SSDs contain memory cells organized into pages and blocks. Manufacturers address this issue with so-called wear leveling, which prevents SSD memory cells (the pages) from wearing out. Writing to an SSD is like writing on a piece of paper with a pencil: if you erase the same space too many times, it can wear out. There is one thing to note, though, and that is that there are a limited number of P/E cycles an SSD can support. Writing to an SSD is totally different than writing to a traditional hard drive: the SSD first clears existing information from the flash memory cells and programs new data into them hence, the writing process is often referred as program/erase cycles or P/E cycles. There is one tiny command line you must type into Terminal to enable a feature meant to expand the lifespan of the newly installed drive this feature is called TRIM. However, you shouldn’t stop at installing a new SSD. You’ll notice the huge performance improvement right from the first time you boot up and immediately praise yourself for making this investment.
The best way to expand your Mac’s lifespan and obtain a significant speed boost is by replacing the hard drive with a solid state drive (SSD).
