SSD Drives Outlast Their Warranty Limits

A 16-year-old SSD has survived 25 times its rated TBW—terabytes written—capacity while still working. This reveals a common misconception: exhausting TBW does not cause failure. Manufacturers set conservative TBW ratings mainly to limit warranty claims. NAND flash degrades gradually; when a drive becomes unreliable depends on metrics like error rates and reallocated sectors, not on hitting a warranty boundary.