to the flash drive chips? I've read stuff about "a certain number of reads and writes" before even SSDs begin to fail.

Assuming that SSDs will of course fail, is this "usual" number of read/write life expectancy similar, or hopefully greater than, the average life of a spinning hard drive? I know there are lemon hard drives that fail within a month, and others that last 9 years. I'm just talking about ballpark experience.

Curious to hear anyone's thoughts. Thanks --
 

pigoo3

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
44,210
Reaction score
1,418
Points
113
Location
U.S.
Your Mac's Specs
2017 15" MBP, 16gig ram, 1TB SSD, OS 10.15
Apple's release of the Retina MBP, with its standard SSD drive, made me wonder about SSD vs HD life expectancies. I know that SSDs are far more durable than spinning HDs, as far as withstanding physical trauma like bumps and drops. There are no moving parts to wear out or get misaligned. But what about repeated access to the flash drive chips? I've read stuff about "a certain number of reads and writes" before even SSDs begin to fail.

Assuming that SSDs will of course fail, is this "usual" number of read/write life expectancy similar, or hopefully greater than, the average life of a spinning hard drive? I know there are lemon hard drives that fail within a month, and others that last 9 years. I'm just talking about ballpark experience.

Some articles to read:

Investigation: Is Your SSD More Reliable Than A Hard Drive? : SSD Reliability: Is Your Data Really Safe?
SSDs vs. Disks: Which Are More Reliable? » Data Center Knowledge
SSDs no more reliable than hard drives | ZDNet

- Nick
 

RavingMac

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
8,303
Reaction score
242
Points
63
Location
In Denial
Your Mac's Specs
16Gb Mac Mini 2018, 15" MacBook Pro 2012 1 TB SSD
Great info here. Kudos to Nick for the Links.

I read them and went home and made another bootable clone of my MBP. . . .. :p
 

pigoo3

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
44,210
Reaction score
1,418
Points
113
Location
U.S.
Your Mac's Specs
2017 15" MBP, 16gig ram, 1TB SSD, OS 10.15
Great info here. Kudos to Nick for the Links.

I read them and went home and made another bootable clone of my MBP. . . .. :p

Thanks...hope you had fun!;)

- Nick
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
1,517
Reaction score
34
Points
48
I heard a broker say...dont hold on to that western digital stock to long..HD's will be history...ten years or so.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top