solid state drives

hussam

Apart from the high prices, any other disadvantages to solid state drives?
I was told they have a limited but large number of read/writes operations then I have to move the drive to another machine (I only have one machine). So I should use it for root partition and /boot partition and keep /home on a mechanical disk because more read/write operations happen on /home partition than other partitions.
Is the read/write number of operations limit true? if so, anyway to bypass it?

kareem_nasser

I have heard the same thing about SSDs. I have tried searching on Google and found this:
What are the disadvantages of SSD vs HDD?

rolf

@hussam: if you do such a thing, you'd be negating the advantages of SSD - which are fast access!
SSD performance becomes less noticeable on sequential, big transfer operations, such as copying big files. So keep your movies, etc. on a magnetic disk drive.
The limited read/write cycles is true in theory, but, AFAIK, it will not affect normal operation, but I guess you could maybe have a scenario where for some reason the computer keeps overwriting the same cell - either on purpose or because something went wrong in the OS, and after a while it would die... and then it will pass to the next cell... the high write speed of SSD and lack of moving parts (therefore no noise to alert you) make this even more scary. But this is the product of my imagination - I don't know how it translates in the real world.

hussam

rolf wrote@hussam: if you do such a thing, you'd be negating the advantages of SSD - which are fast access!
SSD performance becomes less noticeable on sequential, big transfer operations, such as copying big files. So keep your movies, etc. on a magnetic disk drive.
The limited read/write cycles is true in theory, but, AFAIK, it will not affect normal operation, but I guess you could maybe have a scenario where for some reason the computer keeps overwriting the same cell - either on purpose or because something went wrong in the OS, and after a while it would die... and then it will pass to the next cell... the high write speed of SSD and lack of moving parts (therefore no noise to alert you) make this even more scary. But this is the product of my imagination - I don't know how it translates in the real world.

Well normally I compile large pieces of software which means large amounts of read/write operations in my /home partition. On my old computer, this used to kill the IDE disks. On my new computer, this SATA HDD seems to be holding nicely. But this is really why I thought I'd ask first about SSDs. Thanks for the input, guys :)
I'll post any more information I have.

rolf

Well, I'm no specialist, I'd just make sure the swap partition is on the SSD.

yasamoka

rolf wroteWell, I'm no specialist, I'd just make sure the swap partition is on the SSD.

What?? No! The swap partition would kill the SSD! It keeps swapping files and wreaking havoc on the write cycles of the SSD. Best best would be to have the swap partition on an HDD, of course.

yasamoka

Hussam: Republic of Gamers store would get the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD and the OCZ Agility SSD by special order. Ask him if you want.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Republic-of-Gamers-Store/215692111791867

hussam

I think I've heard of Republic of Gamers. I will go to their store and ask :)

rolf

yasamoka wrote
rolf wroteWell, I'm no specialist, I'd just make sure the swap partition is on the SSD.
What?? No! The swap partition would kill the SSD! It keeps swapping files and wreaking havoc on the write cycles of the SSD. Best best would be to have the swap partition on an HDD, of course.

The swap partition is one of these things that could definitely use an increase in performance... You're like these people who buy an SUV but never ever drive it off-road. Granted it's a very widespread practice, but I'm not a fan!

A thread discussing this issue:
http://superuser.com/questions/51724/should-i-keep-my-swap-file-on-an-ssd-drive

On the following page, the author attempts a calculation of the "worst case scenario" SSD wear, and got the number of 51 years to totally trash a disk. That was in 2007. Of course it may vary, but I would not worry too much, since I would not put my data on the SSD but rather the applications and OS, and keep my data on a good old magnetic disk, with possibly a backup (ideally). So in the highly unlikely case where the SSD significantly degrades after a couple of years I can get a new one and re-install.
http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

yasamoka

rolf wrote
yasamoka wrote
rolf wroteWell, I'm no specialist, I'd just make sure the swap partition is on the SSD.
What?? No! The swap partition would kill the SSD! It keeps swapping files and wreaking havoc on the write cycles of the SSD. Best best would be to have the swap partition on an HDD, of course.
The swap partition is one of these things that could definitely use an increase in performance... You're like these people who buy an SUV but never ever drive it off-road. Granted it's a very widespread practice, but I'm not a fan!

A thread discussing this issue:
http://superuser.com/questions/51724/should-i-keep-my-swap-file-on-an-ssd-drive

On the following page, the author attempts a calculation of the "worst case scenario" SSD wear, and got the number of 51 years to totally trash a disk. That was in 2007. Of course it may vary, but I would not worry too much, since I would not put my data on the SSD but rather the applications and OS, and keep my data on a good old magnetic disk, with possibly a backup (ideally). So in the highly unlikely case where the SSD significantly degrades after a couple of years I can get a new one and re-install.
http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

Well I read the article and I'm convinced :D but what about so many people worrying about the write cycles since they seem to be high enough not to cause any problems?

BashLogic

a slap in the face to all of the lot!

first and foremost, lets revise the function of the swap. initially i was created to extended the capcity of the ram.
the old-skuul rule of thumb was to have a multiple of 2.5 of the actual ram size. the main role of the swap was to prioritize runing processes between the more active and the less active processes. this is where the less active ones were pushed to the swap area (microsofts philosophy differs of this and is one of the reasons why the os is congested and runs slow the more processes you have). this trend has changed a bit over time where certain applications for example photoshop, are very specific of requiring to have a swap (pagefile). in the old days, it was common to dedicated a separate device (disk) to host the swap. this was especially done on servers such as mssql and ms exchange. today, the applications have improved a lot and current hardware provide a sufficient ammount of ram. it is the individual applications that consume the rams, for example java based crap (if you really want to use an optimized setup where hardware is measured against the calculated cycles to achieve the objective, java is one of the worst things you can come across! actually anything that abides to the term of emulation or retransition).

only you know what applications you will be using and whether you would be dependent on the swap. if you use an application that is definetly dependent on a swap, then you have to use the right amount of swap size and have it run on a maximum performing device, hence an SSD in this case.

if you know that you are not dependent on the swap, you can either turn it of completely or use a minimal amount, for example anything bellow 512mb. that would be more than enough for small dependent processes.

if you are for example compiling, check what options your compiler has, you might be lucky enough to be using one where you can specify not to use swap or tmp. how this affects your compiling is totally dependent on what you are compiling. different requirements have different implementations by the compiler.

in short, in general, swap does not server anymore unless you really have a very specific need. certain os or processes might require or oblige to have a swap, in that case, check on what the miminum is and go with that. the old skuul rule of thumb of having a multiple of 2.5x is really and exageration and concept that has not been rethinked.

as an example, i have a laptop with 8gb of ram, by default, the corporate installation creates the swap. i did not bother to fix that since i am running on an ssd. the displeasment is when i hibernate. the system takes more time to transfer 8gb of data from the swap (from the disk) into the hibernation realm (back to disk, the same actual disk) and vice versa. it is easier to restart the system instead because i can relaunch the applications faster than to wait for the transfer and reactication of the data in ram and swap. :P
thank goodness that is my work laptop, cause the only time i would give a darn is when im sitting in front of a dual monitor (24"x2 minimum) and have at least 30 apps running. :P

hussam

I understand. Under Linux with 3 GB ram, I hardly ever use swap even when compiling large stuff like libreoffice.
Linux itself doesn't touch swap till all the ram is used up. It might start using it if I let the computer running for a long time but I have to shutdown everyday because of the power outages (my new computer doesn't like hibernate).
But the theory is still the same. Put partition where there are little read/write operations on SSD and /home where there are a lot of read/write operations. But then I won't be making use of the speed of SSDs.

yasamoka

Some stuff will still require swap to be present...otherwise you could have gotten yourself 6/8/12/16GB or RAM and could have ridden yourself of the swap file.