Upcoming computer build

[Maxim]

For the price of an SSD, is it really all that amazing? I thought they really had a limited read / write ability, Something about ihops or something like that.

SSD's technically have a limited life span. They store data in cells of flash memory that hold an electrical charge. After enough times of writing, deleting, and rewriting data to a given flash cell it will start to be unable to hold a consistent charge. Think like a rechargeable battery. After charging, discharging, and recharging it 2000 times it will eventually not maintain a high enough voltage to be useful. It's important to note that reading data off of the drive does not count as "discharging" in this analogy; reading data does not cause wear on an SSD. The "discharge" would be deleting data from a cell to make room for new data.

A basic answer to your question is: Yes. After an unknown amount of writes and rewrites (program/erase cycles, or P/E cycles) the flash cells will begin to degrade and the drive will eventually die.

A better answer would be: Yes, after a certain amount of P/E cycles the drive will die (most drives have a rated number of P/E cycles on their specs sheet). However, a newer, quality SSD uses flash with much better endurance than older (years 2007-2009) SSD's, meaning it can sustain more P/E cycles. Newer SSD's also have much more advanced controllers that use wear-leveling techniques to manage data across the drive and make sure that all the cells are worn evenly over time rather than having the cells at the "beginning" of the drive wear out first. Also, quality SSD's set aside spare area of extra flash cells where they can shuffle data around for additional wear-leveling or add to the main "pool" of flash cells in case a cell dies. Windows 7 and 8 also support a command called TRIM that tells the SSD to clear out old data that is no longer in use from the flash cells to make room for new data. This not only makes the drive faster (those cells now don't need to be cleared when data is written, they are already clear), it also makes it easier for the SSD to run wear-leveling as it now has empty flash cells that it can take inventory of and figure out where to put data if other cells are wearing down.

In short, if you're running Windows 7 or 8 and are buying a newer, quality SSD there is no reason to be concerned about SSD longevity for daily desktop or laptop use. You would have to write gigabytes of data to the drive every day for several years before you started to see the first flash cells die. On a drive like Samsung's 840 EVO 250GB you would need to write 100GB to the drive every day for 8 years before you saw flash cells start to die. SSD endurance should not be an issue.

[walwalka]

While they "do" have a limit it something like 1GB per for 100 years. It's not like the SSD it won't be dead within a year or even 5 years. Depending on how you use it of course. However, the current SSD's have a much longer life than when this "rule" was established. All that being said, the nice SSD's like the samsung 840 pro have a 5 year warranty. So you're guaranteed that it will work for at least 5 years. By that time does it truly matter?

Yes the price of the SSD is worth the reward in performance in my book.

[beaker]

Let me put it another way

We tested 80 gig intel SSD's here last year

I stress tested it for 3 days, writing then deleting almost 50TB continously through the drive (random data writes until the drive was full, then zeroing the drive). It still tested 100% when I was done.

I think you'll be fine putting a few games on one.

One thing I did notice was the no-name power supply. Please make sure you get something thats at least 80 plus bronze certified. The power supply is the one thing in your computer if it goes wrong it can take out everything in the machine.

[CommonSyns]

I will try to get a SSD.

The power supply came with the case, But I don't know what bronze plus certified means, Is it just efficiency?

[littlebuck1919]

I will try to get a SSD.

The power supply came with the case, But I don't know what bronze plus certified means, Is it just efficiency?

yeah, bronze is the lowest i believe (out of the certified ones) and it goes up to platinum for efficiency. Iirc, the gold is supposed to be like 90% efficient

[beaker]

Basicly it means that its more efficient at turning AC current to DC current.