Backblaze data shows SSD failure patterns on trend with HDDs Cloud storage provider confirms they are burning through SSDs as quickly as HDDs October 3, 2021 https://www.techspot.com/news/91543-backblaze-data-shows-ssd-failure-patterns-trend-hdds.html Backblaze: Are SSDs Really More Reliable Than Hard Drives?
I place more value on two of the comments following the article, which say in essence: the Backblaze data on HDDs started collection years earlier than that of the SSDs so in the absence of more details on the data collection, the final verdict is dubious to me. I therefore don't place much value on this report but if another report with valid and reliable results was to say the same thing, I would accept that finding more readily. The "same thing" being: SSDs fail at the same rate as HDDs. A little "fluffy" imo.
While not as up on SSD's as I wish I was, for duration as far as longevity seems I've found our METAL magnetic HHD's a good sight more long lasting than I ever conceived possible 10 years ago. Oh sure like others I have had HHD's flop but in reality that happened way sooner than later prompting belief it could been attributed to a factory batch that got passed quality control at the time. The flip side is that even today HDD's of say Seagate, Toshiba, and yes even WD bought as far back as 2012 if not earlier are still going strong and running without issue. I also attribute that distinction for durability to regular maintenance such as routine Defragging in particular. With the moving parts not having to exert all the extra mileage tracking down noncontiguous files fragmented all over the place ever so often the user experiences a snappy and longer functional choice of their preferred HHD. Only from my own experience so far so good. But without doubt SSD's make for a quicker PC bar none except adding more memory perhaps.
I wouldn't be surprised if SSD's fail at the same rate as HDD's. And this would be actually a good thing since HDD's have proven to be quite reliable. So far I have never seen a HDD or SSD fail and I use my PC's (both desktop and laptops) for at least 6 years before replacing them. It probably also depends on usage of course, I use PC's mostly for web browsing and playing video games. In the past I have also used virtual machines for software testing.
For SSDs, I expect some significant variations based on the controllers being used. I've seen the same memories been advertised with wildly different endurance ratings and the only physical difference I could see was the controller chip. Indeed the management of the read/write operations are different between controllers so I think the long term implications will be very interesting.
