{
  "slug": "ssd-steady-state",
  "term": "SSD steady state",
  "aliases": [
    "steady-state SSD performance"
  ],
  "definition": "A workload-specific SSD performance condition in which a named metric satisfies stated stability criteria over a defined measurement window.",
  "note": "A passing window is conditional on workload and preparation, not a permanent property of the drive. Hesela's counterexamples separate low drift from low variation and show why a stable early plateau cannot guarantee later performance.",
  "related": [
    "ssd-preconditioning",
    "active-lba-range",
    "garbage-collection",
    "slc-cache"
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Does not establish durability, minimum speed or tail latency",
    "A fixed warm-up time alone is not a convergence test"
  ],
  "citations": [
    {
      "id": "snia",
      "title": "SNIA. Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification, version 2.0.2 (1 October 2020), definitions 2.1.1, 2.1.3, 2.1.6, 2.1.13, 2.1.18 and 2.1.24.",
      "url": "https://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/2025-02/SNIA-SSS-PTS-2.0.2.pdf",
      "accessed": "2026-10-11"
    },
    {
      "id": "mqsim",
      "title": "Arash Tavakkol, Juan Gomez-Luna, Mohammad Sadrosadati, Saugata Ghose and Onur Mutlu. MQSim: A Framework for Enabling Realistic Studies of Modern Multi-Queue SSD Devices. FAST 2018, pp. 49-66; sections 3.2, 4.4, 5 and Appendix A.",
      "url": "https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/fast18/fast18-tavakkol.pdf",
      "accessed": "2026-10-11"
    },
    {
      "id": "hesela-windows",
      "title": "Hesela: SSD steady state is not a timer; original numerical examples and limits",
      "url": "https://hesela.com/analyses/ssd-steady-state-is-not-a-timer/",
      "accessed": "2026-10-11"
    }
  ],
  "status": "shipping",
  "advantages": [],
  "supersedes": [],
  "supersededBy": [],
  "firstSeen": null,
  "lastSeen": null,
  "updated": "2026-10-12"
}