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SiberianLeon 13 Sep @ 11:58am
Should I be worried about my NVMe SSD's lifespan?
Hey folks, I've had an Apacer AS2280P4U PRO NVMe SSD with 1TB storage and 760TB TBW since late February 2025, and I would constantly transfer games between that and my Linux SATA SSD depending on whether I was in the mood for Linux or having an extra storage for games on Windows. That crappy SATA SSD from late September 2024 died in late July 2025 with its last reported lifespan being reported at 94%, and by that point my NVMe SSD's lifespan was at 98%. I ended up hopping between Windows 11 and CachyOS almost everyday and redownloading games over and over again, and today's SMART reports its lifespan at 95%.

Is it a reasonable fear or am I just overthinking? I'm worried that my terrible habit is shortening my NVMe SSD's lifespan. Right now HWiNFO says that Total Host Writes is at 70,726GB out of 760TB TBW. I just don't want to kill my last working drive and end up with an unusable PC.
Last edited by SiberianLeon; 13 Sep @ 11:58am
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Showing 1-15 of 60 comments
Karumati 13 Sep @ 12:14pm 
stop moving games back and forth for no reason. get more storage.
#1
SiberianLeon 13 Sep @ 12:22pm 
Originally posted by Karumati:
stop moving games back and forth for no reason. get more storage.
Yeah, I guess I'll just buy another 1TB NVMe SSD since I have a second slot for that on my motherboard. I should also stop hopping between OS's because I just keep running into issues on Linux and I would rather spend that time enjoying games I want to play.
#2
pwnograffik 13 Sep @ 12:30pm 
Make sure that TRIM is enabled for your SSD when running Linux.
#3
SiberianLeon 13 Sep @ 12:31pm 
Originally posted by pwnograffik:
Make sure that TRIM is enabled for your SSD when running Linux.
I'm sure CachyOS has it enabled by default if I remember correctly, though my installs had never lasted for longer than a few days due to my bad habit, so I hope I'll stop doing it now.
#4
_I_ 13 Sep @ 12:37pm 
no
use another drive for games
most games dont care if they are on a hdd or ssd, slightly longer load times on hdd vs ssd
#5
Talby 13 Sep @ 10:46pm 
yes stop the copying between them, I can't tell the difference at all between games run on the nvme vs the sata ssd...
#6
76561199754585681 13 Sep @ 10:47pm 
depends how you use it. And how good is your heatsinks for NVMe drives
#7
76561199754585681 13 Sep @ 10:47pm 
Originally posted by Talby:
yes stop the copying between them, I can't tell the difference at all between games run on the nvme vs the sata ssd...
Its different. Some M.2 drives are SATA, some are NVMe.
#8
SiberianLeon 13 Sep @ 10:55pm 
Originally posted by _I_:
no
use another drive for games
most games dont care if they are on a hdd or ssd, slightly longer load times on hdd vs ssd
Actually nowadays more and more games are way better on SSDs. I was asking if that habit of mine of constantly hopping between Windows and Linux is dangerous for my NVMe SSD.

Originally posted by Im smoking gas:
depends how you use it. And how good is your heatsinks for NVMe drives
Well, it's not about the temperature, which appears to be fine with its included heatsink.
#9
Talby 13 Sep @ 10:58pm 
Originally posted by Im smoking gas:
Originally posted by Talby:
yes stop the copying between them, I can't tell the difference at all between games run on the nvme vs the sata ssd...
Its different. Some M.2 drives are SATA, some are NVMe.
I think it is more game-dependent, just got a new laptop with a 500gb nvme and added an external 2tb sata ssd. Same game installed using epic client on the nvme, and from steam on the sata external - can't tell the difference in loading times at all. Or gameplay.
#10
SiberianLeon 13 Sep @ 11:00pm 
Originally posted by Talby:
Originally posted by Im smoking gas:
Its different. Some M.2 drives are SATA, some are NVMe.
I think it is more game-dependent, just got a new laptop with a 500gb nvme and added an external 2tb sata ssd. Same game installed using epic client on the nvme, and from steam on the sata external - can't tell the difference in loading times at all. Or gameplay.
Downloading games on Windows installed on a SATA SSD is a painful experience. The download speed constantly goes up and down in a wavy manner with 100% disk usage even if it shows only like 20MB/s write speed.
#11
Talby 13 Sep @ 11:04pm 
Originally posted by SiberianLeon:
Originally posted by Talby:
I think it is more game-dependent, just got a new laptop with a 500gb nvme and added an external 2tb sata ssd. Same game installed using epic client on the nvme, and from steam on the sata external - can't tell the difference in loading times at all. Or gameplay.
Downloading games on Windows installed on a SATA SSD is a painful experience. The download speed constantly goes up and down in a wavy manner with 100% disk usage even if it shows only like 20MB/s write speed.
Ah yes, I have not had a sata boot drive on windows for a while - I think steam uses the default C drive location for temp then decompress - so yes I can see it hitting the BW limits.
Didn't see that problem on my new laptop, was able to keep up pretty well with the steam cloud downloads and decompression without any issue.
#12
Electric Cupcake 14 Sep @ 2:09am 
A generic SMART scanner tool, or (preferably) the manufacturer's health monitoring tool.

It's a good practice to not let it get too full, and not run Trim too often. I set the trim schedule to monthly.
#13
SiberianLeon 14 Sep @ 2:32am 
Originally posted by Electric Cupcake:
A generic SMART scanner tool, or (preferably) the manufacturer's health monitoring tool.

It's a good practice to not let it get too full, and not run Trim too often. I set the trim schedule to monthly.
Is HWiNFO good enough, or nah? By too full you mean close to 90%? I don't think I've ever had my NVMe SSD trimmed properly since late July to mid-September because I'd constantly reinstall either Windows or Linux almost daily in that period.
#14
tyl0413 14 Sep @ 2:58am 
Yes, also stop buying cheap SSDs, only buy the ones with highest rated TBW for their capacity, its why I got the FireCuda 530R 2TB. Nearly all the commonly recommended SSDs even the expensive ones have less than half the TBW of it. Check how many TBW your drive is rated for, if you're getting close to the limit time to think about replacement, or dont store anything important on it and run it into the ground.
SSDs are basically a scam, consumer flash is garbage, my HDDs combined probably have over a PB written easily and even decade old ones still work just fine, this is just one reason why the SSD takeover will never happen, even if cost wasn't an issue, if anything I'd pay extra for HDD, I'd never trust flash for long term storage of any important data, only on SSDs have I had data corruption issues too.
#15
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Date Posted: 13 Sep @ 11:58am
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