Hard Disk Monitoring

SSD Lifetime writes / Estimated remaining lifetime
Kingston HyperX 3K (SH103S3/120G)

Should we be overly concerned about its durability, because it will most likely "survive" the warranty period and will work for years at a high level


It is a myth that the TBW index determines the lifetime of the carrier. This parameter is only a warranty for the manufacturer. In fact, SSD drives can save much more data than declared. Although SSD life tests are not popular, they lead to the killing of the disc, for such an experiment in 2013, the techreport.com portal decided.

Journalists took six discs and checked how much data you can save on each one. The procedure consisted in the continuous recording, deletion and re-writing of 10 GB data packages, and the whole test lasted for about a year and a half. Effects? The most durable disk was able to save 2.4 petabytes of data, while the weakest of the six records saved 720 TB. These results are virtually unachievable to the average user.

Please do not forget that such articles / tests only focuses on writes.
The problem is that when we reach the amount of possible overwrite passes, memory cells damaged seriously and they may not able to retain (store) the data last written in it for long time. SSDs may detect the problem WHEN POWERED and will automatically reprogram the data. As a result, yes, you can write MUCH more data than the TBW (and especially when the device is always powered, actively working) but the question is
- how long you can READ back the stored information
- especially when the device is not always powered

The Health % (which based on the wearout, NOT really based on the TBW defined for the warranty period) helps to determine when the device may need to be replaced in order to prevent data loss. Yes, the SSD may work (even without problems) for longer time, but we can decide if we want to risk data loss or not.