IEVS: UPDATE: Tesla Cars Have A Memory Problem That May Cost You A Lot To Repair

[goldbrick]

^that's possible but it's also possible that in Tesla's early days, the staff was thin and whoever did the design just didn't think about the problem of wearing out a flash. Or it could have been a schedule crunch or a million other things but as an EE in the storage biz, it was a pure rookie mistake. The fact that flash wears out with repeated writes has been a well known fact since flash began to be used in computing systems. Flash designers hide a lot of complexity under the covers to mitigate this but even so, any hardware designer should have known this, even back then.

[Nubo]

This is why SSD drives have yet to replace traditional hard disk drives in most computers: they trade speed for a relatively short "write-span."

They're not that short. Good SSDs have many dies and the writes can be spread out across them. Also, if you don't completely fill the drive and leave some room as buffer, that can help.

The Intel X25-M G2 160 gig SSD (as my boot and programs drive) I got in mid-2010 and that was on my main PC, an old Intel i7-860 based PC still works fine. It's not close to worn out. I just checked and Intel's tool said only a bit over 30 TB has been written to it. Media wearout indicator SMART stat is at 92. Sector re-allocated count is at 9. This has grown a bit over the years. Their tool has a graph "estimated life remaining". I'd guesstimate it's somewhere past 90%.

The above drive is MLC. https://www.anandtech.com/show/2808/2 has some pics inside.

I've switched over to a newer PC I built in mid-2018 w/a different SSD (Samsung 960 Evo 500 GIG). 8.9 TB has been written to it so far. Per https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/m ... er/960evo/, they warrant it for 3 years or 200 TBW. Per https://www.anandtech.com/show/10833/th ... 1tb-review, it's TLC. This PC will likely be retired before the drive hits 200 TB of writes.

Some folks have done insane torture tests on SSD to see when they'd die. Quality ones can last quite awhile.
https://techreport.com/review/27909/the ... -all-dead/ - last 2 drives died after 2.5 PB of writes
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/endur ... rites.html - best one died at 9100 TB of writes (9.1 PB)

That said, TLC and QLC drives have less endurance than MLC and SLC. SLC is too expensive for consumer applications. See example ratings for these QLCs guys: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13078/th ... nd-arrives. https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/ ... flash.html has a table of SLC to TLC.

Some machines cannot be had with hard drives any longer. Apple no longer sells a single laptop with a hard drive. That ended at least a few years ago.

At my job we replaced some of the most I/O critical disks with SSD. There was some fear from folks about the wear issue but after a few months the real-world performance confirmed the specs were legit -- the "wear out" point was not only far beyond any MTBF for a hard drive, but exceeded any reasonable expectation for the platform's end-of-life.

[cwerdna]

^^^
Yeah, there are some SSDs that were just garbage that wouldn't bother with (e.g. OCZ before they went bankrupt). And, there are tons of other off-brand SSDs that I wouldn't waste time with. I doubt they have the expertise, know how and validation expertise vs. larger companies that are experts in the field, esp. if they make their own flash memory.

Re: Leftie's earlier remark of using an SSD in a TiVo, that's definitely a bad idea unless one wants to wear out an SSD quickly and waste $. A TiVo w/o power saving mode on (an addition to more recent TiVos) is always recording and always playing back. My TiVo Bolt+ buffers 6 channels at the same time.

[LeftieBiker]

Re: Leftie's earlier remark of using an SSD in a TiVo, that's definitely a bad idea unless one wants to wear out an SSD quickly and waste $. A TiVo w/o power saving mode on (an addition to more recent TiVos) is always recording and always playing back. My TiVo Bolt+ buffers 6 channels at the same time.

No. NOT A tivo - an antenna box. Just to use for occasional live TV recording. "TiVo" was in quotes because I wanted the same effect of pausing and rewinding live TV. I only use the TV in my bedroom occasionally, for short periods. The antenna box also doesn't, AFAIK, record anything other than the broadcast signal, and only when told to do so.

[SageBrush]

Since no one here is bothering to actually find out the facts instead of Tesla revenge masturbating, I'll do some spoon feeding:

The flash in question is not used for car operations, it logs the Linux OS. I have no idea how logging has changed over the past 5 years in terms of quantity and control. From Phil's comments I think it true that flash failures are way less common that availability of circuit boards from totaled cars so this question boils down to how easy it is to swap out the board and have functionality return.

As for newer cars, Tesla increased the flash size.

[Nubo]

Since no one here is bothering to actually find out the facts instead of Tesla revenge masturbating, I'll do some spoon feeding:

The flash in question is not used for car operations, it logs the Linux OS.

That contradicts what the techs in the article were saying, but nevertheless when the car fails it doesn't really matter. If it is indeed on a separate flash, then when logging fails the car should continue on in failsafe mode. So we return again to poor design. I don't have any feelings of revenge towards Tesla but I do hate bad design that soaks customers for expensive repairs, whether it's Tesla or Chevrolet, or Nissan.

[lorenfb]

Since no one here is bothering to actually find out the facts instead of Tesla revenge masturbating, I'll do some spoon feeding:

The flash in question is not used for car operations, it logs the Linux OS.

That contradicts what the techs in the article were saying, but nevertheless when the car fails it doesn't really matter. If it is indeed on a separate flash, then when logging fails the car should continue on in failsafe mode. So we return again to poor design. I don't have any feelings of revenge towards Tesla but I do hate bad design that soaks customers for expensive repairs, whether it's Tesla or Chevrolet, or Nissan.

Yes, some typically fail to read all the info in an article. If one has contrary info, then provide it with a link and not one's wishful thinking.

[LeftieBiker]

How about editing the post to remove the masturbation reference, Sagebrush?