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There are several editors out there that save your file each second. I wouldn't use this function normally, mostly because my editors keeps track of the history on each save and I tend to use it fairly often to go back in time quickly and saving each second would make this is a real pain.

BUT because of a bug, sometimes my computer freezes without any notice and I would like to use this feature until I've sorted out the problem.

Now my question is, is it harmful for my SSD drive to make so many writes?

From what I know the best way to ensure an SSD will live long is to store data on it you need to access fast but to not use it for files that change constantly (like each key stroke).

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3 Answers 3

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Wear on flash cell write operations was a concern in the beginning but SSD technology has since evolved to a point where i would consider this a non issue.

TechReport did a (not-quite-representative) endurance test a while ago and it took ridiculous amounts of data written before the SSD's caved in. As Hennes already pointed out on average you'll see a drive failure within a few decades.

Having said that, relying on auto saves still leaves you with a single point of failure. In other words use a backup - even if it's just some form of online storage. Future you will be grateful ;)

1 http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

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  • Backups are a very good point. It prevent the 'whoops, I deleted the wrong paragraph' scenario which is bad in combination with saving every second.
    – Hennes
    Aug 26, 2016 at 12:07
  • My system copies my projects folder to another drive on shutdown signal and I use Git to upload each time I have finished a components code. At the moment of asking this question I had written like 50 lines of code, was finishing up and then the system froze up so I lost the 50 lines (should've saved sooner anyways) without the posibility of retrieving it from a backup. But you did answer my question, ty. Aug 26, 2016 at 12:25
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Yes, it is harmful. The big question is how harmful.

For a mechnical drive it means more wear and tear.
For a SSD it means more writes which will wear the flash cells. You'll probably have a drive failure within a few decades. (assuming you have not replaced the whole PC by then).

Also note that the application saving each second does not mean it gets written to disk at that instant. Each modern OS uses disk caching and the actual write to disk can happen much later. And once it is 'on the disk' it might not even hit the platters but instead have a delay in the drive's cache.

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Yes, it is harmful to your SSD. If you have a regular harddrive in your pc too, and you know where this file stores these savefiles, you can use a symbolic link to store the file on your other harddrive.

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