Following a recent problem with my OS HDD (Solved) I have decided to try an SSD

Yesterday I purchased a 64GB Sandisk Sata III SSD and a 1TB WD RED (designed for NAS)

I've done some googling and background reading and the main issue appears to be longevity and therefore you must minimise as much as possible the "write" actions to the SSD.

I intend to mount both the SSD and the RED in a networked workstation (NOT in my NAS box.)

OS (Ubuntu 12.04) on SSD and local storage on RED.

Can anyone point me to any other good tutorials, HOWTOs or websites to help me on my next journey.

This one https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd seems to be the best so far, but I'm sure that there MUST be others.

I haven't used SSD's before, but I've done some optimization for flash memory (i.e. usb keys and mmc's). Basically what you'd have to do is set the proper mount options for your drive. As a minimum the "noatime" and "discard" parameters should be added in fstab. There are more options you can use i.e. you could change the I/O scheduler to noop, then there's the data mode, do not use the SSD for temporary storage i.e. swap, etc.

Arch linux has some extensive information about SSD's. See here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD

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Of cause no temporary storage and thanks that link it looks like another good starting point.

That you should avoid writings to the SSD is not true anymore for modern SSDs. While it certainly helps to get the extra-lifetime out of a modern SSD with doing so it will be obsolete long before it dies.
The SSD in my main machine reports That I have 2716 GB currently written to it, the health index is still at 100% and the test program estimates a lifetime of over 8 1/2 years from now. The older SSD in my laptop (bought in 2010, a value model from Intel) reports 3368 GB written to it with a health index of 97%.

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Now that is VERY interesting and worth exploring .. thanks

Another tip might be to google for some info on the manufacturer's forum. When I bought OCZ SSD drives, I got a lot of information from their forums (about appropriate aligning their drives, updating the drive's firmware on Linux, etc).

In the packaging under "installation guidelines" it says "For optimum performance, download latest firmware for your SSD from www.sandisk.com/support "

But from a "quick" look it looks like the firmware updater is only available for Windows, but bootable CD would probably work?

So your right I think a waddle around the sandisk site tommorow is good advice.

Here is a cut and paste from the SanDisk Guru over on the SanDisk forum.

I asked what the current situation regarding repeated writes to SSD is..........


drlucky
SanDisk Guru
drlucky
Posts: 2,519
Registered: ‎07-18-2007
0
Re: Longevity -- Read / Write
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‎08-20-2013 01:41 PM

These drives are rated at something like 80TB written over the lifetime so unless you are doing some really write intensive applications you probably have no need to worry.

Well done TobiSGD 10/10 ............... :-)

Its almost certainly not worth the effort squeezing the extra life out of a 64Gb drive by the time it fails they will be so big most people would probably upgrade anyway.

Unless anyone else has a better answer, I will mark this thread solved in a few days time.

actually if I could increase my safety by a little work (a few minutes/hours) I should do those steps (leaving /tmp and /run on SSD may be the case, also do not use SSD for torrents)

Yes, thanks to all, this is GOOD advice.

My will install the SSD today and spend a "little" time configuring to minimise the read/writes.

But now I won't beat myself up worrying about the finer details.

http://ef.gy/statistics:ssd-write-endurance

Worth a look if you're worried about SSD lifespans under _very_ heavy use.