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UPDATE:Nvme Health decreasing now with 3% for 5 days

Interestingly enough in terms of timing, my 2nd (work) machine can't seem to decide on how much remaining life there is:

View attachment 373228

It keeps fluctuating between 96% and 97%... curious as to how it can go back up - I mean seeing it decrease is expected, but not to increase. Obviously the lifetime number is derived from some other internal or SMART stats with some sort of formula spitting out a number.
The more annoying thing is that every time it changes I get a ping that it's changed... it's been reliable over many years but it is Sandforce controller so there is some paranoia - at least Kingston actually did push out what seems to be some of the latest Sandforce firmware for it so, fingers crossed, hopefully no weird bugs.
The drive life calculations are not an exactly measurement. They're an estimate base a number of variable factors that are generally, but not always, reliable indicators. A 1% fluctuation can be ignored. 2% starts getting iffy. 3% in short amount of time, there's likely a problem, but not always. 4% or more in a short time, there's a problem.
 
I'm curious about the current state of the problem. Does the drive life still go down so quickly?
No , it stopped at 97% but I am not doing much work on it. 5 641 GB written with 13.4tb reads ... power on count 182 , power on hours 1139. I installed 2 or 3 times OS on it and 2 times I downloaded all the games(considering that I have another ssd sata6 for game storage and hdd for game storage as well , my CS2,war thunder,squad ,starfield are on the nvme(os) , and couple of other games are on the ssd/hdd drives.And it have pagefile size off , trim enabled , 200GB unallocated + 240gb free
 
No , it stopped at 97% but I am not doing much work on it. 5 641 GB written with 13.4tb reads ... power on count 182 , power on hours 1139. I installed 2 or 3 times OS on it and 2 times I downloaded all the games(considering that I have another ssd sata6 for game storage and hdd for game storage as well , my CS2,war thunder,squad ,starfield are on the nvme(os) , and couple of other games are on the ssd/hdd drives.And it have pagefile size off , trim enabled , 200GB unallocated + 240gb free
Ok do this once- Watch the video and then get the tool he mentions:


then monitor it for 30 days, after 30 days if its considerably changed, replace the drive and move forward.

/Thread
 
Currently watching..
He brought up 3 major security vulnerabilities as well, 1cumulative patch i got i have to vette for co-pilot though, thank goodness for system restore in 1999/2000

@lexluthermiester here is a vid from GRC's very own Steve Gibson on SpinRite 6.1


@hermesa try this once, monitor for 1 month then replace drive if you notice it still deteriorating.

But BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST
 
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So here is an update.It dropped another 1% for the nvme doing nothing since I last posted here.I also noticed some strange fluctations for the free drive space.I left the drive at ~250GB free space(+200 of unallocated) I noticed that this 250gb free space goes up and down, It was 250 then it went to 248 , then it went up to 325 ,then 350 free space and now is 311gb? I delete nothing , I do no updates , just playing the games I had installed since my last OS installation ? What is this up to ? Any guesses ?


btw here are is some manual smart data by me following the smart tool provided by the drive:



5635gb 5.50TBW used (0.79%)(117GB/day) 11/30/2024 morrning
5641gb 5.51tbw used (0.79%)(116gb/day) 11/30/2024 night
5644gb 5.51tbw used (0.79%)(115gb/day) 12/1/2024 morrning
5648gb 5.52tbw used (0.79%)(113gb/day) 12/2/2024 morrning
5710gb 5.58tbw used (0.80%)(113gb/day) 12/2/2024 night (updates)
5711gb 5.58tbw used (0.80%)(112gb/day) 12/3/2024 morrning
5757gb 5.62TBW USED (0.80%)(110gb/day) 12/4/2024 morrning (squad update)
5764gb 5.63 tbw (0.80%)(108gb/day) 12/5/2024 morrning
5824gb 5.69 tbw (0.81%)(108gb/day) 12/5/2024 night (updates CS2)
5827gb 5.69 tbw (0.81%)(107gb.day) 12/6/2024 morrning (no updates +3gb)
5834gb 5.70tbw (0.81%)(106GB/DAY) 12/6/2024 night
5843gb 5.71tbw (0.82%)(104gb.day) 12/8/2024 morrning
5853gb 5.72tbw (0.82%)(102gb/day) 12/9/2024 morrning
5858bg 5.72tbw (0.82%)(101gb/day) 12/10/2024 morrning no updates

dropped to 96%

6031 5.89 (0.84%)(103/gbday) 12/10/2024 night BF2024 update which was 2.5gb only as a size
 
Watch the whole Video Through and by the Way that is 1 of the MS Devs
Sorry its a 13min video, is it hard to summarise it instead of giving the guy more clicks. Would be appreciated.

But generally speaking, NTFS has issues when there is excessive fragmentation, so this is why the windows defragger will occasionally auto defrag SSDs, especially when snapshots are being utilised.
 
He brought up 3 major security vulnerabilities as well, 1cumulative patch i got i have to vette for co-pilot though, thank goodness for system restore in 1999/2000

@lexluthermiester here is a vid from GRC's very own Steve Gibson on SpinRite 6.1


@hermesa try this once, monitor for 1 month then replace drive if you notice it still deteriorating.

But BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST
seems like a good advice , but I can't pay 89$ for this program when a new nvme drive costs that much in my country :( I can download pirate cracked version of it but the version is ver6.0

maybe I am not doing something right , but I don't want to loose my OS because that's what it says when I try to ''install spinrite''
 

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So here is an update.It dropped another 1% for the nvme doing nothing since I last posted here.
This is indeed a fact that TPU might be a culprit after all. (Joking)

I also noticed some strange fluctations for the free drive space.I left the drive at ~250GB free space(+200 of unallocated) I noticed that this 250gb free space goes up and down, It was 250 then it went to 248 , then it went up to 325 ,then 350 free space and now is 311gb? I delete nothing , I do no updates , just playing the games I had installed since my last OS installation ? What is this up to ? Any guesses ?


btw here are is some manual smart data by me following the smart tool provided by the drive:



5635gb 5.50TBW used (0.79%)(117GB/day) 11/30/2024 morrning
5641gb 5.51tbw used (0.79%)(116gb/day) 11/30/2024 night
5644gb 5.51tbw used (0.79%)(115gb/day) 12/1/2024 morrning
5648gb 5.52tbw used (0.79%)(113gb/day) 12/2/2024 morrning
5710gb 5.58tbw used (0.80%)(113gb/day) 12/2/2024 night (updates)
5711gb 5.58tbw used (0.80%)(112gb/day) 12/3/2024 morrning
5757gb 5.62TBW USED (0.80%)(110gb/day) 12/4/2024 morrning (squad update)
5764gb 5.63 tbw (0.80%)(108gb/day) 12/5/2024 morrning
5824gb 5.69 tbw (0.81%)(108gb/day) 12/5/2024 night (updates CS2)
5827gb 5.69 tbw (0.81%)(107gb.day) 12/6/2024 morrning (no updates +3gb)
5834gb 5.70tbw (0.81%)(106GB/DAY) 12/6/2024 night
5843gb 5.71tbw (0.82%)(104gb.day) 12/8/2024 morrning
5853gb 5.72tbw (0.82%)(102gb/day) 12/9/2024 morrning
5858bg 5.72tbw (0.82%)(101gb/day) 12/10/2024 morrning no updates

dropped to 96%

6031 5.89 (0.84%)(103/gbday) 12/10/2024 night BF2024 update which was 2.5gb only as a size
In what way do you use your browser? Do you often have hundreds of tabs left open in the backround?
What does it mean "no updates"? You don't update your OS? I doubt there have been no updates released since your last post.

Do you play any game that regularly downloads a lot of data for caching? (Like MS Flight Simulator)

Could you provide list of all installed programs in your OS? Also provide list of startup apps.
 
This is indeed a fact that TPU might be a culprit after all. (Joking)


In what way do you use your browser? Do you often have hundreds of tabs left open in the backround?
What does it mean "no updates"? You don't update your OS? I doubt there have been no updates released since your last post.

Do you play any game that regularly downloads a lot of data for caching? (Like MS Flight Simulator)

Could you provide list of all installed programs in your OS? Also provide list of startup apps.
I used operaGX but I heard about complains that uses a lot of data and in that way decreasing drive lifespan or something like that so I jumped back to Google Chrome(don't know if its true or not but in any case..) and I use maximum 2-3 tabs in the most extensive scenarios - 80% of the time I use 1-2 tabs.And when my job is finished I always close them and close all the apps I use on my computer - steam,EA,browsers etc.I always try to keep good hygiene on my computer in terms of usage like closing unused apps , deleting unnecessary stuff etc.

My windows is 10 and there are not much updates happening but even if they do I always pause my updates and update it manually like checking for updates every once a week or so.
I play Squad , it have some mods but I keep an eye of them and no unexpected behaviour on the drive happened after installing them(they are not so much mods in this game and yes some of them are pretty big downloads) but yeah Squad is kinda simulator.I play some CS2 and rarely I play other games.For example now is Christmas time and there are some rewards in my account in World of Tanks.Also I play from time to time War Thunder but not so much.Last 2-3 weeks I play only squad because it is a new game to me and I love it .I recorded all the updates wheter they were windows or game updates in the manual data I provided.
I got only 2 startup apps ENABLED on my system and they are ''amd noise suppression'' and ''windows security notification'' ,everything else ''steam,EA,deamon tools,uttorent,iCUE,Riot,Discord etc are DISABLED manually by me for faster boot in the system.I just like my PC to boot and run smooth and flawless
Here are the all installed programs in my OS (some of the games are installed on 2 of my other drives in my system
The games installed on my OS drive(the problematic drive) are Squad, CS2,Battlefield 2042 ,Starfield(it's a pirate copy of the game - I don't know if that matters)


I am thinking about couple of major options I got:

1st one is reinstalling OS on my previous SSD 2.5 Verbatim 512GB which is 2 years old and have 90% health and like 20-30 OS installed on it + thousands of games and still keeping its health good and sending this NVME for RMA
2nd one is using this nvme until it dies + hoping that it will last longer than its health %

3rd one which I don't really want is I will swap OS on the SSD and start using nvme for storage drive but I don't want this because I need the fastest drive in my system for my OS for system performance and that's really what I paid for... Don't really know the difference between regular ssd and nvme boot times and loading times but I know that nvme is better so yeah I would like to use it for OS

Probably I will got for 2nd one since I am really tired of this drive already...

This is indeed a fact that TPU might be a culprit after all. (Joking)


In what way do you use your browser? Do you often have hundreds of tabs left open in the backround?
What does it mean "no updates"? You don't update your OS? I doubt there have been no updates released since your last post.

Do you play any game that regularly downloads a lot of data for caching? (Like MS Flight Simulator)

Could you provide list of all installed programs in your OS? Also provide list of startup apps.
here are some other data for the nvme which you may find usefull because I really understand NOTHING about these values except megabyes and terabytes write/read and main stuff like that:
 

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So here is an update.It dropped another 1% for the nvme doing nothing since I last posted here.I also noticed some strange fluctations for the free drive space.I left the drive at ~250GB free space(+200 of unallocated) I noticed that this 250gb free space goes up and down, It was 250 then it went to 248 , then it went up to 325 ,then 350 free space and now is 311gb? I delete nothing , I do no updates , just playing the games I had installed since my last OS installation ? What is this up to ? Any guesses ?
Free space going up and down?
Maybe (not sure) its the dynamic page file allocation.

I always keep it fixed size.

1734093708433.png
 
I use no page file, works well.

Just curious..

What is the temperature of you're drive?
 

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OP I had an idea you might try. Since it's difficult to tell if the NVMe is defective or something on your machine is causing the problem RMA and replace your NVMe. In the fresh install do NOT install any pirated stuff from your prior install. Run if for awhile (long enough for you to detect a problem) and if it seems ok then install your pirated choice of software. If you then notice a problem you will know it's because of the pirated software you installed and not the drive. That's not to say a non-pirated program couldn't be misbehaving and causing the issue but it's at least a troubleshooting procedure you can try if you decide to replace the drive anyway.

If you have a 2nd NVMe slot you can use then optionally don't RMA the drive but get a new one for the OS (install as primary NVMe) and reformat and install the old drive in the 2nd NVMe slot. Then configure the swap file (virtual memory) onto that device (disabling it on the new NVMe) and run it (the old NVMe) till it dies.
 
OP I had an idea you might try. Since it's difficult to tell if the NVMe is defective or something on your machine is causing the problem RMA and replace your NVMe. In the fresh install do NOT install any pirated stuff from your prior install. Run if for awhile (long enough for you to detect a problem) and if it seems ok then install your pirated choice of software. If you then notice a problem you will know it's because of the pirated software you installed and not the drive. That's not to say a non-pirated program couldn't be misbehaving and causing the issue but it's at least a troubleshooting procedure you can try if you decide to replace the drive anyway.

If you have a 2nd NVMe slot you can use then optionally don't RMA the drive but get a new one for the OS (install as primary NVMe) and reformat and install the old drive in the 2nd NVMe slot. Then configure the swap file (virtual memory) onto that device (disabling it on the new NVMe) and run it (the old NVMe) till it dies.
This advice sounds good and It's worth the try but since such a drive cost 1/5 of a monthly salary in my country I maybe will do something simillar.I think this drive comes from the manufacturer with 5 years warranty but from the re-seller comes with 3 year warranty which is enough time for me too.I will drain it's life as much as I can and will RMA it. This one drained 4% for 60 days which is 2 months, considering this I think it's 48% for 2 years of usage.So yeah I will RMA it for sure just not now because of funds problem.After a year I can afford another 100-150$ nvme so then I can try to install 2 nvmes and maybe RMA it then ofcourse if it doesn't fail before that.Maybe I can do fresh OS reinstall without any pirate software.As far as I remember , this behaviour occured since I freshly installed it in my pc build.Immediately drained 1% and I got suspicious and started searching online for possible fixes and behaviour.After OS install drained another 1% after I did all the tricks like turning off pagefile size,TRIM,optimizing and all of the things people suggested here.I really love it's performance , really fast and good drive(my first nvme drive since I am in computers in 2007) but sadly 'n' obvious defective.
 
my 13year old 128gb Crucial M4 that I used as primary drive for all this time (and often filled to like 500mb of free space) (with page files on it) is 81% health, according to crystaldisk.

Dunno if it helps.
It is with MLC nand. ;)
 
At that rate you might as well just backup and rma the drive, no point in having to go to extreme measures...
:)
If it's still under warranty; obviously rma it!

Won't this ruin the firmware?

How long do SSDs store data without power?

If the loss time is halved for every 10°C hotter, then 2 hours at 200°C is equivalent to about 30 years at 30°C.
Good point! :)
I hadn't thought of that. I just thought it interesting that one could restore NAND with heating.

I'm not going to research flashing new firmware onto a completely blank drive now.
It must be possible though..?
 
If excessive use is nothing, then yes, for nothing.

You already accounted for around 1% with your own basic math. Plus it is an os drive. Plus you did tests which you didn't include in your original math. Plus "2%" is rounded.

Seems like the result is as expected.
uhmm , 1% is 7TB(the disk is rated at 700TBW) , now after a month its 96% for 6.12TB(0.88% actual) written.yet the SMART shows 96% Another 1% dropped while doing nothing for a month ,not installing new games , couple of small updates and 2 windows updates for defender I think.

Oh, sorry. I swapped 6 TB and 3 TB.

Point remains.

It is a waste of an RMA because you already accounted for the results you see.

I'm just repeating myself. I wrote already:
"If excessive use is nothing, then yes, for nothing.

You already accounted for around 1% with your own basic math. Plus it is an os drive. Plus you did tests which you didn't include in your original math. Plus "2%" is rounded.

Seems like the result is as expected."


If you want to waste the RMA department's time with an illegitimate RMA, go for it. If your use doesn't change, you are going to be right back here with the same 'issue'.
If that was the case back then , now it's not as I said I didn't installed or did anything on the drive since then and its 6.2TB with 96% health.
 
Is this a legit copy of Windows, like straight from MS not a torrent?

I have been using mine since they came out and literally installed Windows hundreds of times to it, plus games and use..

I never let the system sleep or hibernate.

Screenshot 2024-12-19 094244.jpg
 
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