How many times can you write to the Arduino EEPROM without killing it?

These are the results from my month long experiment.

My Code:

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Thanks to these creators for the free animations

[CallousCoder]

Seriously I’m watching this whilst on the loo!

[nccyr]

Thank you!!! I won't feel as bad (and concerned about killing the EEPROM) now when I write a new sketch because I had a stupid bug in my code ;)

[anispinner]

Awesome test! One thing to consider that the devices were constantly powered.
But the cells usually go instable when they are disconnected from a power source for too long so in case we were doing 100k cycles and let it sit for a couple of days before doing another 100k cycles results might differ.

[codebeat]

Nice experiment. You must write 0xFF to flip all bits (cells) of a byte. Also, you must be sure the code or ATMega internally doesn't take smart actions or use a buffer to write to the cells. Better write the code in assembly to write to the cells directly and not by using a library.

[ernstlemm]

I did a similar test. It apears that eeproms tend to 'remember' the data not as long as specified, usually 10..20 years minimum. The test is checking the eeprom very short after the write. It will detect malfunction much too late.

[MrJozza]

It always concerned me that Eeprom writes were limited. However, I figure that if I saved my WLED settings 5 times I day, I should get about 1095 years use from it. That'll do 🙂

[yassinechih]

This it's what's YouTube should be used for.
RESPECT 🙏

[XanCraft]

Thank you for this short test. I knew the EEPROM chips would never write again after you go past the limit. I always thought they would still have infinite times for reading the values, but I didn’t think it would stop working all together let alone fry the processor at the same time.

[CV]

A well done scientific process: hypothesis, experiment, conclusion. In less than 3'. Bravo!

[E]

This is a really good video! I wish it was longer but I don't think it needed to be. It answered the question as short as possible while still being comprehensive. I want to see more videos like this!

[skellious]

Good to know this isn't something I have to worry about in regular use.

[joelcordier]

Cool idea. Nice results. I also see you're an expert in low temp soldering 😎

[robertmonroe]

You should write 0x55 and 0xAA for testing the memory

[Firefoxgaming]

You earned my subscription. Im interested to see what tests and videos you release in the future.

[stevemorse]

Congratulations AnotherMaker, a BIG thumbs up.
This is the first YouTube video I have ever watched were the author (you) has responded to every comment.
Thank you.

[ortega_computacion]

I have been thinking about this since 1993, never got to do it because a fatal case of procrastination, haha, loving you.

[MorRobots]

I would change the baud rate on your sketch, it will speed up the test. Also the 1Mill stat sounds correct given you hit 2.5 mill in your test, it tracks with typical probability density and how you would rate the reliability. If you were building a high reliability solution, you would not want to push it past 100k since that puts you well into a couple of 9's on reliability.

[epiendless]

Nice idea to check this.
A while back I checked out Microchip's app note for their EEPROM chips. Turns out:
1. Quoted life was at worst case temperature and voltage. With nominal voltage and room temperature, life was longer.
2. Failure rate is a S curve. Only a handful fail at the rated lifetime. Most chips last longer but then all start to fail together. A handful keep hanging on.
3. On the chip in question, you could burst-write several bytes, and that only counted as one write.

[prototypecrysis]

I've actually wondered about this for years, but never thought to sacrifice a cheap board to test it out! Cool vid, thanks for sharing!

[brado]

Thank you... That was super interesting and relevant to a project I'm working on right now.