[Nottingham] SSD and Linux

[Jason Irwin]

On 10/09/15 23:00, Albert wrote:
> Anyone got any recommendations for a SSD? I want something to slip into
> a Sapphire HD2 replacing the hard drive. I don't mind it being low
> capacity or even second hand, but it must be reliable and cool running.
> I will run Linux Mint on it.
I am using an older Samsung 840 - seems to work well. Samsung have had
firmware issues (and the kernel has also had problems Samsung has
patched) but at least Samsung do have a Linux firmware updater (never
used it, mine is bug free AFAIK so I am not fixing what isn't broken).
If you do a search you'll find loads of (mis)information on the furore.

As I say, it's older but the speed compared to an HDD is staggering and
this is a 500read/340write model. Modern ones will be even faster. If
the finances allow, grab a "Pro" variant (a 256GB 850 Pro is £103 on
Amazon right now).

I've heard "the best" is anything from Intel but have no first-hand
experience

Whilst I'd be wary of second hand due to not knowing how they've been
treated, SSDs are now so reliable I'm probably worrying over nothing.
They will still wear out, but over such a long time in normal usage that
it doesn't really matter. I mean, look at this:
http://ssdendurancetest.com/ the Samsung's estimated lifespan is 28
years in normal, daily use.
More here:
http://techreport.com/review/27436/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-two-freaking-petabytes

I would avoid no-brand black boxes though; no matter how much of a
bargain they appear to be.

You /might/ need to buy a caddy to hold the SSD in the slot if the
inside of an HD2. I needed one for my laptop.

When you get your shiny new SSD, *DO NOT* rely on the Mint installer to
do the partitioning.
Grab a copy of GParted and do it yourself so you can be sure it's got
things all aligned - GParted is SSD aware-ish.

You want all partition sizes to be divisible by 4096, and you want to
have the first one begin away from the start of the disc (I'm not at my
lappy just now, so can't recall the figure. 4MB or something. Should all
be on-line).

FileSystem? Pick whatever you want. I use BTRFS, but Ext4 will be fine.
Swap space? Sure, bang that on as well if you need it.
Both of the above /used to be/ verbotten but not any mor.
You can, maybe, squeeze more out of the disc by setting "NOATIME" etc in
FSTAB, but I never bothered.
You can still murder an SSD by doing silly things (e.g. intensive video
editing with low RAM). So don't do silly things.

I've had my Samsung for over 1.5 years now and it's still going strong.

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