[kwlug-disc] SSD life

[Chris Irwin]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2026 at 10:10:13PM -0600, Ron Singh wrote:
>So, here's the stats(from TLP)  on my 9yo 1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD in
>an ancient TP X220 --
>SMART info:
>    5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct     =        0
>    9 Power_On_Hours            =    21444 [h]
>   12 Power_Cycle_Count         =     3917
>  177 Wear_Leveling_Count       =       98 [%]
>  179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot     =        0
>  190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel   =       35 [°C]
>  241 Total_LBAs_Written        =   33.382 [TB]

I've still got two OCZ Vertex3 120GB SSDs in use. I bought them from 
Tiger Direct 14 years ago. They've outlived OCZ the company by 13 years 
(so far).

They cost $80/each in 2012. Quick check of Canada Computers shows they have the Lexar 
128GB 2.5" SATA SSD for $80 again, due to current pricing. Crazy.

 From `smartctl -x`, here's the stats reported (with some lines trimmed).

Drive #1:

     ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
       1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     POSR--   092   092   050    -    0/85605958
       5 Retired_Block_Count     PO--CK   100   100   003    -    1
       9 Power_On_Hours_and_Msec -O--CK   058   058   000    -    37294h+14m+12.360s
      12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   100   100   000    -    942
     177 Wear_Range_Delta        ------   000   000   000    -    3
     187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   100   100   000    -    0
     194 Temperature_Celsius     -O---K   030   030   000    -    30 (Min/Max 30/30)
     195 ECC_Uncorr_Error_Count  --SRC-   120   120   000    -    0/85605958
     196 Reallocated_Event_Count PO--CK   100   100   003    -    1
     230 Life_Curve_Status       PO--C-   100   100   000    -    100
     231 SSD_Life_Left           PO--C-   100   100   010    -    0
     241 Lifetime_Writes_GiB     -O--CK   000   000   000    -    7010
     242 Lifetime_Reads_GiB      -O--CK   000   000   000    -    34022

Drive #2 is similar, but has a bit more uptime:

     ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
       9 Power_On_Hours_and_Msec -O--CK   046   046   000    -    47849h+30m+25.490s

So looks like they've both re-allocated one sector. Not so bad, I guess. 
They also report "SSD_Life_Left" value of "100" (from googling, ignore 
the RAW value there)

These drives spent the beginning of their lives in my laptop & desktop, 
then became mdadm raid1 pairs for the OS on my old server, and are now a 
mirrored zfs log vdev for my slow storage array. They're still faster 
than spinning rust.

There was a third drive that was unplugged for a long time (a decade?), 
and if I recall, it was read-only when I went to test it a few years 
ago. I didn't take notes though, just what I remember.

I also checked the nvme drive in my current laptop: a WD SN770M (2230) 
that I bought 1 year ago for $275. Current listings have it at 
$550-$1000 (and higher, depending on where you look), so I hope I won't 
have to replace it.

Despite being only 1 year old, it's written a wee bit more data...

     Available Spare:                    100%
     Percentage Used:                    1%
     Data Units Read:                    51,956,391 [26.6 TB]
     Data Units Written:                 53,510,508 [27.3 TB]
     Power On Hours:                     1,075

>I am not a fan of using these things past 7 years, much less 9+ years.

I'm fine using older drives as long as they're redundant in some way (and 
backed-up, if applicable). It wouldn't be too disruptive if I had to 
ditch the log vdev for a bit if one of the drives failed.

>What would you do? Would you rip/replace? Would you just let it be
>considering the silly prices on SSDs these days?

Absolutely run it. If you've got good backups, it's still working,
and SMART is happy, then why bother spending the money. I've had much newer
drives fail without warning, so there's no guarantee you don't lose the
drive lottery on a new drive, either.

Then again, I'm also running refurbished SAS drives for my storage 
array... So maybe don't listen to me and my risk tolerance :)

-- 
Chris Irwin

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
   web: https://chrisirwin.ca