When buying a flash drive, many people ask themselves the question: "how to choose the right flash drive." Of course, choosing a flash drive is not so difficult if you know exactly for what purposes it is purchased. In this article I will try to give a complete answer to the question posed. I decided to write only about what to look for when buying.

A flash drive (USB drive) is a drive designed to store and transfer information. The flash drive works very simply without batteries. You just need to connect it to the USB port of your PC.

1. Flash drive interface

On the this moment There are 2 interfaces: USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. If you decide to buy a USB flash drive, then I recommend taking a USB 3.0 USB flash drive. This interface was made recently main feature is the high data rate. We'll talk about speeds a little later.

This is one of the main parameters that you need to look at first. Now flash drives are sold from 1 GB to 256 GB. The cost of a flash drive will directly depend on the amount of memory. Here you need to immediately decide for what purpose a flash drive is bought. If you are going to store text documents, then 1 GB is enough. For downloading and transferring movies, music, photos, etc. you need to take the more, the better. To date, the most popular are flash drives with a capacity of 8GB to 16GB.

3. Body material

The body can be made of plastic, glass, wood, metal, etc. Flash drives are mostly made of plastic. There is nothing I can advise here, it all depends on the preferences of the buyer.

4. Transfer rate

Earlier I wrote that there are two standards USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. Now I will explain how they differ. The USB 2.0 standard has a read speed of up to 18 Mbps and a write speed of up to 10 Mbps. The USB 3.0 standard has a read speed of 20-70 Mbps, and a write speed of 15-70 Mbps. Here, I think, nothing needs to be explained.

Now in stores you can find flash drives of different shapes and sizes. They can be in the form of jewelry, fancy animals, etc. Here I would advise taking flash drives that have a protective cap.

6. Password protection

There are flash drives that have a password protection feature. Such protection is carried out using a program that is located in the flash drive itself. The password can be set both on the entire flash drive, and on part of the data in it. Such a flash drive will primarily be useful to people who transfer corporate information in it. According to the manufacturers, if you lose it, you don't have to worry about your data. Not so simple. If such a flash drive falls into the hands of an understanding person, then hacking it is just a matter of time.

Such flash drives look very beautiful, but I would not recommend buying them. Because they are very fragile and often break in half. But if you are a neat person, then feel free to take it.

Conclusion

Nuances, as you noticed, a lot. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In my opinion, the most important parameters when choosing: the standard of a flash drive, the volume and speed of writing and reading. And everything else: design, material, options - this is just a personal choice of everyone.

Good afternoon my dear friends. In today's article, I want to talk about how to choose the right mouse pad. When buying a rug, many do not attach any importance to this. But as it turned out, this moment needs to be given special attention, because. mat determine one of the indicators of comfort while working at a PC. For an avid gamer, choosing a rug is a completely different story. Consider what options for mouse pads have been invented today.

Mat options

1. Aluminum
2. Glass
3. Plastic
4. Rubberized
5. Double sided
6. Helium

And now I would like to talk about each species in more detail.

1. First, I want to consider three options at once: plastic, aluminum and glass. These mats are very popular with gamers. For example, plastic mats are easier to find commercially. On such mats, the mouse glides quickly and accurately. And most importantly, these mats are suitable for both laser and laser optical mice. Aluminum and glass mats will be a little more difficult to find. And yes, they will cost a lot. The truth is for what - they will serve for a very long time. Rugs of these types have small flaws. Many people say that they rustle and feel a little cool when used, which may cause discomfort for some users.

2. Rubberized (rag) mats have a soft glide, but the accuracy of their movements is worse. For ordinary users, such a rug will be just right. Yes, and they are much cheaper than the previous ones.

3. Double-sided mousepads are, in my opinion, a very interesting kind of mousepads. As the name implies, these rugs have two sides. As a rule, one side is high-speed, and the other is high-precision. It happens that each side is designed for a certain game.

4. Helium pads have a silicone cushion. She allegedly supports her hand and relieves tension from it. For me personally, they were the most uncomfortable. By appointment, they are designed for office workers, since they sit at the computer all day. For ordinary users and gamers, these mats are not suitable. The mouse slides very poorly on the surface of such rugs, and their accuracy is not the best.

Mat sizes

There are three types of rugs: large, medium and small. It all depends on the taste of the user. But as is commonly believed, large rugs are well suited for games. Small and medium ones are taken mainly for work.

Rugs design

In this regard, there are no restrictions. It all depends on what you want to see on your rug. The blessing now on rugs that only do not draw. The most popular are logos computer games, such as dota, warcraft, ruler, etc. But if it happened that you could not find a rug with the pattern you need, do not be upset. Now you can order a print on the rug. But such rugs have a minus: when printing is applied to the surface of the rug, its properties deteriorate. Design for quality.

On this I want to end the article. From myself I wish you to make the right choice and be happy with it.
Who does not have a mouse or wants to replace it with another, I advise you to look at the article:.

Monoblocks from Microsoft have replenished with a new monoblock model called Surface Studio. Microsoft presented its new product recently at an exhibition in New York.

On a note! I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago where I reviewed the Surface monoblock. This monoblock was presented earlier. Click on to view the article.

Design

Microsoft calls its new product the thinnest monoblock in the world. With a weight of 9.56 kg, the thickness of the display is only 12.5 mm, the other dimensions are 637.35x438.9 mm. The display dimensions are 28 inches with a resolution greater than 4K (4500x3000 pixels), aspect ratio 3:2.

On a note! The display resolution of 4500x3000 pixels corresponds to 13.5 million pixels. This is 63% more than 4K resolution.

The monoblock display itself is touch-sensitive, enclosed in an aluminum case. On such a display, it is very convenient to draw with a stylus, which ultimately opens up new possibilities for using a monoblock. In my opinion, this monoblock model will appeal to creative people (photographers, designers, etc.).

On a note! For people of creative professions, I advise you to look at an article where I considered monoblocks of similar functionality. Click on the selected one: .

To everything written above, I would add that the main feature of the monoblock will be its ability to instantly turn into a tablet with a huge work surface.

On a note! By the way, Microsoft has another amazing candy bar. To find out about it, go to.

Specifications

I will present the characteristics in the form of a photograph.

From the periphery, I note the following: 4 USB ports, a Mini-Display Port connector, an Ethernet network port, a card-reader, a 3.5 mm audio jack, a 1080p webcam, 2 microphones, a 2.1 Dolby Audio Premium audio system, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. It also supports Xbox wireless controllers.

Price

When buying a monoblock, it will be installed with Windows 10 Creators Update. This system due out in the spring of 2017. This operating system will have updated Paint, Office, etc. The price of a monoblock will be from $ 3,000.
Dear friends, write in the comments what you think about this monoblock, ask your questions. I'll be glad to chat!

OCZ demonstrated new VX 500 SSDs. These drives will be equipped with Serial ATA 3.0 interface and are made in 2.5-inch form factor.

On a note! For those who are interested in how SSD drives work and how long they live, you can read in an article I wrote earlier:.

The novelties are made using 15-nanometer technology and will be equipped with Tochiba MLC NAND flash memory microchips. The controller in SSD drives will be used by Tochiba TC 35 8790.
The lineup VX 500 drives will consist of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB. According to the manufacturer, the sequential read speed will be 550 Mb/s (this is for all drives in this series), but the write speed will be from 485 Mb/s to 512 Mb/s.

The number of input / output operations per second (IOPS) with data blocks of 4 KB in size can reach 92,000 when reading, and 65,000 when writing (this is all arbitrary).
The thickness of OCZ VX 500 drives will be 7 mm. This will allow them to be used in ultrabooks.

Prices of new products will be as follows: 128 GB - $ 64, 256 GB - $ 93, 512 GB - $ 153, 1 TB - $ 337. I think in Russia they will cost more.

Lenovo has unveiled its new IdeaCentre Y910 gaming all-in-one at Gamescom 2016.

On a note! Earlier, I wrote an article where I already considered gaming monoblocks from different manufacturers. This article can be viewed by clicking on this one.

The novelty from Lenovo received a 27-inch frameless display. The display resolution is 2560x1440 pixels (this is QHD format), the refresh rate is 144 Hz, and the response time is 5 ms.

The monoblock will have several configurations. The maximum configuration includes a 6th generation processor Intel Core i7 volume hard drive up to 2 TB or 256 GB. Volume random access memory equals 32 GB DDR4. The video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 or GeForce GTX 1080 with Pascal architecture will be responsible for the graphics. Thanks to such a video card, it will be possible to connect a virtual reality helmet to the monoblock.
From the periphery of the monoblock, I would single out the Harmon Kardon audio system with 5-watt speakers, the Killer DoubleShot Pro Wi-Fi module, a webcam, USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, and HDMI connectors.

In the basic version, the IdeaCentre Y910 monoblock will be available in September 2016 at a price of 1800 euros. But the monoblock with the version of "VR-ready" will appear in October at a price of 2200 euros. It is known that this version will have a GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card.

MediaTek has decided to upgrade its Helio X30 mobile processor. So now the developers from MediaTek are designing a new mobile processor called Helio X35.

I would like to briefly talk about Helio X30. This processor has 10 cores, which are combined into 3 clusters. Helio X30 has 3 variations. The first - the most powerful - consists of Cortex-A73 cores with a frequency of up to 2.8 GHz. There are also blocks with Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of up to 2.2 GHz and Cortex-A35 with a frequency of 2.0 GHz.

New processor Helio X35 also has 10 cores and is created using 10nm technology. The clock frequency in this processor will be much higher than that of its predecessor and ranges from 3.0 Hz. The novelty will allow you to use up to 8 GB LPDDR4 RAM. Most likely will be responsible for the graphics in the processor power controller VR7XT.
The station itself can be seen in the photographs in the article. In them we can observe the drive bays. One bay with a 3.5" jack and the other with a 2.5" jack. Thus, it will be possible to connect both a solid state disk (SSD) and HDD(HDD).

The dimensions of the Drive Dock station are 160x150x85mm, and the weight is no less than 970 grams.
Many people probably have a question about how the Drive Dock connects to a computer. The answer is: this happens through a USB 3.1 Gen 1 port. According to the manufacturer, the sequential read speed will be 434 Mb / s, and in write mode (serial) 406 Mb / s. The novelty will be compatible with Windows and Mac OS.

This device will be very useful for people who work with photo and video materials at a professional level. You can also use Drive Dock to back up files.
The price for a new device will be acceptable - it is $ 90.

On a note! Previously, Renduchinthala worked at Qualcomm. And since November 2015, he moved to a competing company Intel.

In his interview, Renduchinthala did not talk about mobile processors, but only said the following, and I quote: "I prefer to talk less and do more."
Thus, the top manager of Intel made an excellent intrigue with his interview. We just have to wait for more announcements in the future.

Buying an SSD drive is a good investment. But you don't want your SSD to die one day, do you? So it's interesting to increase the lifespan of the ssd drive and see if the game is worth the candle.

How to protect an SSD from harmful effects and not kill a disk in two weeks?

I just got my first SSD. And I have SSDLife monitoring running in the background. After that I installed everything software and tested the SSD. SSDLife said "Total Data written, GB" = 52.1 (40GB usable, 70GB free).

That is, the SSD has about 40 GB of data, while 52.1 GB is written?

A feature of a solid state drive is that data is written in blocks. A block can contain 256Kb: 256 * 1000 * 8 bits. To change even one of these digits, you must rewrite the entire block. That is, your operating system sees 1 bit, but the SSD wear is equivalent to 256Kb: a difference of 2.048 million times.

This means that the formula (SSD SIZE) * (cycles) = total data written to the SSD before failure

this is only for the best case, which would allow you to write data 1000 to 1000000 times before failure. But, even in the worst case, this is more likely for all the small SSD write cycles. This is confirmed in

What is the lifespan of an SSD drive?

SSDs are more reliable than hard drives and should last up to 20 years, at least without taking into account performance degradation.

And this is what we might call an average. You can come up with an SSD lifespan in the worst cases if you want. But I can assure you that they don't look too optimistic!

Let's maximize the life of our precious SSD by leveling out wear and minimizing all those little write cycles using simple and advanced technology...

Make sure TRIM is enabled

Firstly, there is no point in checking and trying to enable TRIM if your ssd drive does not support this technology. How to know if your SSD is TRIM capable? The easiest way is to get this information through the CrystalDiskInfo program.

In the Supported Features field, you can see if the SSD supports TRIM:

The next step is to check if your operating system is familiar with the TRIM feature. On Windows 7, you can find this out with the fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify command. If the result is zero, the operating system uses TRIM.

In case the system does not recognize your drive as an SSD, you must troubleshoot and troubleshoot. Be guided by the information contained in the device manager and properties of the SSD. You may need to update your disk controller drivers in order for the operating system to treat the drive as an SSD.

Disable or move unnecessary OS features

Our operating system performs functions that write to disk when the memory can't be used for some reason, along with tricks that speed up your computer if you have a hard drive but no longer need an SSD.

Let's take a look at the most important features that might cause problems and see if we can disable them.

Disable the SSD swap file

The swap file (swap) is required to improve performance operating system in resource-intensive applications (graphic packages, video editors, games). In addition, if a lot of “heavy” programs are running and the RAM cannot cope with the amount of data, idle applications are temporarily stored in a swap.

The optimal swap file size is approximately 3/2 the size of RAM. If you have more than 8 GB of RAM, you don't need a swap file on an SSD. Try turning it off and testing your computer for a while. It is unlikely that you will notice any performance issues.

You can find out the amount of computer RAM and disable it on the SSD in the System Properties window (Win + Pause Break).

1. Open the "Performance" dialog (My Computer -> System Properties -> Performance Options (see previous topic)).
2. In the "Advanced" tab, click the "Edit" button.
3. In the window virtual memory next to the name of the system drive is the size of the paging file. Select the SSD drive - set the option "No paging file" - the "Set" button to apply the changes.

Sleep mode (hibernation)

Another feature that can cause problems is computer sleep mode (hibernation). If you really don't need this feature, consider sleeping or shutting down, because during hibernation, the OS writes its memory to the hibernation file, and every time the computer enters sleep mode. If you decide not to use hibernation, you can disable it with the command

powercfg /hibernate off

running it as administrator. This will disable the hibernation option and remove the hibernation file. It is not possible to move the hibernation file.

SuperFetch and Defrag Services

Manufacturers advise to disable both functions, since your SSD does not need to be defragmented at all, it is already fast enough. This renders SuperFetch a useless service.

1. Disable the SuperFetch service
2. Make sure the defragmenter is not in the scheduler tasks, disable or uninstall the defrag software. However, it is advisable to leave this function for the HDD.

Search indexing

Most people find that a search indexer is essential because it greatly speeds up searching for data on the hard drive.

If you only have an SSD, you can safely disable the Search Indexer. If you have an SSD and HDD, you must move the search indexer cache to your hard drive. This will avoid multiple writes to disk each time the file is stored in the lookup cache.

Another way to deal with the indexer is to reduce indexing places to a minimum, if you know for sure that you will not look for anything there.

Temporary files, cache and logs

Your computer has a huge amount of temporary files, cache and logs. This results in a lot of redundant writes on the SSD! It depends on which browser and other software you are using.

For example, Google Earth keeps a cache of images of the places you have visited, so whenever you use Google Earth, the images are written to the SSD. Let's see in the next chapters how to find the "culprits" and further use connection points when we can't move or disable them.

Windows Resource Monitor

Let's take a look at the built-in resource monitor in new versions of Windows:

1. Enter "Monitor" Resource in the start menu and run it (or command resmon.exe via Start - Run).
2. Go to the "Disk" tab.
3. Sort the "Processes with Disk Activity" column by "Write (Bytes/sec)". This will allow you to estimate the amount of disk writes on your system.

If you want more data, you will need Process utility monitor.

Process Monitor utility

Download the Process Monitor program from Microsoft Sysinternals and set up a filter for records:

1. Download Process Monitor and run the utility.
2. Press the "'Reset'" button to reset the filter.
3. Set the "Operation contains WRITE then Include" filter, then click the "Add" button.
4. Then click the "Apply" button and then click the "OK" button.
5. Additionally, you can filter the list by your SSD drive.

Now you will see the recording operations in progress in real time. You can also choose separate element and to know detailed information about the record. In the "Tools" menu there is "File Summary", this command allows you to see the entire set of records in different tabs.

Don't want to move folders off your SSD? Use connection points!

Junction points tell the system that when file path X is accessed, it will access path Y instead. This is very handy if you want to access C:\Windows\Temp but the system will access E:\ instead Storage\Cache\Temp.

For lovers command line there is Junction for Windows and mklink for Windows and Linux. The documentation clearly describes what options to use to create, output commands, and remove junciton points.

What is the best way to copy to an SSD?

You should put files on the SSD that really need fast performance. This is mainly true for programs and games. Placing video files on an SSD will not give a noticeable speedup compared to a hard drive. The same applies to various documents.

Images, photos will load faster in programs and packages such as Adobe Lightroom. Music will be analyzed faster in DJ programs like Traktor Studio. However, the current size of the SSD does not quite fit into these tasks, so that's a bummer.

However, photos and music are good examples of data. If you save them once and do not plan to edit, feel free to move this data to an SSD.

Read studies of authoritative sources on the lifespan of SSD drives. Is their resource really so short and what factors influence it. When solid-state flash drives (SSDs) first took off as an alternative to conventional hard drives on a large scale, the biggest issue (besides price) was the durability of the devices. Most users had a pretty good idea of ​​the overall reliability of hard drives, but "SSDs" were still a novelty.

Content:

SSD Technology

But over the years, the market for solid state drives has grown exponentially, and we now have a special idea about this. The good news is that "SSDs" more reliable than you think, and just as good as hard drives in terms of data retention and errors. The bad news is that SSDs tend to degrade in performance simply with age, and not with limited read/write data cycles as previously predicted.

This means that you will most likely not lose any more data using "SSD drive" than using a standard hard drive ... but still, it is very important to save "backup copies" all important files.

Before we move on to testing, it is important to mention some technical terms related to the technology. SSD:

MLC, SLC and TLC: In modern "SSD drives" Three types of memory chips are most commonly used NAND

SLC – "Single Level Cell" is a single-level memory cell. Has the highest speed and performance, the lowest power consumption, the highest data write speed and the maximum number of cycles Program/Erase. Memory of this level is usually used to run various kinds of server systems, simply because the cost "SSD drives" based on this technology is very large.

MLC – "Multi Level Cell" is a multi-level memory cell. It costs much less than SLC, but at the same time it is less hardy and also inferior to SLC in terms of the number of cycles Program/Erase. It is used everywhere, from commercial, work machines to home PCs. If block "bad", then it is not available for read/write operations on your PC. This in turn leads to a decrease in the amount of available disk space and the occurrence of read / write errors.

eMLC – "Enterprise Multi Level Cell"– a cell created on the basis of MLC, but its cycle resource Program/Erase significantly increased. The reliability of eMLC is at the level of SLC, and the price is slightly higher than that of MLC. Also used on various kinds of workstations and mid-range servers.

TLC – "Three Level Cell"– three-level memory cell. As a plus, it has a high recording density, but, as a minus, it has much less endurance, noticeably slow reading and writing data. Has fewer cycles Program/Erase, relative to SLC and MLC. For the most part, this memory was used in "flash drives"(memory cards and flash drives), but now also used for the production of conventional "SSD drives".

TBW(Terabytes written): The total amount of data that has been written and rewritten to the disk during its lifetime, expressed in terabytes.

So how long can SSD drives last?

Suppliers "SSD drives" evaluate the reliability of such disks by three factors: the warranty period (the time allocated by the manufacturer for warranty service), the total TWB that can generally be written during the warranty period, and the amount of data written to the disk in a certain period of time. Obviously, the results of measurements and calculations for these three parameters will be completely different for different "SSD drives". But at the same time, all three parameters remain rather average and cannot fully show the consumer what kind of resource a particular drive has. Accurate prediction of how long a particular "SSD drive" is simply impossible to do. Therefore, we will try to name, rather vaguely, the point of the maximum possible data recording on the device. Having passed this point, further use of this disk is considered inappropriate, and this may expose you to the risk of immediate loss of all data stored there.

There have been several recent studies aimed at determining a more accurate lifespan for SSDs.

Here are some results:

Research by Google and the University of Toronto

Joint company research Google with the University of Toronto, which processed data on failures on the company's servers for four years. The study concluded that physical age "SSD drive", not the amount or frequency of data written, is the primary determinant of the likelihood of data storage errors on it. It was also found that "SSD drives" to be replaced at processing centers Google data much less frequently than conventional hard drives, at a ratio of about 1 to 4. But not all results were in favor of "SSD devices": during a four-year testing period, they experienced serious crashes, critical errors and unreadable memory blocks appeared at a much higher rate than on conventional hard drives. From this follows the conclusion: in a high-load environment with many read / write accesses to data, SSDs will last longer than conventional hard drives, but will be more susceptible to critical errors and failures, and, as a result, associated data loss. old "SSDs" are more prone to malfunction, regardless of the type of memory used.

Research Tech Report

Study "Tech Report" about durability "SSD drives" with a capacity of 250 GB, which was held between the world's main manufacturers and brands. Among the six SSD models tested, only three passed the test: Kingston, "Samsung" and Corsair, after more than 1000 terabytes of data (one petabyte) were written to them. Other drives refused to work from 700 to 900 TBW (terabytes of data). Two "SSD drive", from companies "Samsung" and Intel, used cheaper MLC technology, at the same time, solid state drive from the company Kingston, which uses the same technology, was among those who successfully passed the test, despite the fact that they passed the same test. Conclusion: It can be expected that "SSD drive", 250 GB in size, "will die" before you write one petabyte of data, even though two models have exceeded that mark. It would still be wise to keep backups important data to avoid unexpected situations, even if your drive uses SLC memory.

"SSDs" larger capacities, due to simply having more memory cells, should last longer, in roughly the same predictable manner. For example, if the disk is 250GB "died" at 900 TBW, it would therefore be reasonable to assume that a 1TB drive will last 4 times longer, up to complete record at 3.6 petabytes.

Facebook research

Company facebook published an internal study on the lifespan of SSDs used in corporate centers data processing. The findings were focused on the environmental conditions of the centers themselves. That is, they came to the rather obvious conclusion that prolonged exposure to high temperatures shortens the life of the device.

But it also showed that if "SSD drive" did not "die" after the discovery of the first major errors on it, then it will most likely continue to work. Also in company research facebook it was found that higher data write and read speeds could have a significant impact on the drive's lifespan, although it is not clear if these controlled the physical age of the drive itself. Conclusion: Barring an early total failure, an SSD is likely to last longer than reported by SSD testing software.

Should we be worried?

So, summarizing all these studies, what is the general conclusion? Looking at the results, it may seem that your "SSD drive" burnt out in a year or two. But keep in mind that two studies were conducted in the data centers of huge corporations, drives there work 24 hours a day and perform countless read / write operations, constantly and for many years. And focused on the average consumer, the study was conducted specifically in the stress test mode, with the constant use of the device. In order for an ordinary user to achieve the volume of reading / writing in petabytes of data, during normal operation, it is necessary "rape" your PC, more or less non-stop, for a decade. Or maybe even several decades. Even professional gamers or IT professionals will most likely never reach the stated maximum amount of data rewritten on a single medium.

Conclusion: you've most likely already upgraded your entire PC to complete failure "SSD drive".

Good day.

SSD related topic ( solid-state drive - solid state drive) disks, recently, is quite popular (apparently the high demand for such disks affects). By the way, the price for them over time (I think that this time will come soon enough) will be comparable to the cost of a conventional hard disk drive (HDD). Yes, even now a 120 GB SSD drive costs about the same as a 500 GB HDD (in terms of volume, SSD, of course, still falls short, but it is several times faster in speed!).

Moreover, when it comes to volume, many users simply do not need it. For example, even though I have 1 TB of hard disk space on my home PC - but if you think about it, I use 100-150 GB from this volume (God forbid) (everything else can be safely deleted: something and sometime it was downloaded and now just stored on disk ...).

In this article I want to dwell on one of the most common questions - the lifetime SSD drive(too many myths around this topic).

How to find out how long an SSD drive will last (rough estimate)

This is probably the most popular question ... There are already dozens of programs for working with SSD drives on the network today. In my opinion, with regards to assessing the performance of an SSD drive, it is better to use the SSD-LIFE utility for testing (even the name is consonant).

SSD life

A small utility that can quickly assess the state of an SSD drive. Works in all popular Windows OS: 7, 8, 10. Supports Russian. There is a portable version that does not need to be installed (the link is given above).

All that is required from the user to evaluate the disk is to download and run the utility! Examples of work in fig. 1 and 2.

Hard Disk Sentinel

This is a real sentinel of your disks (by the way, the name of the program is roughly translated from English). The program allows you to check the performance of a disk, evaluate its health (see Fig. 3), find out the temperature of disks in the system, view SMART readings, etc. In general - a real powerful tool (against the first utility).

Among the shortcomings: the program is paid, but there are trial versions on the site.

Rice. 3. Drive evaluation in Hard Disk Sentinel: Drive will last at least 1000 more days at current usage level (about 3 years).

SSD Lifetime: A Few Myths

Many users know that an SSD has multiple write / rewrite cycles (unlike the same HDD). When these possible cycles are worked out (i.e. the information is written several times), then the SSD will become unusable.

Now for the easy calculation...

The number of rewrite cycles that SSD flash memory can withstand is 3000 (moreover, the figure is quite an average disk, now there are, for example, disks with 5000). Let's also assume that your disk size is 120 GB (the most popular disk size today). Let's also assume that you overwrite about 20 GB to disk every day.

Rice. 5. Forecast of disk performance (theory)

It turns out that the disk, in theory, is able to work for several decades (but you need to take into account the additional load of the disk controller + manufacturers often make "flaws", so it is unlikely that you will get an ideal copy). With this in mind, the resulting figure of 49 years (see Fig. 5) can be safely divided by a number from 5 to 10. It turns out that the “average” disk in this mode will work for at least 5 years (in fact, many manufacturers give approximately the same guarantee SSD drives)! Moreover, after this period you (again in theory) will still be able to read information from the SSD, but write to it - no longer.

In addition, we took a fairly average figure of 3000 in the calculations of the overwrite cycle - now there are already disks with a much larger number of cycles. This means that the disk operation time can be safely increased proportionally!

Addition

You can calculate how long a disk will work (in theory) using such a parameter as “Total number of bytes written (TBW)” (usually manufacturers indicate this in the characteristics of the disk). For example, the average value for a 120 Gb disk is 64 Tb (that is, about 64,000 GB of information can be written to a disk before it becomes unusable). Using simple mathematics, we get: (640000/20)/365 ~ 8 years (the disk life will be about 8 years when downloading 20 GB per day, I recommend setting an error of 10-20%, then the figure will turn out to be about 6-7 years) .

Reference

Total Bytes Written (TBW) is the total amount of data that can be written to solid state drive at the specified load before the drive reaches its wear limit.

And now the question (for those who have been working on a PC for 10 years): are you working with a disk that you had 8-10 years ago?

I have these and they are working (in the sense they can be used). Only their size is no longer comparable with modern disks (even a modern flash drive is equal in volume to such a disk). My point is that in 5 years, this disk will be so obsolete - that you yourself will probably not use it. Much more often, problems with SSDs occur due to:

Poor workmanship, manufacturer's fault;

Voltage drops;

Static electricity.

The conclusion here suggests itself:

If you use an SSD as a system disk for Windows, then it is not at all necessary (as many recommend) to transfer the paging file, temporary folder, browser cache, etc. to other disks. Still, an SSD is needed to speed up the system, but it turns out that we slow it down with such actions;

For those who download tens of gigabytes of movies and music (per day), it is better for them to use a regular HDD for this business (besides, SSD drives with a large amount of memory (> = 500 GB) still cost disproportionately more than an HDD). In addition, for movies and music, the speed of an SSD is not needed.

That's all for me, good luck!

3.12.2017.

15.11.2017. A new (already the third in a row) version has been added to the resource tests, equipped with the most advanced 64-layer TLC 3D V-NAND. Such drives began to appear on store shelves instead of the old versions with 48-layer memory, so one more test of this model will obviously not be superfluous. Status information for other tested drives has been updated.

2.11.2017 . Ended testing, which eventually set a record for endurance among SSDs based on planar flash memory with three-bit cells. Information about the status of other test participants is brought to the current state.

16.10.2017 . The next scheduled update of the material, within which all the statistics for the SSD models participating in the tests are brought to the current state. Also, a lot of tested drives have been replenished due to a very curious novelty - . This SSD is of great interest because it uses the new 64-layer 3D TLC NAND, recently produced by Intel itself. This is the first 64-layer progressive 3D memory drive that we tested.

7.10.2017 . Another drive model has been added to testing, which has long been of interest to our readers. This is an old man based on the SF-2281 controller and MLC memory. For some unknown reason, such an SSD is still sold in stores, despite the fact that the SandForce controller is already, scary to think, seven years old. At the same time, another drive based on the Phison PS3111-S11 controller completed its participation in the tests. For all other test participants who continue to work, the data has been updated.

18.09.2017 . Due to numerous requests from readers, a new participant has been added to testing - . It is notable for the fact that it uses eMLC memory with a declared resource of 10,000 rewrite cycles. Tests were completed for two other models, and, the endurance of which turned out to be low. The quick demise of the Plextor S3C was not at all surprising - this model uses low-grade TLC memory, but the poor result of Micron's Transcend SSD230 with 3D TLC NAND makes you wonder. Either there are some errors in the SMI SM2258 controller, or Micron deliberately supplies defective flash memory chips to the open market. In any case, until more information becomes available, we recommend to refrain from buying drives based on a combination of SMI SM2258 and Micron 3D TLC NAND: ADATA Ultimate SU800, HP S700 Pro, Smartbuy Climb, Transcend SSD230, etc.

3.09.2017 . SSD life tests are one year old. This is quite a long time, but the statistics of visits to this page suggests that interest in the topic of endurance different models There are still solid state drives. And this means that testing will continue, and the material will continue to be updated twice a month. Data on the mileage of the subjects are brought to the current state.

17.08.2017 . Two high-quality and interesting models completed their participation in testing at once - and. Both of them showed a very good result, a detailed analysis of which is added to the material. In addition, the tests included two SSDs from the category of fresh new products - and. Information about passing tests by all other drives has been brought up to date.

3.08.2017

16.07.2017 . Another update of the material. He dropped out of the tests, but this did not prevent him from setting an endurance record. Two new models based on the growing popularity of 3D TLC NAND have been added to the number of test participants: and . Along the way, all information about drives that continue to work as part of test systems has been brought up to date.

6.07.2017 . Information about passing the test is brought to the current state. A pair of SATA SSDs - and - reached their write capacity limit and ended their participation in the test. Details of how this happened are added to the relevant section of the material. In the near future we will try to supplement the composition of the tested drives.

20.06.2017 . Information on the current state of the SSD has been updated. Over the past time, the NVMe drive has dropped out of testing, a section based on the results of its tests has been added on the third page.

4.06.2017 . Updated data on the status of tested drives.

16.05.2017 . There have been no drive failures since the last update of the article, so all changes relate to the current operating time of the tested models. However, in addition to this, a new participant was added to the tests - a reference drive based on the very popular Phison S10 platform with MLC memory.

30.04.2017 . Updated status data for drives that are already undergoing wear tests. In addition to these, we have added a few more new SSDs that readers have requested to be included. There are five new members at once: (based on Micron MLC 3D NAND), (bufferless, based on Micron TLC 3D NAND), (NVMe, based on Toshiba 15nm MLC NAND), (based on SanDisk 15nm TLC NAND) and ( bufferless, based on Toshiba 15nm TLC NAND).

16.04.2017 . Over the past two weeks since the last update, four drives dropped out of testing at once. And if at the same time they showed very decent practical reliability for models built on TLC memory, then the other two failed SSDs, and, confidently registered among the outsiders. A detailed story about these four has been moved to the final part of the article. Information on the current status of other participants has been updated.

31.03.2017 . Tests completed for one more drive. Died from resource exhaustion, and information about him was moved to the obituary section. Two new participants were added to testing: a popular one, whose reliability our readers have long been asking to check, and a promising NVMe drive, which has finally begun to be delivered to Russia. The information on the operating time of all other living test participants has been updated.

15.03.2017 . Lots of updates. First, two more drives completed testing: and . They set two records at once - for maximum and minimum endurance. Secondly, a new original SSD was included in the tests - based on Micron's TLC 3D NAND. Thirdly, we transferred all information about those drives that have already completed their life cycle to . And fourthly, the information on all those SSDs that continue to work under load has been updated.

3.03.2017 . Updated data on the status of tested drives.

15.02.2017 . Updated data on the status of tested drives. At the request of readers, two new SSD models have been added to testing: and.

31.01.2017 . Another test drive has exhausted its resource - . The section dedicated to him has been moved to the chapter "". Instead, a new product from Toshiba, a drive, has been added to testing. The status of the rest of the tested drives has been updated.

15.01.2017 . Updated data on the status of tested drives. In addition, due to the increased interest in our test, there was a large-scale renewal of the composition of the test participants. Six new SSDs were added to their number at once:, and. We continue to listen to the opinions of readers, and in the near future the set of SSDs undergoing testing will be supplemented once again.

6.01.2017 .Two of the drives participating in testing ( and ) have exhausted their resource. A detailed analysis of their life cycle is placed in the "" section. At the end of the article, an updated summary chart has been added with a practical resource that was shown by test participants who passed the test. The status of the rest of the tested drives has been updated. In addition, the set of tested SSDs is expected to be replenished in the near future.

1.12.2016 . Updated data on the status of tested drives. In addition, as part of the ongoing study, we decided to conduct another experiment related to the study of SSD endurance. They will spend the next two weeks offline. In this way, we will check whether the worn out flash memory is capable of storing data at complete rest, when it is in a de-energized state and is not monitored by the controller.

15.11.2016 . Updated data on the status of tested drives.

30.10.2016 . Updated data on the status of tested drives.

15.10.2016 . Updated data on the status of tested drives. A new drive has been added to testing - on a 32-layer TLC 3D NAND manufactured by Micron.

30.09.2016 . Updated data on the status of tested drives.

15.09.2016 . Updated data on the current status of the tested drives.

1.09.2016 . First version.

The Crucial BX500 is a new consumer drive that Micron intends to take to the bottom end of the SATA SSD market. Because of its cheapness, there were even rumors that it uses QLC 3D NAND, but in reality this turned out to be not the case. The BX500 is a typical bufferless 3-bit cell memory SSD based on the SMI SM2258XT controller. The flash memory that underpins the BX500 is Micron's second-generation proprietary 64-layer TLC 3D NAND, which is used, for example, in the higher-end drive, the MX500. And this means that despite the cheapness, the new Crucial BX500 can be quite durable.

Crucial BX500 240GB endurance testing continues. The current state of the drive is shown as a screenshot.

• The volume of the record transferred by the drive is 2014 TB. This is more than an order of magnitude higher than the declared resource of 80 TB, but you can expect much better endurance from the BX500. TLC 3D NAND with 64 layers, manufactured by Micron, usually has a high practical resource.
• According to S.M.A.R.T., the flash memory of the drive does not have any problems. Zero values ​​store the variables 01 (Raw Read Error Rate) - the number of read errors, 05 (Reallocated NAND Blocks) - the number of blocks reassigned, AB (Program Fail Count) - the number of write errors and AC (Erase Fail Count) - the number of data erasure errors.
• The average number of program-erase cycles for TLC 3D NAND cells is currently 8901. The drive controller evaluates this as a full resource depletion. Not surprisingly, the BX500's firmware specifies that TLC 3D NAND memory should only endure 1500 write cycles.

GOODRAM CX300 is a representative of a whole class of budget drives that have flooded store shelves in recent months. A distinctive feature of such SSDs is the bufferless design and the use of the Phison S11 platform. The GOODRAM variant is additionally interesting in that it is based on the new 32-layer TLC 3D NAND from Micron, which makes it similar to such drives as Corsair LE200, GALAX Gamer L, PNY CS3111b, Silicon Power S55 and so on. Bufferless platforms usually show not too impressive endurance, but how is it in this particular case?

Endurance testing of GOODRAM CX300 240 GB continues. The current state of the drive is shown as a screenshot.

You can decrypt the given data as follows:

• The volume of the transferred recording so far - 3143 TB. And this is apparently close to the limit of this SSD. Typically, SSDs built on first-generation Micron 3D TLC memory carry between 2 and 3 PB of writes, and here the mileage has already exceeded these values.
• As practice shows, the main attribute of S.M.A.R.T., by which you should monitor the state of the flash memory array of drives based on Phison controllers, is AA (Bad Block Count). To date, 32 errors have been recorded in this variable that have appeared during operation. Problems began to arise after 2.4 PB of data were written to the drive, but then the increase in the number of bad blocks stopped.
• The average number of flash cell overwrites is 13,011 (encoded in the AD parameter). This value is evaluated in S.M.A.R.T. as complete wear of the drive (see parameter E7, which shows the remaining resource in percent). GOODRAM reckons Micron's 32-layer TLC 3D NAND was rated for 1,000 write cycles. The Micron company itself speaks of a resource of 1500 programming-erase cycles. But as you can see from the test results, the resource value of both GOODRAM and Micron is taken into account with a large tolerance. For example, when testing the Crucial MX300, such memory was able to transfer approximately 10,000 write cycles.

Kingston A1000 is one of the most popular NVMe SSDs. That is why we included it in the test, although we must admit that its real performance is not at all as high as other NVMe SSDs, since Kingston chose a stripped-down Phison E8 controller for its product with support for only two lanes PCI Express. The secret of the demand for Kingston's offer lies in its cheapness. However, such products usually arouse suspicion: if the price is lower than that of competitors, has the manufacturer saved on something significant, for example, on the quality of memory? Moreover, this drive is based on Toshiba's three-dimensional BiCS3 memory (TLC 3D), which manifests itself in very different ways.

Testing Kingston A1000 240 GB continues. The current state of the drive is shown as a screenshot.

You can decrypt the given data as follows:

• 3059 TB. At the same time, a resource of 150 TB is declared for the drive, but on average, SSDs with a similar 64-layer TLC 3D NAND manufactured by Toshiba can transfer about 750 TB of rewriting in practice. However, Kingston usually buys the best quality memory for its products, so in this case SSD mileage looks much more promising.
• No signs of flash array degradation in S.M.A.R.T variables. 0E (Media and Data Integrity Errors) and 03 (Available Spare) are not included. Flash memory cells are in a completely "healthy" state.
• The drive's flash memory cells have been overwritten an average of 11,222 times so far. In S.M.A.R.T. it is considered that the flash memory resource has already been exhausted, which is not surprising, since according to the specification, the flash memory used by TLC is designed for 3 thousand program-erase cycles.

The Russian brand Smartbuy continues to supply us with very interesting products for testing. This time we took a budget Smartbuy Leap drive for testing, which uses Micron's 32-layer MLC 3D NAND, which performs well in other drives. However, Leap received special attention because it is an ultra-budget model based on the Marvell 88NV1120 bufferless controller. It seems that this SSD should be recommended for those who are on a budget, but still put the reliability of data storage at one of the first places. We just need to check if Leap is really as hardy as it seems and as its manufacturer promises.

Endurance testing of the Smartbuy Leap 256 GB continues. The current state of the drive is shown as a screenshot.

You can decrypt the given data as follows:

• The volume of the transferred record is 4,247 TB. This is many times more than the resource announced by the manufacturer of 768 TB of rewriting, but less than the practical resource shown by other SSDs based on the same 32-layer MLC 3D NAND from Micron, for example, ADATA Ultimate SU900.
• The number of reassigned sectors is 0, which means that the state of the flash memory array can be regarded as excellent. This shows well that even small manufacturers are quite capable of producing high-quality drives. The secret lies in how carefully they approach the purchase of flash memory.
• The average number of rewrites of flash memory cells is 18,686. In Smartbuy Leap's S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics, this run is not interpreted in any way, but Micron claims a guaranteed resource of 3 thousand program-erase cycles for its MLC 3D NAND. However, this is also a very underestimate: in other drives, such memory can withstand several tens of thousands of overwrites without any problems.

⇡ Reliability of data storage on disabled SSDs

Along with testing the rewriting resource, we also checked whether the drives that have exhausted the resource declared by the manufacturer are able to confidently store data in the off state. There is a lot of misunderstanding about this, so at one point we decided to stop the cycling endurance test for two weeks, and see if the consumer SSDs aged in our test could retain the data written to them for an extended time with the power turned off. Thus, six models of drives took part in this test, the operating time of which is many times higher than the endurance indicators declared by the manufacturers.

• Crucial MX300 275 GB after writing 487 TB of information;
• KingDian S280 240 GB after writing 578 TB of information;
• OCZ Trion 150 240 GB after writing 640 TB of information;
• Plextor M7V 256 GB after writing 1026 TB of information;
• Samsung 850 PRO 256 GB after writing 1049 TB of information;
• Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB second generation after recording 1969 TB of information.

Two weeks of being in a de-energized state had absolutely no effect on the safety of information recorded on the SSD. All six drives were able to read both the information recorded immediately before the shutdown, and the files that have been stored on them since the very beginning of our endurance test. In this case, no failures or discrepancies in the checksums were recorded.

However, we still cannot say that a two-week stay without connecting to a power supply did not affect the drives at all. For two of the six models, a long downtime caused some changes in the flash memory array, which was reflected in the S.M.A.R.T. telemetry.

In other words, the "aging" processes continue with the SSD even when they are de-energized. However, no catastrophic changes occur. The test showed that a relatively long idle SSD, which has long exhausted the entire declared resource, does not lead to the fact that they fail or lose the saved data.

But in fact, no one expected anything else. The test was carried out only because some time ago a strange belief began to spread that when turned off, solid state drives very quickly lose their ability to store data reliably. Moreover, many near-technical sites have seriously contributed to the spread of this misconception, which disseminated, and sometimes stubbornly continue to savor the information that SSDs that are not connected to power can lose recorded data for almost several days.

In fact, this problem is blown up almost out of nowhere. Of course, the process of charge flowing from the flash memory cells when the drive is disconnected from the power supply takes place, but it is much slower, and there can be no talk of any possibility of data loss during the days.

As confirmation, one can refer to the specifications of JEDEC - a committee that includes all leading semiconductor manufacturers and which develops uniform standards for products in the microelectronic industry. On the one hand, these standards are mandatory for manufacturers, and on the other hand, they are a guideline for customers, since they describe the main consumer qualities of devices manufactured by the industry.

Actually, the source of the panic about the safety of information on turned off SSDs was a table “taken out of context” taken from one of the presentations of this committee, which indicated the “retention periods” of data on turned off drives depending on the ambient temperature.

NAND-memory, the principle of which is to hold electrons in a floating gate, at rest (without periodic refresh) does gradually lose stored charge. And sooner or later, this can result in a misinterpretation of the contents of the cell and loss of data. Ideas about how and how fast the charge flow process occurs are very well defined and supported by numerous experiments. The accumulated data show that one of the main factors that affects the stability of NAND cells is their degree of wear. Therefore, the ability of solid-state drives to store information in the off state is highly dependent on the stage of their life cycle in which they are located. The numbers in the table above describe the situation with depleted, not new, drives - and this changes almost everything.

In other words, if we are talking about a new SSD, then the data on it in the off state can be stored for years (within the usual temperature range). And only when it comes to a drive that has already worked out the resource set by the manufacturer, the “shelf life” indicated in the specification begins to take on some meaning. That is, 52 weeks (a year) is the minimum period of time during which a typical consumer drive is required by specification to keep data in the off state after it has already exhausted the entire resource specified in the specifications. But in fact, the information, most likely, will be able to hold out on the switched off SSD for much longer: as we have seen, manufacturers indicate the rewriting resource with a multiple margin. And with terms of storage the situation, most likely, is about the same.

If we delve further into the JEDEC specifications, we can find one more confirmation that even after a significant excess of the declared overwriting limit, drives are not subject to the rapid loss of information recorded on them. While consumer SSDs have a minimum shelf life of one year (at 30 degrees), for server models, which are usually based on exactly the same flash memory, this time interval is narrowed to 3 months (at 40 degrees).

The difference is due to the fact that consumer and server SSDs are expected to have different load intensity. The declared endurance of consumer drives is usually several tens or hundreds of terabytes of rewriting. SSDs belonging to the server class have an order of magnitude higher declared reliability, which reaches units or even tens of petabytes of rewriting. From this it follows that even after writing to a regular SSD an amount of data that significantly exceeds its resource, it will not lose the ability to keep it off for at least several months - by analogy with the server model.

That is why our two-week test of the safety of information in the off state did not reveal any problems. After overwriting hundreds of terabytes, modern SSDs are simply bound to retain data for much longer than a couple of weeks. And it is quite obvious that the JEDEC specifications in this regard are respected by the manufacturers.

On this issue of the safety of information on the switched off SSD, we consider it closed. It is clear that testing the overwriting resource is a much more important and more meaningful experiment from a practical point of view, which can tell much more about the endurance of modern solid-state drives. In addition, our testing methodology also checks the correct reading of the files stored on the SSD at the very beginning of the experiment.

Nevertheless, we consider it our duty to remind you that NAND-memory drives are still not intended for archival storage of information. Magnetic storage media - hard drives and tape drives - seem like a better choice for this purpose. SSD, on the other hand, is a fast storage medium, aimed primarily at working with “hot” data.