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Tamás Szelei
Asked: 2011-06-11 05:20:01 +0800 CST

What should I know about SSDs that can be used with Ubuntu?

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I'm building a new configuration and intend to buy an SSD with it. I recall that the first SSDs were problematic in Linux for some reason (maybe lack of TRIM support?).

Is there something to specifically avoid in today's SSDs? Or is it a safe bet to buy any?

ssd

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I've owned two SSD's, an OCZ Vertex 2 60GB (controller died in 5 months) and am now happy with an Intel 320 80GB.

    I've had no issues with it in comparison with a mechanical HDD.

    On the software side, most vendors provide utilities for SSDs which (unfortunately) only works in Windows due to bug 1. These fancy toolboxes often have an alternative in the repositories or system (examples: TRIM on-demand, erasing the disk). Since firmware updates should be applied when the disk is not in use, it's neither an issue for not using it in Linux.

    Some interesting links:

    Not limited to Linux, but to SSDs in general: Jeff Atwood has an interesting blog entry about the lifetime of a SSD. It should not stop you from buying a SSD, if it dies the manufacturer (or reseller) will replace it if it's within the warranty period. But the reason for buying one is it's speed. I was amazed with my first SSD, everything start almost instantly without hearing a disk spinning.

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  2. No; it is a safe bet to buy any ( and always has been ).

    As for TRIM, it is still disabled by default as it may ( though unlikely ) trigger bugs. Depending on your workload, enabling it may, or may not improve the drive's performance over time. To enable it, you need to add the discard option to your /etc/fstab file, like this:

    UUID=xxx-xxx-xxx   /   ext4   errors=remount-ro,discard  0  1
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