Why Do Ssd Sectors Have A Limited Number Of Writes

Many of us have all heard the same thing, that SSDs have a limited number of writes before they go bad. Why is that? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

The Question

SuperUser reader Nzall wants to know why SSD sectors have a limited number of writes:

Why do SSD sectors have a limited number of writes?

I am looking for a technical yet consumer-oriented explanation, i.e. the exact component that fails and why frequent writes affect the quality of that component, but explained in such a way that it does not require an extreme amount of knowledge about SSDs.

The Answer

SuperUser contributors Big Chris and MonkeyZeus have the answer for us. First up, Big Chris:

Followed by the answer from MonkeyZeus:

Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

Image Credit: Yun Huang Yong (Flickr)