SSD endurance ratings (TBW and DWPD) determine how long a drive lasts under write-heavy workloads. Choosing the wrong endurance tier can lead to premature drive failure.
Endurance Tiers
| Tier | DWPD | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Read Intensive (RI) | 1 DWPD | Read-heavy: web, CDN, analytics |
| Mixed Use (MU) | 3 DWPD | General: VMs, databases, email |
| Write Intensive (WI) | 10+ DWPD | Write-heavy: logging, caching, OLTP |
DWPD = Drive Writes Per Day over warranty period. TBW = Total Bytes Written over warranty.