SSD Longevity as OS Drive?

[cncb]

I am considering building a new (client) PC with an SSD drive. I have been reading about them and it appears that they have a "write cycle" limit. Is this something you would realistically ever have to worry about? Many of them say 10,000 cycles which seems pretty low to me but I don't have a feel for what this really means.

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by cncb

I am considering building a new (client) PC with an SSD drive. I have been reading about them and it appears that they have a "write cycle" limit. Is this something you would realistically ever have to worry about? Many of them say 10,000 cycles which seems pretty low to me but I don't have a feel for what this really means.

that write cycle limit is for each cell/bit, but all SSD's have what is known as 'wear leveling' as long as they have some free space on them they will never write to the same bit twice... so they end up lasting a really long time...

so if possible, try to keep like 50% free... and assuming you are not reinstalling the OS on a daily bases, that 10K number will be more like 10 billion (or more) writes... far more than your average HDD...

[cncb]

Thanks for the explanation.

[matt91]

[full caveat]
I've not used a SSD
[/full caveat]
I know that there are a number of guides that provide pointers on setting up your OS so that it's SSD-friendly. That is, tricks/adjustments that can be made so that the number of OS-related SSD writes is minimized.

[stanger89]

This might be illuminating:
A Wear Leveling Refresher: How Long Will My SSD Last?

For those looking for the Cliff's notes (though it's worth the read to really understand what goes on):

Intel estimates that even if you wrote 20GB of data to your drive per day, its X25-M would be able to last you at least 5 years. Realistically, that’s a value far higher than you’ll use consistently.

My takeaway? Something else will clobber your data, or you'll have upgraded to a newer/faster SSD long before it ever wears out.

[ccsmoke]

To add, Trim support is key. Windows 7 has it built in, running any other os I would use Intel's SSD because of their trim support will run on other OS's. Trim support is currently not available in raid though next gen of OCZ's say this will finally be possible. Been running 60GB OCZ agility for over a year in my gaming rig and am very happy with it's performance.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ks-Utilities-*

[stanger89]

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to get Trim/SSD Toolbox working on my Sage server. Unfortunately it doesn't work with AMD's drivers and I've been unable to get the Microsoft drivers installed

[MattHelm]

I have a SSD, but used various ways to set things up to almost never write files to the SSD. This isn't an easy thing to do, but except for a few Windozes system files, and installs, my system doesn't write to the SSD.

I do wish SageTV would change all "temp" directories to paths. (like the thumbnails)

[ccsmoke]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to get Trim/SSD Toolbox working on my Sage server. Unfortunately it doesn't work with AMD's drivers and I've been unable to get the Microsoft drivers installed

Not sure if this would help you

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33970627<br />

To add on Matt's thinking, if one has extra ram, setting up a ramdrive for temp storage of cookies, browsing history, temp files etc. can help with reduce writes to ssd. Also does better performance of compile times vs SSD if doing small read/write files (1KB). Keep in mind anything saved to this will be deleted upon reboot.
Program will allow up to 4GB (free version)

http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk

[stanger89]

Yeah, except I'm running XP, not 7. I see no point to 7 on a headless server, not when I've got spare XP copies lying around.

[stevech]

I have about 8 months on the C: drive on my office computer. It's on a LOT of hours per week. I chose a Western Digital Silicon Blue 64GB drive after a lot of research (at the time). No glitches. Huge improvement. I sleep the PC every evening. Reboot Win 7 every week or so. I'm careful to put data on other drives and just the OS and installed apps on the C: drive. Even with a Office and some big apps like IAR's C compiler, and Visual Studio, the 64GB disk is about half full.

This PC ran XP with the same SSD when I first got the SSD. Western Digital claimed this drive's firmware obviated the need for TRIM or other hacks on XP. Indeed, it ran XP fine for a couple of months until I wiped and installed Win 7.

I have an identical SSD in my laptop. Very nice there. Longer battery life.

[doncote0]

For those whose OS does not directly support wear leveling through TRIM or some other mechanism, do a search for "wiper" and SSD's. That may help. Other tricks like disabling prefect, superfetch and reducing defrag of your SSD may also help. As a matter of fact, if your defrag solution does not specify SSD support I wouldn't use it very often (if at all).

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by doncote0

As a matter of fact, if your defrag solution does not specify SSD support I wouldn't use it very often (if at all).

I wouldn't use a defrag solution on an ssd even if it claimed to support it. Why would you defrag a drive in order to optimize the drive's seek times when said drive's seek times are basically non-existent? SSD's do not suffer from fragmentation woes so why defrag them?

[doncote0]

From wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM_(SSD_command)

Where TRIM is not automatically supported by the operating system, there are utilities which can send TRIM commands manually.

Usually they list all free blocks as specified by the operating system and then pass this list as a series of TRIM commands to the drive. These utilities are available from various manufacturers (Intel, G.Skill) or as general utilities (hdparm since v9.17).

[doncote0]

For XP, Intel drives seem to be the way to go.

Intel has their SSD Toolbox which will allow you to manage your drive in XP and do everything to maintain it a peak efficiency (including an XP friendly TRIM run).

This is especially cool considering Intel's new Elm Crest drives (Intel 510 Series).

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, except I'm running XP, not 7. I see no point to 7 on a headless server, not when I've got spare XP copies lying around.

Memory is the only reason I can think of to go from XP to 7 (64bit that is). Other than that I agree. Once I put more memory in my XP headless server things got much better.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by doncote0

For XP, Intel drives seem to be the way to go.

Intel has their SSD Toolbox which will allow you to manage your drive in XP and do everything to maintain it a peak efficiency (including an XP friendly TRIM run).

This is especially cool considering Intel's new Elm Crest drives (Intel 510 Series).

The Sandforce based drives seem to be pretty good also (for no TRIM support)

SSD's seem to be pretty pointless for servers at this point though. I've got one in my client and it is nice to have all the fanart load instantly. I'd say it is the best upgrade I've ever done. Funny thing is it was the cheapest one I could find. I'd really like to see how a high end one would perform.

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

The Sandforce based drives seem to be pretty good also (for no TRIM support)

SSD's seem to be pretty pointless for servers at this point though. I've got one in my client and it is nice to have all the fanart load instantly. I'd say it is the best upgrade I've ever done. Funny thing is it was the cheapest one I could find. I'd really like to see how a high end one would perform.

Well, it depends. My OCZ drive lasted for 3 months. It basically died out of the blue (which is the dangerous thing about SSDs, as there's little warning beforehand). Moving to Intel now...

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Rico66

Well, it depends. My OCZ drive lasted for 3 months. It basically died out of the blue (which is the dangerous thing about SSDs, as there's little warning beforehand). Moving to Intel now...

Really? Wow. Which drive was it? If it was a sandforce based drive that is very odd as they are supposed to be one of the best (if not the best) as far as longevity. I know that the intel drives are very good. Are you going to get one of the 510 drives?

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Really? Wow. Which drive was it? If it was a sandforce based drive that is very odd as they are supposed to be one of the best (if not the best) as far as longevity. I know that the intel drives are very good. Are you going to get one of the 510 drives?

Vertex 2. There's a number of people who report similar issues, if you look on the ocz forums. I doubt this is about longevity with regards to write cycles, the issue is likely something else.
I'm getting a 320 (should be there tomorrow...)