NOTE:
I have also written a blog about how to install Linux Mint on a new SSD in a desktop PC which has a second HDD:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d-drive-36892/


After carrying out plenty of research, I recently bought my first SSD, a Samsung 850 and I can thoroughly recommend it. It will transform your sluggish computer into a speed demon.

Everything is speeded up dramatically with greatly reduced boot times, software access times etc (e.g. LibreOffice Writer no longer dithers......bang, it's right there). As somebody said, SSDs will alter your perception of responsiveness.

The 850's forerunner (840 PRO) was the last SSD standing in this endurance test:
http://techreport.com/review/27909/t...heyre-all-dead

I looked at customer feedback from Newegg and Amazon etc for SSDs from Crucial, OCZ, Kingston and others.

I also noticed that the SoYouStart game servers use Samsung SSDs:
https://www.soyoustart.com/en/game-servers/

Current prices in the UK for the 120GB and 250GB 850s are:

120GB EVO/Pro: (50 or 69)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-2-5-...=120gb+850+evo

250GB EVO/Pro: (66 or 97)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-inch.../dp/B00P736UEU

500GB EVO/Pro (125 or 165)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-inch.../dp/B00P736UEU

The EVO versions have a 5 year Samsung warranty and the Pro versions have 10 years.

Both versions use Samsung's 3D-VNAND flash memory architecture:
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine.../overview.html

I could have saved some money by buying the 120GB EVO version, but I rather liked the idea of the 10 year warranty. On reflection, it is probably unnecessary.
If you need more space then the 250GB EVO may be a good choice and better value for money.

500GB, 1TB and 2TB versions are available for those with deeper pockets.

6 SSDs to consider:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-cent...views-3235200/

NB Do bear in mind that cheaper, smaller capacity versions of the these featured drives are also available.

***TIP****

If, like me, you have a lot of data and a suitable conventional hard drive (HDD), then I recommend that you just buy the smallest, good-quality SSD you can find. 30GB or 60GB is more than plenty to accommodate a Linux distro.

1. Use the HDD for data storage and create new folders there for Documents, Pictures, Music, Downloads etc.

2. Next, delete the corresponding, existing folders in the home directory on the SSD (leaving Desktop untouched).

3. Then make symlinks from the newly-created folders to the home directory SSD.


SSD development is proceeding at a tremendous rate and many of the recommendations made just 3 or 4 years ago for improving the longevity of SSDs are no longer relevant.

General points with the latest SSDs:

Use gparted, or similar, to partition:
1. the SSD (sda) with root (ext4), swap and /home (ext4). There is no need to leave part of the drive unallocated.
2. the whole of the HDD (sdb) with ext 4.

Do a fresh installation of your favourite distro onto the SSD.
There is no need to move /var, /tmp and others to the HDD.

As of Ubuntu 14.04, scheduled TRIM is enabled by default for Intel, Samsung, OCZ, Patriot and Sandisk SSDs, so there is no need to use discard.

NB For some Linux distros and other SSD manufacturers it may be necessary to manually run fstrim occasionally (see blog for more details).


Add noatime to /etc/fstab.

Change swappiness to 1.

Add elevator=deadline to grub.


SATA 2 & SATA 3:

SATA 2 ports/cables are rated at 3 Gbps and SATA 3 are rated at 6 Gbps.

Don't worry if your motherboard only has SATA 2 ports, or you have lost the SATA 3 cables for your SATA 3 port mobo, because the SSD is so fast, you will hardly notice.
SATA 3 cables are cheap in any event.

Naturally, BACKUP all personal data before proceeding with a change of drive!

Hi beachboy2...

Thank you for your sharing this with us, I didn't know that SSD's made such a difference in system speed and responsiveness.

Regards...

Hi there ardvark71,

I cannot begin to tell you how quick this drive is.

Just look at the feedback on Amazon etc. I believe "gobsmacked" is the word used by several.

In many cases it is more performance/cost effective (bang per buck) than adding a faster cpu or more RAM.

It's really amazing and dramatic. Even Windows boots very fast now. I have SSDs in both my laptops. You do have to manually run fstrim in Linux occasionally though...

Hi guys...

At some point down the road, Lord willing, I'll have to give one of these a try.

Regards...

NGIB,

Thanks for that. I have modified my OP.

ardvark71,

You won't regret it.

The only place an SSD can make a big difference is in disk I/O bound operations. The normal spinning hard drive is the biggest bottleneck here and the SSD will give dramatic improvement. However, once an application loads from disk to ram, the SSD improvement is over. System ram is an order of magnitude faster than SSD I/O. The net effect here is that boot times and initial application load from disk are dramatically improved by an SSD. That gives the system a much greater responsive feel.

Because spinning hard drives are slow, linux and all other modern operating systems cache disk reads to the much faster ram. That's why firefox loads slowly on the first use after boot and opens much faster thereafter; the first time it's loading from disk on the second time it loads from ram were the initial disk reads were cached. The cached disk reads will stay in ram until the system needs to use the ram for some other purpose. With modern hardware configurations with 8GB to 16GB of ram, the cached disk reads reside in ram for long periods of time. Once your reading and loading cached disk reads from ram, the performance differences between SSD and standard HDD disappear; they're just no longer in the picture since you're reading from ram instead of disk. The net effect is that after running for a while so that initial load times differentials are no longer a factor, if you timed various operations like load times and other application performance criteria, you won't see much difference between an SSD and an HDD.

All that being said, I've noticed that slow initial load times and slow boot times seem to have a big effect on how responsive you perceive the system to be. This is so even though the differences tend to disappear after running the system for a while. I guess it's just part of human psychology.

2 members found this post helpful.

kilgoretrout,

Thanks for that. You are probably correct.

I have also written a blog about how to install Linux Mint on a new SSD in a desktop PC which has a second HDD:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d-drive-36892/

Just to add:


6 SSDs to consider:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-cent...views-3235200/

NB Do bear in mind that cheaper, smaller capacity versions of the these featured drives are also available.

I have the Samsung EVO 250 Pro on my home computer running Debian Jessie. For home use, I'll never do a spinning HDD for the OS again. SSD is the way to go. Opening applications, opening files, rebooting, everything is so much faster than on my old Western Digital 1TB Black. Still using the WD, but its a seconday drive in my machine for audio/video storage.

Just a note that I'd try to avoid swap on the ssd if possible. Just my opinion.

erik2282,

That is a good combo. I am doing a similar installation in a desktop PC for a non-techie friend tomorrow.

SSD is definitely the way to go.