How to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD

Have you ever wondered How much life is left on your computer's storage unit?? Although it is not something we ask ourselves on a daily basis, it is certainly an important issue to consider. Therefore, in this post we are going to see how to calculate the useful life of your SSD and HDD in a simple and effective way.

To calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD you need to know some data provided by the manufacturer of the unitOf course, this information is not always available, especially if the computer has been in circulation for some time. Fortunately, There are programs that carry out detailed evaluations the health of the disk and give an estimate of its durability.

How to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD

Solid state drives (SSD) and hard disk drives (HDD) are essential parts within the computer hardwareThese elements are responsible for storing data permanently to be used every time we turn on the computer. Like any other physical element, they are not eternal., so it's helpful to know how to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD to determine if it's time to replace it.

It should be noted that the storage units They are designed to offer several years of faithful service.. So there is no need to worry too much about its lifespan if we use it for basic purposes. However, if we use the device intensively, storing and deleting large amounts of gigabytes, it is a good idea to make an assessment to find out how much wear it has suffered.

Likewise, it is important to remember that The way to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD is different for each type of driveBecause of the way they work, solid-state drives allow for a more detailed estimate of their estimated lifespan. Hard disk drives, on the other hand, are more susceptible to the passage of time and other external factors, so it is not always easy to estimate their durability.

How to calculate the lifespan of your SSD

Let's look at the procedures to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD separately, starting with the solid state drivesAs you may know, these storage drives have become the standard for modern laptops and desktops. They stand out for offering high read and write speeds, which translates into a faster and more efficient computer.

Now, there is one detail to consider with SSD drives: have a maximum of write and read operationsIn other words, manufacturers set a maximum number of times you can safely overwrite an SSD. If you go over that number, there's a chance the drive will start to fail.

This limit is set by two related metrics: TBW (Terabytes Written) and DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day). The TBW It is defined as the number of terabytes that can be written to the drive before that their performance begins to deteriorate. For its part, the DWPD indicates how many times you can write full capacity of the SSD every day during the warranty period.

How can you find out the TBW and DWPD values ​​of your solid state drive? The best way to find out is checking the manufacturer's specifications on their website. Once you have these two values, you can apply a simple formula to calculate the SSD lifespan. The formula is to multiply the TBW and DWPD values ​​and divide the result by the approximate amount of GB per day you write (TBW × DWPD / GB per day).

Let's say, for example, that you have an SSD with a capacity of 500 GB, a TBW of 300 TB, a DWPD of 0.5 and an average write rate of 10 GB per day. Applying the formula we would have: 300 TB × 0.5 ÷ 10 GB, which results in approximately 15 years of useful life. The figure is XNUMX TB × XNUMX ÷ XNUMX GB. 10 GB of daily writing is the estimated usage that an average user gives to his computer browsing, streaming, editing documents, etc.

How to know how much usage time is left on an HDD

We continue with this thing about calculating the useful life of your SSD and HDD, and this time we will talk about doing it on a hard disk drive. Because they are made up of moving mechanical parts, Physical wear and tear and time of use determine its durability. In addition, the number of on/off cycles also generates wear and tear on HDDs, shortening their lifespan.

The average lifespan of a typical hard drive is estimated to be about 20.000 hours when powered on, which is equivalent to almost three years of continuous operation. One of the most commonly used metrics for calculating hard drive lifespan is the estimated time between failures (ETF).Mean Time Between Failures o MTBF). It is also provided by the manufacturer, and indicates how many hours pass before the unit fails.

Typically, the MTBF on a hard drive is around 300.000 hours. Thus, a hard drive that receives daily use of 8 hours has an estimated lifespan of 37.500 hours (just over 4 years). This figure is obtained dividing the MTBF by the daily hours of use. Again, these are approximate calculations, and everything will depend on factors such as temperature, time of use, brand, etc.

Programs to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD

The advantage is that there are various Programs to calculate the lifespan of your SSD and HDD. Many manufacturers offer analysis software to assess the level of degradation of storage drives. So, if you want to get a clearer idea of ​​the current health of your drive, you can try these options:

• CrystalDiskInfo: This free tool is very useful for monitoring the health and performance of hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state drives (SSD). It supports USB, Intel/AMD RAID and NVMe.
• SSD life: This program helps you estimate the lifespan of your SSD drives based on the number of write and erase cycles and daily usage.
• SSDReady: Another program to calculate the lifespan of SSD drives and estimate how much longer they will last.

You can also review some effective tips for increase the lifespan of an SSD. And if you make intensive use of your computer, it is best to evaluate the condition of the storage units frequently. This way, you will be able to take appropriate precautions to protect data that you have stored in them.