(OT) Questions About SSDs for a Laptop

[Stephen Partington]

The main thing that i do for SSD's is remove Swap/Pagefile upping my system
memory to give me wiggle room. (8+) and make sure that trim is active.


On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 7:42 AM, Mark Phillips <mark at phillipsmarketing.biz>
wrote:

> Ed,
>
> There are a lot of optimization articles out there. The more current ones
> say to ignore the older ones and just use trim. All the older optimization
> suggestions seem to have been incorporated into the drives in some way,
> according to the authors. I can't find the article that made these
> pronouncements, so ymmv.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Ed <plug at 0x1b.com> wrote:
>
>> Some additional interesting links:
>> https://wiki.debian.org/SSDOptimization
>> https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Jon Kettenhofen <subs at kexsof.com> wrote:
>> > IMO, get the SSD but also install the hard drive, if the laptop allows
>> it
>> > (otherwise try iCloud? :-) ), that will act as a backup.  Separately,
>> > neither may be more reliable than the other but you will be safer.
>> > And faster.
>> > So back up frequently.
>> >
>> > For even faster *desktop* performance, shell out the big bucks for a
>> PCI-E
>> > board mounted SSD.  At 16x, PCI-E is reputed to handle more bandwidth
>> than
>> > SATA or SCSI.  I've seen Windows XP boot (completely) in 10 seconds with
>> > instant access to just about everything except the internet (which
>> varies
>> > with ISP connection . . . )
>> >
>> > Smaller PCI-E drives (256GB) are now available for a reasonable price,
>> that
>> > being around $1/GB, but the fastest - OZC Revo - are still pricey.
>> >
>> > Not to be a wet blanket, but nearly all drives fail.
>> > After I read the descriptions of the engineering used to give storage
>> drives
>> > more room (i.e. more gigabytes and terrabytes) my faith was a little
>> shaken.
>> > An article in Tom's Hardware hit home (2011) but still holds some
>> credence
>> > and that is that if you look at the reviews of SSD's at newegg dot com,
>> then
>> > you will realize that perhaps no storage technology is perfect.  More
>> to the
>> > point, YMMV.  Although sellers do their best to weed out fake reviews,
>> some
>> > of them do make it through and the purpose of those fake reviews can be
>> > either to support or disprespect the product or manufacturer.
>> >
>> > Recently,
>> > Some publications have revealed that many brands of SSDs will fail if
>> the
>> > power is abruptly removed, as in a plug or battery removal while the
>> > unit is running, or the computer has a catastrophic failure like a fatal
>> > motherboard burnout.   The story is that so far only certain Intel
>> SSD's can
>> > consistently survive this scenario.
>> >
>> > Nevermind.
>> > Most of us will probably never see that happen.  Storage technology is
>> > complicated with much error-correction circuitry in place and in
>> constant
>> > use.  To see an example, check the output of the SMART technology built
>> into
>> > any of your drives that are directly connected to your IDE/ATA and SATA
>> > (whatever you have) busses.  There is/are some good apps in Linux to
>> show
>> > you this. The bottom line is that every disk access is checked and
>> > error-corrected because (read and write) errors happen all the time.
>> They
>> > just usually get fixed in the process.
>> >
>> > Some interesting, if perhaps scary, links:
>> >
>> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/173887-ssd-stress-testing-finds-intel-might-be-the-only-reliable-drive-manufacturer
>> > (Jan. 3, 2014)
>> > http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review/3 (Mar. 2,
>> 2011)
>> >
>> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923.html
>> > (July 28, 2011)
>> >
>> > Insight into manufacturing technology:
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 09/02/2014 01:23 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I am looking at a new Linux laptop, and I have the option of a mSata
>> SSD
>> >> drive or a conventional drive. I am considering a 1 TB Samsung 840 EVO
>> >> mSata SSD for the OS and all my partitions.
>> >>
>> >> 1. Are there any reasons not to use a SSD for the full disk, as opposed
>> >> to just for the OS? Other than saving money, as a small SSD would cost
>> a
>> >> lot less!
>> >>
>> >> 2. I have seen recommendations on the net to backup the drive to a
>> >> spinning drive. The laptop has a couple of bays, so I could put a back
>> >> up drive in one of the bays. Does this make sense, or have SSDs matured
>> >> enough that they will last like a spinning drive?
>> >>
>> >> 3. Anything else I should be aware of when moving to the world of SSDs?
>> >>
>> >> Thanks,
>> >>
>> >> Mark
>> >>
>> >>
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-- 
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen
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