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SSD Total Bytes Written (TBW) Calculator

Solid-State-Drives are getting more and more common. A problem that comes with SSDs is their limited cell lifetime. Depending on their manufacturing technique, each cell can be overwritten from 1.000 times in consumer TLC SSDs to up to 100.000 times in enterprise SLC based SSDs.

The value to keep an eye on is the guaranteed TBW (Total Bytes Written or Terabytes Written) which is typically provided by the vendor in their specifications. This value describes how many Terabytes can be written to the device until the warranty expires. The TBW value can be readout with S.M.A.R.T. in the Total_LBAs_Written field. The value is in LBAs which has to be multiplied with the sector size:

On common Linux Systems you can determine "Total LBAs Written" and "Sector Size" with smartctl:

~# smartctl /dev/ada0 --all |grep "Sector Size"
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
~# smartctl /dev/ada0 --all | grep Total_LBAs_Written
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 25351376107

Smartctl is not available on ESXi hosts by default, but the Linux compatible precompiled versions should work with ESXi (use the latest x86_64 build). Just copy it to your ESXi host, make it executable and run it as explained here.

19 thoughts on “SSD Total Bytes Written (TBW) Calculator”

    1. bro, thank you so much for this information, becasue I couldn't read TBW of my Intel since they removed ntel SSD Toolbox and gave same sh*t instand

  1. Hi. I have a question. The information for Kingston A400 says that "Total_LBAs_Written means Lifetime write from host (each GB)" Do I have to read the information as GB or the result from the calculator. Thanks.

  2. Thank you for all the information. If smartctl reports a different logical and physical sector size, which is the correct one to use ?
    Thanks

  3. I'm confused why is total lBA writes lower shouldn't they be higher then host writes because of Garbage collection and wear leveling moving data to different pages/blocks

    dont understand how can Gb be same if TB is different

    Total LBAs Written 40822937188
    site total LBA written

    Total Bytes Written (GB)
    19466 GB
    Total Bytes Written (TB)
    19.01 TB

    crystal disk host writes

    19466 GB
    190.10TB

  4. FWIW, the "Total LBAs written" for a Sandisk Ultra 3d SSD (aka WD Blue SSD) is actually the pre-calculated GB written number.

    This can be confirmed in Linux by running smartctl /dev/sda -l devstat, and plugging in the 'Logical Sectors Written' number into the above calculator under Total LBAs written and comparing the 'GB written' to the Total_LBAs_Written value you see after running smartctl /dev/sda --all. i.e. They should be the same.

  5. ok let ask example tbw 1024 terabytes, real experience using computer watching youtube 3 times a day or download movies 2 times a day, excel solving 8 hours a day, look lifespan was 2 years exactly, SSD drive is the most corrupted device ever made

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