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Is an SSD touched when transferring data between extHDDs?

K

kolbert

n00b
Joined
May 31, 2013
Messages
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SSD warranties seem to be measured in GB allowances per day and then giving a shorter lifetime of use e.g. 40GB per day for three years. I am unsure then if I will be unnecessarily shortening the life of an SSD if transferring large volumes of data between external HDDs?

For example, in OS X, if transferring 500GB via FW800 from one external HDD to another HDD connected via the Thunderbolt interface - would the SSD be used (i.e. impacted upon) in that process at all?

A test I presently cannot perform myself would be to monitor RAM activity as the transfer was in action: using Activity Monitor to view the virtual memory's page in/out levels. If the page outs are zero then it would not be using the SSD I assume, thus not shortening the SSDs life?

My machine will have 16GB of DDR3 1600 RAM when the time comes, but cannot test for this now and was hoping somebody might know?
 
My assumption it that the transfer happens through a caching mechanism (memory or page file)....I think it would be pretty idiotic if it had to write to a central hard drive first. I don't think you're supposed to be using the SSD for virtual memory anyway...isn't best practice to disable that on SSDs?
 
Isn't it like 40GB per cell per day for X years, not just 40 GB for the whole drive? Even the drives on our high capacity servers at work show life span over 10 years still, and they have been being used constantly for about 18 months +.
 
Unless the copying software is written by an absolute moron, no, an intermediate storage disk would not be used for the operation.
 
I think the virtual space is on the RAM no? Regarding the SSD I wanted to know if it was a part of the process, which it doesn't seem to be.

I wasn't aware that it was a 40GB allowance per cell, rather than the whole SSD, can someone confirm this please.
 
Virtual memory is not memory or it wouldn't be virtual. It's the pagefile in windows and it should be on the SSD (its size reduced if you have lots of RAM).

40GB per cell would mean 20 billion writes on a MLC cell, or 13 billion on a TLC (featured in the Samsung 840 non pro). In reality the most enduring tech (and most expensive) is SLC and usually rated between 100K and 1 million writes. For MLC it's between 3000 and 5000, and TLC only 1000 writes.

I don't know from what comes the 40GB per day number, I know that a couple years ago 20GB was a common number, and in fact the SandForce controller at the time throttled the drive after that threshold.
 
I have since come to understand what virtual memory is and how it would impact on an SSD, that it can be disabled on a HDD, but not necessarily and SSD. The answer, as always, would be more RAM, but that it should not impact a transfer, only the number of Apps open.

As for the the data allowance of XGB per day being either the whole SSD or cell, it's the whole SSD as the controller's wear-levelling algorithms makes sure that write operations an performed uniformally, thus avoiding the same cells having a bias to them.

Oh and no, the SSD will not be impacted upon during a copy operation between two external HHDs,
 
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