Kingston dropped an interesting titbit that we thought we'd pass on to all Intel SSD owners - of which there's soon to be a lot more once the latest value X25-X drives arrive.
Basically, the biggest unknown factor in NAND Flash technology is wear and tear. The cells have a limited amount of data writes, so don't last forever, even though intelligent wear algorithms mean an MLC drive will last 10 years having written a few hundred GB a day to it - far more than any normal user will do.
One question that will get more important as time goes on is the second hand market: How can you account for wear if you're buying it off someone else?
[break]
Well firstly download CrystalMark Info (the install package works better than the standalone) and run it.
On the bottom half of the program there's a SMART readout: check the E9 value like shown below, this is the Media Wearout Indicator. Currently this original 80GB X25-M is 97 per cent OK with 1821 hours on the go.
Unfortunately, the limitation is that this currently only applies to Intel drives because there's no industry standard for SSD SMART data. On other drives it might be there under a different name and address, or, not at all (JMicron drives for example don't feature it).
If you've got an SSD let us know if yours features the Media Wear Indicator or a version of it and how it's fairing up in long term use.
Basically, the biggest unknown factor in NAND Flash technology is wear and tear. The cells have a limited amount of data writes, so don't last forever, even though intelligent wear algorithms mean an MLC drive will last 10 years having written a few hundred GB a day to it - far more than any normal user will do.
One question that will get more important as time goes on is the second hand market: How can you account for wear if you're buying it off someone else?
[break]
Well firstly download CrystalMark Info (the install package works better than the standalone) and run it.
On the bottom half of the program there's a SMART readout: check the E9 value like shown below, this is the Media Wearout Indicator. Currently this original 80GB X25-M is 97 per cent OK with 1821 hours on the go.
Unfortunately, the limitation is that this currently only applies to Intel drives because there's no industry standard for SSD SMART data. On other drives it might be there under a different name and address, or, not at all (JMicron drives for example don't feature it).
If you've got an SSD let us know if yours features the Media Wear Indicator or a version of it and how it's fairing up in long term use.
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