So, I have Crucial MX500 SSD, and on their spec sheet, the SSD Endurance TBW is 180TB
Crystal Disk Info says the health is at 33% Health, despite Total Host Writes being 54039 GB (30% of specified SSD endurance TBW of 180TB)
So is their specified endurance wrong, is the Total Host Writes data in Crystal Disk Info misleading or wrong, or is there more things that go into determining the “health” of an SSD besides Total Bytes Written? Or could it be that I mistreated the SSD causing its health to get worse?
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-w10-1809] (sf-7.4-1) Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Crucial/Micron Client SSDs Device Model: CT500MX500SSD1 Serial Number: 1947E228658A LU WWN Device Id: 5 00a075 1e228658a Firmware Version: M3CR023 User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB] Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Rotation Rate: Solid State Device Form Factor: 2.5 inches TRIM Command: Available Device is: In smartctl database 7.3/5528 ATA Version is: ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 5 SATA Version is: SATA 3.3, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s) Local Time is: Tue Dec 24 19:50:16 2024 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x80) Offline data collection activity was never started. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test has ever been run. Total time to complete Offline data collection: ( 0) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection upon new command. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. Conveyance Self-test supported. Selective Self-test supported. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save timer. Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported. General Purpose Logging supported. Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 30) minutes. Conveyance self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes. SCT capabilities: (0x0031) SCT Status supported. SCT Feature Control supported. SCT Data Table supported. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 52 5 Reallocate_NAND_Blk_Cnt 0x0032 100 100 010 Old_age Always - 1 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 10304 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2050 171 Program_Fail_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 172 Erase_Fail_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 173 Ave_Block-Erase_Count 0x0032 033 033 000 Old_age Always - 1007 174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 84 180 Unused_Reserve_NAND_Blk 0x0033 000 000 000 Pre-fail Always - 35 183 SATA_Interfac_Downshift 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 184 Error_Correction_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 060 036 000 Old_age Always - 40 (Min/Max 0/64) 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1 197 Current_Pending_ECC_Cnt 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 202 Percent_Lifetime_Remain 0x0030 033 033 001 Old_age Offline - 67 206 Write_Error_Rate 0x000e 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 210 Success_RAIN_Recov_Cnt 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 52 246 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 113337679297 247 Host_Program_Page_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1924011672 248 FTL_Program_Page_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 13464223382 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t] SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS 1 0 0 Not_testing 2 0 0 Not_testing 3 0 0 Not_testing 4 0 0 Not_testing 5 0 0 Completed [00% left] (0-65535) Selective self-test flags (0x0): After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay. The above only provides legacy SMART information - try 'smartctl -x' for moreOk. Thanks. The drive looks fine. The 33% health seems to come from the average block erase count. This is the most expensive operation on SSDs.
Why does it increase faster? Because blocks are written partially. Worst case is that if you write 1 Byte to a block and then 1 Byte into same block, it would need 1 block erase (usually a block is 128 kB, not 4 kB like HDDs have).
Your SSD is very busy. You should review what is going on on your system.
Attribute 202 (Percent Lifetime Remaining) is a good indicator of ssd life remaining. It’s a percentage based system where 100 = 100% ala new and 0 = 0% ala “It’s dead”.
Keep an eye on that attribute and number as it decreases. Consider making adjustments on writes to this drive so you can prolong its eventual 0 dead result and as always: make backups.