{"id":555871,"date":"2015-10-18T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-18T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.staging.ired.gr\/blog\/taking-care-of-ssd-drives\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:22:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T19:22:39","slug":"taking-care-of-ssd-drives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ired.gr\/en\/blog\/taking-care-of-ssd-drives\/","title":{"rendered":"How to take care of SSDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do the new SSDs need care and how?<\/em><\/p>\n

Once they were expensive accessories for the haves, the professionals and the \"technophiles\", today they are the standard. We are talking about the SSD<\/strong> (Solid State Drive) hard disks of 2.5\u0384\u0384<\/strong>, those fast disks that gave new life and life to our computers. Suddenly, from where we were waiting for it to load functional<\/strong>, we see it open almost like a television, where we expected it to load a program<\/strong>, we see it popping up on the chopping block and our lives have become easier with computers. Combined with the large amounts of memory RAM<\/strong> which are now cheap, computers (even older models) become rockets.<\/p>\n

\"ired<\/p>\n

A simple upgrade (increasing the RAM<\/strong> if the computer can handle it and change the old slow hard drive with a fast SSD)<\/strong> is enough to make us think we bought new PC.<\/strong><\/p>\n

These disks do not have platters and heads to read data, but use memory chips \" flash\"<\/strong> - similar to those of memories RAM<\/strong> - and there record<\/strong> The data<\/strong> hence the speeds.<\/p>\n

So as prices keep dropping and capacities increase, the once forbidden product that we all crave became accessible to everyone and the SSD<\/strong> started to replace the old mechanical discs<\/strong>. But, as we say, \"new times, new mores\" and the question that arises is: \"do they need care SSD<\/strong> like the old mechanical discs needed?\"<\/p>\n

Read also: Time Machine: create and restore backups of your Mac computer<\/a><\/p>\n

On the old hard disks we had to run from time to time some utilities that accelerated the data and made it somewhat faster to access it - like defragmentation for example. The SSD<\/strong> do they need something like that?<\/p>\n

\"ired<\/p>\n

Lifetime of SSDs<\/h3>\n

All things have a shelf life. Even the tough ones that were \"too tough to die\" might eventually start to show defects in the Magnetic<\/strong> material<\/strong> (bad clusters) and when that started to happen, it was only a matter of time before we started looking for our data.<\/p>\n

\"ired<\/p>\n

We can say that since the SSD<\/strong> have no mechanical parts that wear out from use and show mechanical damage, that they will be immortal - right? Not at all. Even chips age as the electrical voltages applied to them for Registration<\/strong> and reading of the data<\/strong>, cause damage, over time, to the inside of the chip.<\/p>\n

The SSD<\/strong> use something called a program-erase (P\/E) cycle. Each time data is written, one block \"disappears\" and another \"appears\" in its place with the new data written.<\/p>\n

This \"trick\" makes these discs so dramatically fast and reliable, but, as with genies, you have a limited number of \"wishes\". Then, the light bulb goes out forever. So it is with the SSD,<\/strong> after a number of P\/E cycles the disc will start to wear out, in the sense that the chips will no longer perform and, at some point, \"give up the ghost\". This cycle of their life numbers 3.000-4.000<\/strong> circles P\/E<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"ired<\/p>\n

Another issue is that as the mood increases and prices fall, so does the quality and with it their strength (something had to be sacrificed). But before we start counting the cycles P\/E<\/strong> of our record it is good to remember that the above number refers to each block of a record and each record has millions of them. blocks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read also: Apple's Force touch technology changes the way you've interacted with your iPhone or iPad until now<\/a><\/p>\n

Tips for the good health of your SSD<\/h3>\n

Welcome then, comrade computer scientists, to the \"brave new world\" of SSD<\/strong> and improving their performance (or rather their good health). The first thing to do is to forget everything you knew about hard drives. All disk improvement-maintenance practices and programs up to this point were written for mechanical hard disks with moving parts. So using them is like trying to fit square boxes into round holes.<\/p>\n

\"ired<\/p>\n

Forget about it }, \"defrag\",<\/strong> The \"scandisk\"<\/strong> and other such practices don't work here. You don't have to worry too much about environment, temperatures, jolts, etc - they don't affect them. So how do we take care of the SSD<\/strong> us? Here are some useful practices.<\/p>\n