SSD in Late 2013 rMBP integrity

[Commy1]

Hey guys,
Not sure if any threads have been made about this yet but I wanted to ask about/confirm what I think I know about SSD's and whether or not it's changing.

As I understand it constantly writing/deleting information to an SSD degrades it. TRIM is a sub-system that marks a slot for overwrite in an SSD (I think), so the information until it's overwritten isn't really deleted, just marked that it can be.
I've been putting all of my photos on an external hard drive instantly, they don't even enter the SSD.
Is this still the same story in the SSD's in the rMBP Late 2013? I don't plan on making it a habit of storing thousands of images on a 256GB drive any how, but just wanted to know.

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[disasterdrone]

Hey guys,
Not sure if any threads have been made about this yet but I wanted to ask about/confirm what I think I know about SSD's and whether or not it's changing.

As I understand it constantly writing/deleting information to an SSD degrades it. TRIM is a sub-system that marks a slot for overwrite in an SSD (I think), so the information until it's overwritten isn't really deleted, just marked that it can be.
I've been putting all of my photos on an external hard drive instantly, they don't even enter the SSD.
Is this still the same story in the SSD's in the rMBP Late 2013? I don't plan on making it a habit of storing thousands of images on a 256GB drive any how, but just wanted to know.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Don't worry about this.

 

[Watabou]

Hey guys,
Not sure if any threads have been made about this yet but I wanted to ask about/confirm what I think I know about SSD's and whether or not it's changing.

As I understand it constantly writing/deleting information to an SSD degrades it. TRIM is a sub-system that marks a slot for overwrite in an SSD (I think), so the information until it's overwritten isn't really deleted, just marked that it can be.
I've been putting all of my photos on an external hard drive instantly, they don't even enter the SSD.
Is this still the same story in the SSD's in the rMBP Late 2013? I don't plan on making it a habit of storing thousands of images on a 256GB drive any how, but just wanted to know.

As the previous poster says, you really don't have to worry. Anandtech found out that the recent Samsung SSDs that Apple uses have a very long lifetime. Basically, if you constantly write 10GB of data daily to the SSD, then it will fail long, long after you already buy a new laptop to replace this one.

 

[Commy1]

Don't worry about this.

As the previous poster says, you really don't have to worry. Anandtech found out that the recent Samsung SSDs that Apple uses have a very long lifetime. Basically, if you constantly write 10GB of data daily to the SSD, then it will fail long, long after you already buy a new laptop to replace this one.

Awesome thanks guys! Little reassurance is always welcomed
I'm still looking into getting a more portable external HD but knowing that I can store some impermanent data on the drive for a number of years to come is highly appreciated.

Could you link me to that Anandtech article? I'm interested to see how/what Samsung has changed in their hardware, if it's even talked about specifically that is.

 

[CausticPuppy]

As the previous poster says, you really don't have to worry. Anandtech found out that the recent Samsung SSDs that Apple uses have a very long lifetime. Basically, if you constantly write 10GB of data daily to the SSD, then it will fail long, long after you already buy a new laptop to replace this one.

So basically, don't worry about it, as long as you wound up with a Samsung SSD, and not a Toshiba.

 

[Watabou]

Awesome thanks guys! Little reassurance is always welcomed
I'm still looking into getting a more portable external HD but knowing that I can store some impermanent data on the drive for a number of years to come is highly appreciated.

Could you link me to that Anandtech article? I'm interested to see how/what Samsung has changed in their hardware, if it's even talked about specifically that is.

Yep here it is: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

With 10GB daily writes, the expected lifetime is 70 years for 256GB MLC.

Now this is not exactly the same SSD Apple might be using in the rMBP, but it most likely has the same endurance.

 

[Watabou]

So basically, don't worry about it, as long as you wound up with a Samsung SSD, and not a Toshiba.

Not true. Toshiba state that if you write 22 GB of data daily, you can expect the drive to last at least 5 years. Source: http://www.toshiba.com/taec/news/media_resources/docs/SSDmyths.pdf

 

[skyaflya]

Activity monitor puzzle

In activity monitor the memory tab shows little or no compression and no swapping at all, but go to the disk tab and there seems to be unending writes.

This seems backward.

I have been observing this on a new late 2013 13" rmbp with 8 gig and 500 gig ssd. Nice to know from this thread that there is no real problem with SSD churn, but still puzzling. Seems like an inconsistency in the activity monitor.

 

[Barney63]

Not true. Toshiba state that if you write 22 GB of data daily, you can expect the drive to last at least 5 years. Source: http://www.toshiba.com/taec/news/media_resources/docs/SSDmyths.pdf

That info is for a 64GB SSD.
For a 256GB you need to multiply the time by 4 giving 20 years. Also a heavy user is estimated at just over 5GB/day so there is another multiplication factor of 4 making it 80 years. That is if I'm reading it correctly.

To even begin to reach a conservative endurance limit of a 64GB MLC NAND-based SSD with wear-leveling technology, a mobile user would have to write approximately 40 Terabytes (forty trillion bytes) of data over the expected five-year life of the drive. That’s equal to approximately 22GB of new data per day, every day – or enough to fill 4.6 DVDs, or 32 CDs daily. With a 128GB drive, for example, the wear would be spread over a larger storage area, effectively doubling the average daily write limit to 44GB, or more than 9 DVDs. In the Toshiba usage modeling study*, typical users wrote approximately 1.4GB/day, and heavy users wrote about 5.2GB/day.

Barney