How much does SSD health matter?

kakarott · 6 Jul 2026 at 21:34

How important is SSD health? I want to run Home Assistant on a thin client and was looking at used m.2 sata drives. Most don't mention the health and some do.

Is 85% health for an SSD to run HA good enough, be it bare metal or VM?

Brun · 6 Jul 2026 at 21:42

Think it comes down to personal risk aversion.

There are ways to backup HA to the cloud, so a failure shouldn't be unrecoverable.

Nasher · 7 Jul 2026 at 07:26

I haven't had one die for a long time now. After the first couple of generations they got a lot more reliable. I have some Samsung ones still on 90% which I got in about 2017.

Though when they have died, it was the controllers which went and they went suddenly. SMART won't see that coming.

iamgigglz · 7 Jul 2026 at 10:04

The 240GB Lenovo SSDSC2BB240G6N SSD in my home server is on:

2077.5 TB written (2 PB)
70790 hours (8 years) power on time
3790 power cycle count
0 errors
0 reallocated sectors.
100% Available reserved space

It's a rebranded Intel item rated to 140TBW MTBF so it's given me 15x so far. I think when it does finally give up it's going to be sudden and violent.

FlyingFish · 7 Jul 2026 at 12:12

This thread has got me thinking about some old SSD's I've for in the draw. Retired from use, but still have data on I would like to keep. I think I might need to power them up and give them a check up. Some are over 13 years old.

hawker1986 · 7 Jul 2026 at 13:58

I was under the impression unused SSDs risk data loss anyhow? I would check them out!

Tetras · 7 Jul 2026 at 14:06

hawker1986 said:
I was under the impression unused SSDs risk data loss anyhow? I would check them out!

Yeah, but that data would be irrelevant to the OP anyway.

kakarott said:
Is 85% health for an SSD to run HA good enough, be it bare metal or VM?

Health can be calculated differently, depending on the tool.

Since different models don't have the same endurance rating, there needs to be more context for the 85%, to know what it means.

A high quality drive with good flash and otherwise sound SMART (e.g. no reserved blocks being consumed or ECC errors), then I'd have no concern at all.

FlyingFish · 7 Jul 2026 at 14:54

I'm sure I remember watching a video about SSD health etc that spoke about powering them up every so often to keep the data charged correctly and sort out any errors, I think they automatically move the data to healthier parts of the memory? I could be wrong though.

Mcnumpty2323 · 7 Jul 2026 at 15:24

yeah if you don't power them up
now and then
they suffer bit rot

still using a sm951 nvme version
roughly 2015 I think
think was the first nvme (not ahci) drive available
so health may not be a deciding factor
for me as long as got a robust backup plan
that would be main thing

kakarott · 20 Jul 2026 at 14:59

Is there anything I should look out for when buying a used m.2 sata ssd to also use as a server with home assistant?

Mcnumpty2323 · 20 Jul 2026 at 15:52

kakarott said:
Is there anything I should look out for when buying a used m.2 sata ssd to also use as a server with home assistant?

can always ask for
a crystal diskmark or similar software screenshot
should show health,TB read/written etc
then can check what the endurance rating/TB read/write is
for that model drive

though sata M2 you see way less than
nvme M2
especially if second hand in MM

Snapshot · 20 Jul 2026 at 16:00

Do you have reason for looking at SATA M.2 rather than NVMe? It's pretty much dead technology and you'll find very little choice.

kakarott · 20 Jul 2026 at 18:55

Mcnumpty2323 said:
can always ask for
a crystal diskmark or similar software screenshot
should show health,TB read/written etc
then can check what the endurance rating/TB read/write is
for that model drive

though sata M2 you see way less than
nvme M2
especially if second hand in MM

Those selling on eBay, some don't know how to do it. Is there any wording I should look for like I can't remember there was something to avoid when buying nvme. I think something to do with cache?

Snapshot said:
Do you have reason for looking at SATA M.2 rather than NVMe? It's pretty much dead technology and you'll find very little choice.

Yes I have a Dell Wyse 5070 and it only takes an M.2 sata SSD. I want to avoid using a usb caddy.

Mcnumpty2323 · 20 Jul 2026 at 19:00

kakarott said:
Those selling on eBay, some don't know how to do it. Is there any wording I should look for like I can't remember there was something to avoid when buying nvme. I think something to do with cache?

Yes I have a Dell Wyse 5070 and it only takes an M.2 sata SSD. I want to avoid using a usb caddy.

yeah you're thinking of dram cache
with dram is better
though must admit I totally bypassed sata M2
as first nvme M2 (not ahci) was released around 2015
so went for that instead
Samsung sm951 and still using it today lol
so couldn't tell you which sata M2 are better than others by model
you may have to Google specific models you see

kakarott · 20 Jul 2026 at 21:01

Apacer just popped for a decent price but from a quick search, seems to be on the budget end?

Mcnumpty2323 · 21 Jul 2026 at 05:54

kakarott said:
Apacer just popped for a decent price but from a quick search, seems to be on the budget end?

how much read and write will it
actually get as a home assistant server?

and how many are you seeing ?
if there's loads to choose from makes a difference
and of course how soon do you need it?

kakarott · 21 Jul 2026 at 07:01

Mcnumpty2323 said:
how much read and write will it
actually get as a home assistant server?

and how many are you seeing ?
if there's loads to choose from makes a difference
and of course how soon do you need it?

Just want to store some files that I may access once in a while, not everyday unless HA can save footage from reolink cameras.

There's like 3 and only mentioned 97% health.

Mcnumpty2323 · 21 Jul 2026 at 07:24

kakarott said:
Just want to store some files that I may access once in a while, not everyday unless HA can save footage from reolink cameras.

There's like 3 and only mentioned 97% health.

97٪ would be fine for a used drive
And apacer are a decent brand
Yeah more budget orientated
But they're a big company and budget drives
Are used in loads of oem laptops
The average user has no idea
About what's inside
So why put high end drives in most laptops

D1craig · 21 Jul 2026 at 16:46

I've got 3 sata SSDs still in use and not had any issue with them. I think they must be atleast 10 years old. Ill have to do a health check on them.

How do i do the health check on them?2 are Samsung and one isn't.

Mcnumpty2323 · 21 Jul 2026 at 17:03

D1craig said:
I've got 3 sata SSDs still in use and not had any issue with them. I think they must be atleast 10 years old. Ill have to do a health check on them.

How do i do the health check on them?2 are Samsung and one isn't.

Samsung magician or crystal disk info
there's others too
but one of those will work fine on Samsung
the other on the other drive
or crystal disk info on all 3