How Long is The Lifespan of An SSD and What is TBW

Before we buy an SSD, we always study whether its interface is SATA or M.2, whether the protocol is NVMe, what is the read and write speed, etc., but rarely pay attention to the lifespan of the SSD. If the SSD stop working, the data is likely to disappear, which is still very troublesome. So what is the service life of SSD, and what does TBW mean in the official warranty?

TBW (Total Bytes Written) refers to the total amount of written data that SSD can withstand in its design life. It is usually on the SSD product details page (Endurance in Specifications) that will indicate how much TBW of this SSD. For example, WD_BLACK SN850X, WDS100T2X0E is 600TBW, WDS200T2X0E is 1200TBW, WDS400T2X0E is 2400TBW.

If you bought WDS100T2X0E (1TB), the data written to SSD every day is 200GB, then 600TBW can meet 600*1024/365/200=8.41 years, in other words, this SSD can be used for 8 years.

Some people mistakenly think that this TBW is the total amount of data that can be written in the SSD life cycle. After writing so much data, the SSD will stop working. In fact, it is not.

TBW is actually the value used by the manufacturer to define the warranty period, that is, after the amount of writing exceeds this value, the manufacturer will no longer provide warranty service.

The TBW value is often a very safe value, which can be simply understood as the minimum lifespan of the SSD after the manufacturer’s test. Generally speaking, this number is quite difficult to exceed.

So how can I know the TBW of the SSD in use? We can use CrystalDiskInfo or other software. The detection results of different tools are different and not necessarily completely accurate, so the values are for reference only.

There is no need to worry too much about the service life of SSDs. Manufacturers will also add security protection functions and data error correction functions to the products, which can delay the durability and service life of SSDs.