Protect the Lifespan of Your Intel® Optane™ Solid State Drive
When you properly protect and maintain your SSD with the proper tools, you can expect great performance. Well-maintained SSDs sometimes perform for longer than the rest of the components on your computer. Extreme temperatures, power surges, and filling up the drive can cause problems, both in the integrity and the longevity of your drive. Follow these easy precautions, and you’ll be able to use your drive long into the future.
To maintain a long lifespan on your Intel® Optane™ Solid State Drive (Intel® Optane™ SSD):
- Avoid extreme temperature
The Intel® Optane™ SSDs have a valid range of operating temperature (usually from 0°C to 70°C). SSDs can struggle with extreme temperatures, especially over extended periods of time. Leaving an SSD in a storage unit with higher temperature may decrease its lifespan.
Bear in mind that the temperature you store an SSD can also affect its data retention.
- Avoid power outages
Power outages can wreak havoc with almost any piece of computer equipment. SSDs are no exception. If the power to a drive cuts out during a write cycle, you can lose your written data or lose the drive altogether. Using an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is the simplest and easiest solution.
A UPS is like a surge protector with a big battery that you plug your devices into. If the power goes out, the battery provides enough power for you to finish your write cycle, properly shut down your computer, and avoid corruption.
- Keep some space open
Although read/write cycles rarely cause problems with your drive, there are measures you can take to ensure they don't. A technology called wear leveling makes your computer write equally to all available spaces on your SSD. Wear leveling keeps storage cells in your SSD from wearing out faster than other cells.
You can only use wear leveling on open cells. If a cell in your drive is used for long-term storage, you force the drive to reuse other cells when it needs more space. Reusing other cells increases the read/write cycles on those cells faster. Open up storage on your drive for wear leveling by:
- Deleting unused files on your computer.
- Moving unused files to an external hard drive for long-term storage.