Quote Originally Posted by Computurd View Post
First: they arent testing the drive correctly. the key parameter here is retention of data for a long period of time. not sure how well this device is retaining data at this point. so the test is a fun test, but not accurate.

Second: You must understand that the endurance numbers for Intel SSDs are extreme worst case scenarios. they bake the freaking drive for gods sake, then test retention. as i keep saying over and over, extreme worst case scenario.
There is no "correct" way to test a drive. It depends on what you are testing. I think it is reasonable to test by writing to the drive until it starts giving write errors. At that point, it would also be interesting to test whether all the data can be read back, and to let it sit for a while and test again. But just testing how much you can write is a reasonable test.

As for baking the drives, I think you misunderstand the test. They bake the drives to do accelerated lifetime testing. The basic idea is that you come up with a formula that says, say, 400 hours at 85C is equivalent to 30,000 hours at room temperature. That is how they can spec values at 5 years when the prototype is only a few months old. It does NOT mean that Intel is saying that the parts can work for 5 years at the elevated temperature.