Originally Posted by
Zarf4
Wow, where I have seen 100K write cycles quoted for SLC (single-level cell) SSDs I've never seen anything quoted by a manufacturer of MLC (multi) drives over 5K (google SSD "write cycles".) SLCs are very rare, typically used by enterprises, expensive and almost always less than 32GB. The average consumer will get a MLC drive. Even worse are the new TLC (triple) drives like the Samsung 840 (non-pro) which only are rated by Samsung to give 1K write cycles. As said before even the TLCs with load-leveling and average use will give you a 5+ year lifespan. Note that the 1K and 5K numbers are a very conservative number and you can get 2x, 5x, whatever from them.
Yes I misstated when I said average, I was thinking in terms of my work world. SLC's are not so rare anymore and come in much larger capacities than 32GB now. Also the price for them has fallen drastically, especially for stripped down consumer versions, that do not require all the bells and whistles. You can find them for as little as $2/GB now. While still far more expensive than MLC's it is within a reasonable price range for the higher-end consumer. Like
this
But as they showed in that article an MLC/TLC is all an average user would realistically need. There was another test of a Kingston 40gb(i think) SSD that I read about, where over a span of 2 years it had 1800 TB of host writes and may still be going but I have lost track of where it is.