SSD Endurance

Estimated SSD wear out, endurance table

There are various approaches to picking a great plotting SSD, and a lot will depend on the physical system it is going into for form factor and interface compatibility (NVMe/PCIe, SATA, or SAS). The one thing in common will be that you need high endurance, due to the fact that it take almost ~1.8TB of writes using the -e flag or 1.6TB without that option to create a single K=32 plot.

Endurance is how much data can be written to the SSD before it wears out. In Chia this is important because a plotting SSD will generally be at 100% duty cycle and writing all day.

A mixed use or high endurance data center or enterprise SSD is the best choice for plotting. Used SSDs with plenty of endurance can be found for a good value on eBay, Craigslist, or similar.

Consumer NVMe SSDs are generally not recommended due to the lower endurance, and they often employ caching algorithms to faster media (SLC, or single level cell) for great bursty performance. They do not perform well under heavy workload sustained IO. There are very high performance consumer NVMe SSDs that will offer great plotting performance, but the lower rated endurance in TBW will result in a faster wearout. more details about buying SSD for Chia

working model can be found here

Vendor	Model	Form Factor	Interface	Class	$ASP	$/GB	User Capacity (GB):	usable GiB in OS	Spec sheet rated TBW	total plots, worst, (TiB)	total plots, best, (TiB)	$/TiB, worst	$/TiB, best
Intel	P3700	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$250.00	$0.16	1600	1455.5	43800	1953	2930	$0.13	$0.09
Intel	P3600	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$140.00	$0.09	1600	1455.5	8760	391	977	$0.36	$0.14
Intel	P4600	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$352.00	$0.11	3200	2910.9	18200	1356	2441	$0.26	$0.14
Intel	P3600	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$116.00	$0.10	1200	1091.6	6570	297	742	$0.39	$0.16
Intel	P3600	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$115.00	$0.10	1200	1091.6	6570	293	732	$0.39	$0.16
Intel	P4600	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$176.00	$0.11	1600	1455.5	8990	407	732	$0.43	$0.24
Intel	P4600	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$220.00	$0.11	2000	1819.3	11080	509	916	$0.43	$0.24
Intel	P3700	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$120.00	$0.30	400	363.9	7300	332	498	$0.36	$0.24
Micron	5300 Max	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise SATA	$307.20	$0.16	1920	1746.6	17520	557	1270	$0.55	$0.24
Micron	5300 Max	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise SATA	$614.40	$0.16	3840	3493.1	24528	1114	2539	$0.55	$0.24
Intel	S4610	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise mixed use	$144.00	$0.15	960	873.3	5800	266	586	$0.54	$0.25
Micron	5300 Pro	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise SATA	$249.60	$0.13	1920	1746.6	5256	200	1000	$1.25	$0.25
Micron	5300 Pro	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise SATA	$499.20	$0.13	3840	3493.1	8410	400	2000	$1.25	$0.25
Samsung	PM1725b	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$267.00	$0.17	1600	1455.5	8760	400	1000	$0.67	$0.27
Micron	9300 Pro	U.2	NVMe	enterprise	$1,152.00	$0.15	7680	6986.3	16800	727	4000	$1.58	$0.29
Micron	9300 Pro	U.2	NVMe	enterprise	$576.00	$0.15	3840	3493.1	8400	364	2000	$1.58	$0.29
Intel	P4610	U.2	NVMe	enterprise mixed use	$300.00	$0.19	1600	1455.5	10613	430	1031	$0.70	$0.29
DRAM	DDR3	DIM	DDR3	memory	$768.00	$1.50	512	465.8		2500	2500	$0.31	$0.31
Samsung	PM983	U.2 and M.2	NVMe	data center	$110.00	$0.11	960	873.3	1366.56	63	350	$1.76	$0.31
Samsung	PM983	U.2 and M.2	NVMe	data center	$225.00	$0.12	1920	1746.6	2733.12	125	700	$1.80	$0.32
Intel	S3710	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise mixed use	$68.00	$0.17	400	363.9	8300	137	205	$0.50	$0.33
Corsair	CSSD-F960GBMP510	M.2	NVMe	client	$120.00	$0.13	960	873.3	1700	76	350	$1.57	$0.34
Toshiba	PX04SVQ	2.5in SAS	SAS 12Gbps	enterprise SAS	$380.00	$0.24	1600	1455.5	8760	398	1074	$0.96	$0.35
Inland	Inland Premium 1TB SSD	M.2	NVMe	client mainstream	$125.00	$0.12	1024	931.5	1600	73	350	$1.72	$0.36
Micron	9300	U.2	NVMe	data center	$768.00	$0.20	3840	3493.1	8400	364	2000	$2.11	$0.38
Micron	9300 Max	U.2	NVMe	enterprise	$1,600.00	$0.25	6400	5821.9	37300	1650	4125	$0.97	$0.39
Micron	9300 Max	U.2	NVMe	enterprise	$800.00	$0.25	3200	2910.9	18600	825	2063	$0.97	$0.39
Sabrent	SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-2TB	M.2	NVMe	client	$349.00	$0.17	2000	1819.3	3600	163	700	$2.14	$0.50
Intel	S4600	SATA 2.5in	SATA	enterprise mixed use	$96.00	$0.20	480	436.6	2950	104	188	$0.92	$0.51
DRAM	DDR4	DIM	DDR4	memory	$1,536.00	$3.00	512	465.8		2500	2500	$0.61	$0.61
Intel	P4510	U.2	NVMe	data center	$400.00	$0.20	2000	1819.3	2054	115	516	$3.49	$0.78
WD	SN750	M.2	NVMe	client mainstream	$60.00	$0.12	500	454.8	300	14	75	$4.40	$0.80
WD	SN750	M.2	NVMe	client mainstream	$120.00	$0.12	1000	909.7	600	27	150	$4.40	$0.80
Corsair	MP510	M.2	NVMe	client	$120.00	$0.13	960	873.3	720	33	150	$3.66	$0.80
Seagate	Nitro 1551	SATA 2.5in	SATA	data center SATA	$255.00	$0.27	960	873.3	2390	102	305	$2.51	$0.84
Samsung	970 Evo	M.2	NVMe	client maintream	$163.84	$0.16	1024	931.5	600	30	150	$5.46	$1.09
Intel	P4800X	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise	$2,062.50	$2.75	750	682.3	41000	1831	1831	$1.13	$1.13
Samsung	970 Pro	M.2	NVMe	client high end	$307.20	$0.30	1024	931.5	1200	50	250	$6.14	$1.23
Intel	905p	U.2 and M.2	NVMe	clinet high end	$1,152.00	$1.20	960	873.3	17520	938	938	$1.23	$1.23
Intel	665p	M.2	NVMe	client mainstream	$102.40	$0.10	1024	931.5	300	15	75	$6.83	$1.37
Intel	P4800X	U.2 & AIC	NVMe	enterprise	$2,062.50	$5.50	375	341.1	41000	916	916	$2.25	$2.25
Intel	660p	M.2	NVMe	client mainstream	$122.88	$0.12	1024	931.5	200	10	50	$12.29	$2.46

estimated GiB per minute based off class of drives for drives that have yet to be tested, for the drives in the wiki I have added the measured numbers.

Math

• NAND P/E Cycles = amount of program / erase cycles NAND can do before wearing out. NAND programs (writes) in pages and erases in blocks (contains many pages)
• Wearing out - SSD no longer meeting UBER (uncorrectable bit error rate), retention (keeping data safe while powered off), failure rate, or user capacity
• UBER = number of data errors / number of bits read
• WAF (Write Amplification Factor) = NAND writes / host writes
• TBW or PBW – amount of host writes to SSD before wearing out
• TBW = drive capacity * cycles / WAF
• DWPD (drive writes per day): amount of data you can write to device each day of the warranty (typically 5 years) without wearing out
• DWPD = TBW/365/5/drive capacity

Monitor Endurance in Linux

NVMe

https://github.com/linux-nvme/nvme-cli

https://nvmexpress.org/open-source-nvme-management-utility-nvme-command-line-interface-nvme-cli/

Reading endurance with NVMe-CLI - this is the gas gauge that shows total endurance used

sudo nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0 | grep percentage_used

Reading amount of writes that the drive have actually done

sudo nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0 | grep data_units_written

Bytes written = output * 1000 * 512B

TBW = output * 1000 * 512B / (1000^4) or (1024^4)

To find out NAND writes, you will have use the vendor plugins for NVMe-CLI.

sudo nvme <vendor name> help

Example with an Intel SSD

sudo nvme intel smart-log-add /dev/nvme0

SATA

In SATA you can use the following commands

sudo apt install smartmontools

sudo smartctl -x /dev/sda | grep Logical

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

looking for Media_Wearout_Indicator

note this does also work for NVMe for basic SMART health info

sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0

SAS

sg_logs /dev/sg1 --page=0x11

look for

Percentage used endurance indicator: 0%

overview of SSD endurance testing from JEDEC industry standard here https://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/Alvin_Cox%20%5BCompatibility%20Mode%5D_0.pdf

Adding new models

Please add your model string below if you want me to put it into my calculator and add to the list!