Take the case that we buy a new computer, either mounted by ourselves or a laptop that comes with its operating system. The first thing we will do is install the operating system (Windows, for example) in case it does not come installed, configure it to our liking and install all the programs that we will need. And if all goes well, we will not have to touch the operating system again in months, and even in years. However, what if for some reason I have to format the PC and install Windows again? What if I have to format it and reinstall the operating system very often?
Surely nobody will format your computer and install Windows from scratch several times a day . Not several times a month. Unless we have a computer that we dedicate exclusively to do all kinds of tests. And if we are obliged to have to format so much, it is that something is wrong, either at the hardware or software level.
Install Windows many times on a mechanical hard drive: problems
Install Windows on a normal hard drive, the only thing that will cause us is a waste of time . We will have to dedicate (depending on the hardware) about an hour to install the operating system and leave it ready. Conventional hard drives are much slower than SSDs.
However, in exchange for speed, its lifespan is much larger. No one has ever worried about the times he writes and erases data from a normal hard drive. These discs degrade by time and by other factors, usually mechanical. But never for installing Windows , no matter how many times a day we do it.
The heads and readers of normal hard drives never have contact with the disk as such (it’s all magnetic). It is not the same as, for example, a vinyl. Hard drives are not damaged by use.
Problems in an SSD when installing Windows very often
With the arrival of the SSD things have changed. We have achieved read and write speeds up to 30 times higher than those of conventional hard drives. However, we have sacrificed something very important for this: the useful life.
As we use an SSD, it adds reading and writing cycles. After a certain number of cycles, the SSD will start to fail, and it will be when the “read-only” mode is activated. This mode will help us copy our data to another unit, but we can no longer use the SSD again. An important security measure, but destructive.
Today the life cycles of SSDs have changed a lot. They have nothing to do with the life cycles of 10 years ago. For example, one of the worst SSDs we can find in the market is the Intel 660p QLC. This has a lifespan of 200TBW .
With this lifespan, if we write an average of 2 TB of data per year (about 100 installations of Windows 10), we can be talking about a lifespan of more than 100 years . In addition, SSDs do not always write in the same cells, but these are distributed throughout the unit. The higher the SSD, the greater its life cycle.
The same normal use of a computer (surfing the Internet, installing programs, playing games, etc.) will generate read and write cycles on the disk. But what has been said, there is nothing to worry about.
What other problems can appear by installing Windows very often?
It has become clear that we are not going to break our hard drive, nor our SSD, by installing Windows very often. Although if we do it 5 times a day, or more, the life of the SSD may be significantly shortened. And even then, we will have SSD for several years.
No component is going to break down by installing Windows very often. The RAM, the processor, the graphics, and even the hard drives, do not care if you install Windows, browse the Internet or generate an AI. If it breaks it will be because the time has come (wear, programmed obsolescence, etc.), but not by installing Windows.
Where we can find a problem is when activating the license of Windows, or other programs. Each installation has its own ID, and therefore, in the eyes of the server it looks like a different computer. This may, for example, cause Microsoft to consider fraudulent use of the Windows license and cancel it. And even if we call by phone, let’s see how we explain to the technician that we have formatted the PC 5 times a day for the last 6 months.
The same can happen with any other license. So many different activations in such a short period of time is not good.
But at the hardware level, even with the worst SSD we can buy today, we are going to have problems.