PS4 SSD Upgrade

[Kosmos992k]

Isn't the life expectency less and issues greater on hybrid drives for failure?

Technically yes, practically no.

Technically the SSD flash RAM used has a rated number of write cycles before it may fail. So, technically, you could create a failure condition by specifically rewriting a spot on the SSD sufficient times for it to actually fail. However, the number of cycles is generally very conservative, so generally the cells last much longer than rated. Also, the write cycle issue is well known to SSD makers so they use software in the drive to spread the load across the drive to minimize the number of times any given part of the SSD is written to. The more expensive the drive, the better the FLASH RAM used, and the better the firmware is at evening out the wear and tear on the memory cells.

I read some reviews recently tha addressed this topic and it seemed that the wear leveling in consumer SSDs is quite well done, and the quality of the actual memory is not terrible, so SSDs are no more prone to drive failure than a standard HDD.

One last thing. As far as I am aware, even if cells in the SSD start to fail after a long life, the use of error correction protocols and the wear leveling mechanism allows the drive to detect and avoid failed memory. So the drive continues to operate, but eventually it may reduce in performance/capacity.

This article from Toms Hardware should help you.

The key 'take away' is that for consumer use, the estimated time to failure based on wear and tear is measured between 18.7 and 62.6 years of use. And that was calculated on very conservative write cycle ratings, small drive sizes 80GB-160GB and 10GB of writes to the drive per day. Larger drives with better memory cells will last even longer. The upshot I got from this is that the drive is more likely to fail due to physical deterioration of components in the potential 2+ decades of life the drive will have, than it is due to memory cells wearing out.

Here is a link at Amazon for SSDs from 320GB to 999GB capacity, priced anything up to $200 ranked 4 stars and above by users. Definitely some nice devices for not bad money.