Yes, upgrading to a SSD is safe.
People sometimes ask me about SSD’s and their longevity. Typically, I only recommend products and parts that I’ve personally tested or use, I don’t like to try new things at someone elses’ expense. These days, I only recommend Samsung solid state drives because I’ve been using one for almost 3 years and their software and features are pretty great for the price. So when I saw this article about SSD torture testing, I was intrigued;
Looking at their results, the two Samsung drives, a regular and a Pro model were tested. The regular model lasted until 300TB worth of writes. The Pro model lasted about 2400TB worth of writes. So, what does this mean? Well, in the almost 3 years I’ve had my Samsung SSD, I’ve written a mere 20TB with countless Windows re-installs, game installations, projects, virtual machines and other usage that typical users wouldn’t encounter.
For sake of argument, let’s take the figure of 300TB from the regular model Samsung drive (even though mine is a Pro model). At my current everyday heavy useage, it would take me 41.25 years to reach 300TB writes. Think about that for a bit. Chances are, you won’t even have an SSD for longer than 10 years at most. I’ve had mine less than 3 and am thinking about an upgrade, not just in size but in speed. Even if you used the computer 4x as much as I do, chances are, you still won’t see the death of your Samsung drive.
Another interesting figure to note, my SSD currently has 1.5 years of what’s called power on hours. That means, in total, my drive has been on/running for 1.5 years straight.
Needless to say, I will continue to recommend Samsung SSD’s. If you don’t have one, get one. It will be THE BEST money you’ve ever spent on a computer.
