Life Expectancy of Storage Devices – Hard Drive and SSD Drive
The rapid rise in technology has made our lives easier, especially in data storage. From the earlier times of floppy disks to the advanced flash drives, we have seen technological growth in data storage mediums. This post explores two types of storage drives people use for the safety of their critical data: Hard Drives (HDD) and Solid-state drives (SSD). We will also discuss their life expectancy and the solutions to restore deleted data in these two drives. Let’s begin this blog without any further delays.
Table of Content
About Hard Drives
A Hard Drive (or Hard Disk Drive) is a data storage device storing digital information in computers. Hard drives are workable for external (portable) and internal (inside the laptop or computer) environments. The hard drives work on data storage using a magnetic spinning disk known as a platter and a read/write head writing the data on the disk’s body. They have storage capabilities ranging from a few gigabytes (GB) to a few terabytes (TB).
Hard Drives are cost-friendly, non-volatile (data retention without power) and reliable for storing endless data safely. However, they are also slow due to their mechanical working and magnetic platters and face higher power consumption issues. Nevertheless, many people trust HDDs for their long-term data retention and recovery.
Also Read:- External Hard Drive Won’t Boot
Hard Drive Life Expectancy – Complete Details
Every HDD and SSD drive has a life expectancy – the specific period of storing and deleting data. We will discuss the life cycles of HDD and SSD drives in the following table:
| Drive Type | Drive Life Expectancy |
| HDDs | 4-7 years |
| SSDs | 5-10 years |
| Flash Drives | Minimum average of ten years |
Even though we are not discussing Flash drives here, it is worth noticing that they can work up to ten years and more if responsibly taken care of.
Since Hard Drives depend on the spinning platters and read/write heads to store the data, their life expectancy gets reduced due to physical damage (wear and tear), electrical shocks, accidental dropping, and other factors. You can use HDDs to store data for four to seven years before their performance declines, and this period may stretch to a few more years if you take considerable care of your precious data stored in them.
Another aspect of Hard Disk Drives failing is performance-related. These performance issues
are error messages, file corruption, overheating, repeated vibrations and boot errors. However, data recovery is possible in HDDs if the damage is system or logic-based.
Best Solution for HDD Lost Data Recovery
The drawbacks mentioned above lead to data loss in HDDs Since the data recovery process for drives is rigorous, we will discuss trustworthy software for recovering the lost data from hard drive.
Professional Software to Recover Deleted Data
SysTools Hard Drive Recovery Software is the best choice for recovering lost data from Hard Disk Drives. This tool helps you recover deleted data due to power issues, read/write errors, and virus infection. What makes this software special is the ability to recover permanently deleted files from the Hard Drives.
Also Read:- Hard Disk Formatted by Mistake
Some Features of this Application
- The tool helps in the complete data recovery of photos, documents, videos, and data files. The software can also recover raw data files in JPEG, GIF, PDF, DOCX, and PPTX.
- Select specific files for recovery using date filters. The utility helps you to recover selected files with a date filter and a search bar option.
- Category Selection makes it easier for users to recover deleted data using the tool. You can select the desired category (images, videos, emails, and documents) and recover the data for that category.
- Automated Storage Device detection helps scan the deleted data from external Hard Drives.
Tips to Extend the Life of HDD and SSD Drive
Even though reliable software can recover the deleted data from HDD and SSD drives, even the severely corrupted ones, it becomes critical to work on data and drive protection regularly. We will discuss some important tips to extend the performance (or lifespan) of HDDs and SSDs.
Protecting Hard Disk Drives
Protecting HDDs is a crucial step in data preservation and drive protection. The following points describe the steps for extending the lifespan of a hard disk drive:
- Avoid Overheating – An overheated computer and HDD drive can lead to data corruption and loss if ample ventilation isn’t there. Ensuring proper cooling and ventilation of the local system and HDDs (internal and external) is the first step for longing the lifespan of the data stored in the drive.
- Ensure Regular Security Checks – Regularly checking the content of your HDDs expands their performance and ensures a longer lifespan. Also, you must update your computer’s antivirus and firewall frequently to reduce the risk of possible malware and virus attacks on your HDDs.
- Create Backups – You must make regular backups of the HDDs to access the data in case of drive failure. Sudden impacts or jarring movements can lead to mechanical and physical damage. If overheating does occur, create immediate backups before shutting down.
- Defragmentation – Defragmentation is rearranging fragmented data on a storage device to improve access speed and overall performance. Frequent defragmentation of the HDDs can reduce the physical wear on their mechanical components.
About SSD Drives (Solid State Drives)
Solid State Drives (SSDs) are portable drives with the same objective as Hard Drives – data storage. Unlike Hard Drives, they don’t have any mechanical parts, instead using the flash memory technique for data storage and retention. Like Hard Drives, SSDs are also perfect for external and internal data storage environments. SSDs have faster data reading and writing speeds, resulting in swift system responsiveness and boot times. However, they are expensive compared to HDDs but are becoming affordable over time. Since they don’t have any moving parts, unlike HDDs, they are the most reliable data storage source.
One major drawback of SSD drives is the loss of older data once the newest data gets added, making data recovery difficult. However, the price gap between SSDs and HDDs has significantly reduced. Their silent working and chiller performance make them a safer and more secure alternative to Hard Disk Drives, and they are perfect for laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and other electronic devices.
Life Expectancy of SSD
When it comes to SSDs, they have a longer life expectancy (five to ten years) due to silent performance and fewer vibrations. However, they have restricted read/write cycles, signaling a swift life cycle completion if they have prolonged use. Since they work silently, users can not judge their work. Slow performance, repeated crashing, and lost files and folders indicate that the SSD drive is completing its lifespan.
Most SSDs use NAND flash memory chips that include a transistor grid that saves data in cells as a binary value is one to zero. Few of these chips are able to hold more than one bit per cell, and several layer SSDs built with these chips provide performance advantages over individual layer cell SSDs. But the additional bits a storage drive can store per cell, the smaller amount of write cycles it can sustain. To spread the life of SSDs, maximum NAND flash organizers usage wear leveling features to consistently feast writes crossways a block of cells.
An SSD’s actual useful lifespan can be measured in something called program/Erase(P/E) cycles. AP/E cycle is the procedure of erasing and writing data to NAND chips associated with a block. The fewer bits per NAND cell the number of layers the more P/E cycles a SSD can sustain.
| SSD Type | Estimated P/E Cycles |
| Single Level Cell (SLC) | 100,000 |
| Multi Level Cell (MLC) | 10,000 |
| Triple Level Cell (TLC) | 3,000 |
| Quad Level Cell (QLC) | 1,000 |
An alternative advantage SSDs have ended automatic hard drives is that users can evaluate their life expectations based on usage. These controls are measured in terabytes written over time (TBW) and drive writes per day (DWPD), which sums the total amount of data that can be written over the lifetime of an SSD. For example, an SSD with 365 TBW means users can write 365 terabytes of data on the SSD before substituting it.
SSDs may not provide any cautionary before failure, but slow presentation, frequent freezing or crashing, or vanishing files and folders can be initial signs that a solid-state drive is looming at the end of its useful lifecycle.
Trusted Solution to Recover Deleted Data
This SSD Recovery software is the perfect data recovery option for SSD drives. This automated tool helps restore permanently deleted data (images, videos, documents) from formatted SSD drives. You can use this tool to save only the restored data. It highlights the deleted data in red colour, helping you recover them without any inconvenience.
This software has many features, and some of them are:
- The software provides data recovery support for Internal and External SSD drives.
- Recover permanently deleted data from SSD drives in both FAT and NTFS format.
- Selective data recovery helps quickly restore the deleted data using a Date Filter.
- The software maintains the folder structure of the recovered SSD drive data, helping you access the data without worries.
- Features like Quick Scan and Preview help you scan and check the deleted data before restoring it on your computer.
Protecting Solid State Drives
Even though SSDs are the future of data storage in computers and other electrical devices, they also need protection. We will discuss the points to ensure a longer lifespan for SSDs:
- Update Firmware – Updating the SSD’s firmware is the first step in ensuring a longer lifespan. Firmware updates include bug fixes and new improvements, and frequently updating the SSDs will help in optimal performance for more years to come.
- Save Storage Space – The most crucial step in ensuring an extended performance and lifespan for SSDs is saving some space in the drive. Having a minimum of 10-20% empty drive space is the perfect way to prolong the performance and the working duration (lifespan) of the SSD.
- Regular Backups – You must create frequent backups of all the SSDs you use, just like the HDDs. Backups help you access the data stored on the SSDs in case they face any issues.
- Avoid Extreme Temperatures – Excessive cold or heat can affect the performance and lifespan of the SSDs. Hence, maintaining the perfect computer and room temperature is critical to prolong the effectiveness and longevity of the SSDs.
Last Words
The lifespan of a hard disk is not absolute. Hard disk drive will, in concept, previous for 3 to 5 years, while an SSD would work for 10 years. But again, these figures are directly ruled by the shape excellence, usage periods, and the functioning circumstances for the drives.
Users can spread the life of your hard disk by emerging few good data backup ways to avoid unexpected drive failure and data loss. Taking benefit of cloud backup services and storing a backup on external hard drives is suggested, as well as purchasing new drives every couple of years to ensure the safety and maintenance of your data.
And, if users want to restore data from HDD, SSD, or external hard drive, try above file recovery software, which can retrieve lost data at a high recovery rate.
