If you've ever felt that your once-snappy SSD was suspiciously slow after years of use, you might be on to something. Although SSDs don't have moving parts that can age with time, other factors can contribute to sluggish performance. Due to the way SSDs store data in NAND cells, their performance can degrade over time if you don't bother with drive upkeep. Outdated firmware and insufficient cooling can also prevent your SSD from maintaining peak performance. It's worth checking your SSD and system for the following signs before you start thinking about replacing the drive altogether.

Outdated firmware

It matters more than you think

Users who might never have updated their SSD firmware might be surprised to know that it can make a real difference to their drive's performance. SSD manufacturers don't release firmware updates that often, so it's easy to forget about this SSD maintenance job. However, it's important to search for firmware updates using your SSD software whenever you install a new drive or experience performance or compatibility errors. Most firmware updates address critical flaws and optimize key SSD functions like TRIM and wear leveling, which can impact performance.

The effects of outdated firmware might not be readily apparent, but it could be contributing to subpar maintenance, negatively affecting your SSD's remaining lifespan. Updating your SSD firmware takes a few seconds, so it's not a hassle at all, considering it ensures peak performance and lifespan for your drive.

Thermal throttling due to dust buildup

Cleaning your PC has many benefits

Thermal throttling isn't limited to high-end Gen5 SSDs. It can even affect your Gen4 drive if your PC isn't supplying enough fresh air over the respective M.2 slot. You might have installed enough case fans in the right configuration, but over time, dust buildup can clog your intake fans, hampering their ability to effectively cool the PC. Regularly cleaning the tower can seem like a daunting task, which is why many people keep procrastinating. Without cool air keeping the SSD temperature down, the drive will throttle speeds during heavy loads, crippling the performance while you blame unrelated factors. You can check your SSD temperature using HWiNFO to confirm whether your drive is indeed thermal throttling. If the temps are dangerously close to 70℃, your SSD could be operating at reduced speeds.

Depleted SLC cache

It can cause write speeds to plummet

Consumer-grade SSDs rarely use high-speed SLC NAND, relying on TLC and QLC NAND instead to keep costs down. To reach the advertised write speeds, they reserve a small area of the drive as a pseudo SLC (pSLC) cache, which behaves like SLC NAND. During heavy write loads, this SLC cache allows the drive to write data at the blazing-fast speeds you expect from a modern SSD. However, when this high-speed buffer gets depleted, the write speeds drop significantly as the SSD starts writing to the relatively slower TLC or QLC NAND.

This SLC cache depletion becomes more of a problem over time, as the space available to be used as the SLC cache gets reduced. Nearly full SSDs with a dynamic SLC cache struggle for unused space to be used as a high-speed buffer. The effects of pSLC cache depletion can be amplified with time, making your SSD performance suffer.

Lack of breathing room

You might be choking your SSD

I touched upon the negative impact of a nearly full drive in the previous section, but it goes beyond SLC cache depletion. SSDs use "garbage collection" to erase partially filled cells to make space for new data and ensure even wear across the NAND cells. This process takes a hit when your SSD doesn't have enough free space. Garbage collection isn't able to work efficiently during idle times and is forced to occur during drive writes, which massively slows down write speeds. When you're writing new data to the drive, the "read-modify-erase" is harder on the SSD, since it has fewer empty cells to write the incoming data. It needs to perform many more write operations to empty occupied cells, which leads to write amplification.

This is why you'll often hear people recommend keeping 10-20% of your SSD space unused, so that garbage collection can reorganize data during idle times. SSDs with a DRAM cache are much better than DRAM-less drives at garbage collection, since the dedicated DRAM chip keeps track of the mapping tables on the drive, informing the SSD controller about empty and occupied cells.

SSDs can get slower as they age, but it's not always a permanent phenomenon

Your SSD doesn't have to be slower simply because it's old. You can ensure optimum performance by confirming that all the SSD maintenance functions are running efficiently, and the firmware is updated. You should also keep your PC dust-free to effectively cool your drive, and try to avoid filling it to the brim. These practices will allow your SSD to maintain maximum write speeds even after years of usage.