Have SSDs lost their appeal?

[QwUo173Hy]

I've noticed that Dell (Ireland) no longer provide any SSD options, and in a few local stores they seem to be on the decline. Just curious - did they do something bad? :)

[-grubby]

No, i'm pretty sure they still significantly increase performance. They're just really expensive.

[ubunterooster]

I love my ssd http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-love-smileys-867.gif

[QwUo173Hy]

Cool. I'll get one of those then :)

[murderslastcrow]

Yeah, they're fast as all-get-out. If you use one of those with Ubuntu and preload, your computer will start in like, 3 seconds practically. Maybe in Maverick XD.

But yes, they are definitely expensive.

[ubunterooster]

Yeah, they're fast as all-get-out. If you use one of those with Ubuntu and preload, your computer will start in like, 3 seconds practically. Maybe in Maverick XD.

But yes, they are definitely expensive.
3 seconds from grub to finish; BIOS is still slow

[JohnnyC35]

The cheapest one, at least on Tigerdirect.ca is 90$ after rebate for a 32Gb Patriot drive.

Corsair 32Gb 95$, 75$ after rebate
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=52887&vpn=CSSD-V32GB2-BRKT&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1016

Kingston 30Gb 100$
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_179&item_id=029768

Patriot 32Gb 106$, 92$ after rebate
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5572010&CatId=5300

[alphaniner]

I wonder if the lower priced, lower quality ones pervading the market have anything to do with it.

[magmon]

I never saw an appeal to SSDs. The size limitations are irritating, the price is outrageous, and the speed is irrelivant to me. I have the patience to wait for xp to boot xD. I have to say though, if I ever get a toughbook, I will put a SSD in it, simply to further decrease the damageability.

[ubunterooster]

I never saw an appeal to SSDs. The size limitations are irritating, the price is outrageous, and the speed is irrelivant to me. I have the patience to wait for xp to boot xD. I have to say though, if I ever get a toughbook, I will put a SSD in it, simply to further decrease the damageability.
I have seperate partitions for /, /home, and Swap on my SSD.

/home/Downloads, /home/Documents, /home/Pictures, etc are on a 2TB drive, so I have the best of both worlds, storage and speed

[JohnnyC35]

don't you have to worry about Swap chewing your SSD?

[ubunterooster]

don't you have to worry about Swap chewing your SSD?
with 8GB RAM, the only time the 16GB SWAP space was used was when I was testing hibernation. Default idle is 2.4GB RAM, though I can use up to 6.8GB with 4 Virtualized OSs running at once. I doubt the SWAP will ever be needed, but if it is, it will be fast SWAP.

[Paqman]

don't you have to worry about Swap chewing your SSD?

Not really. The shortness of an SSD's lifespan has been greatly exaggerated, especially when compared to the unimpressive MTBF of a magnetic drive.

If you're swapping lots then you should get more RAM, regardless of what type of drive you have.

[andrewabc]

don't you have to worry about Swap chewing your SSD?

I have 3gb of ram. I have 500mb of swap, the most swap I've ever seen used is 5mb. most of the time it uses none.
Change your swappiness to tell the kernel to not use swap unless absolutely necessary.

And if you are constantly using swap, then you really need more ram. I would think that would only happen on ubuntu with less than 1gb ram.

[ubunterooster]

I forget where I figured it out but at my current usage rate, mine will last for 110 years.

[t0p]

I have to say though, if I ever get a toughbook, I will put a SSD in it, simply to further decrease the damageability.

To me, that is the SSD's appeal. I've got an SSD in my EeePC (just 4GB... I bought it back when SSDs were really outrageously expensive); I've dropped that lil EeePC Goddess only knows how many times - often onto lava (just kidding - I meant concrete) - and the thing still works wonderfully.

As for the swap thing: I've got 2GB of RAM, I don't use hibernate or whatever, so I don't bother having a swap partiton. No probs.

[98cwitr]

I still dont regret to $215 I dropped on my 60GB SSD. As for space, that's why I have a 1TB RAID 0 slave :)

[ubunterooster]

To me, that is the SSD's appeal. I've got an SSD in my EeePC (just 4GB... I bought it back when SSDs were really outrageously expensive); I've dropped that lil EeePC Goddess only knows how many times - often onto lava (just kidding - I meant concrete) - and the thing still works wonderfully.

As for the swap thing: I've got 2GB of RAM, I don't use hibernate or whatever, so I don't bother having a swap partiton. No probs.
And the eepc SSds where were the bad reputation came from. No insult, but the controllers on them are terribly built

[The Real Dave]

I've noticed that Dell (Ireland) no longer provide any SSD options, and in a few local stores they seem to be on the decline. Just curious - did they do something bad? :)

Na, it's like a kid at Christmas, the novely has worn off >.<

[t0p]

And the eepc SSds where were the bad reputation came from. No insult, but the controllers on them are terribly built

How do you mean? What was terrible about the way they were built? How does this defect manifest itself?

I'm not questioning the veracity of your statement. I'm genuinely interested. After all, I do own an early EeePC, and I have a few niggles about the way it works sometimes. So a few details would be very interesting.

[Lucradia]

And if you are constantly using swap, then you really need more ram. I would think that would only happen on ubuntu with less than 1gb ram.

Even if you're using the max amount of RAM supported by your motherboard? (32 GB)

[ubunterooster]

How do you mean? What was terrible about the way they were built? How does this defect manifest itself?

I'm not questioning the veracity of your statement. I'm genuinely interested. After all, I do own an early EeePC, and I have a few niggles about the way it works sometimes. So a few details would be very interesting.
Linux Pro Magazine Issue 115, page22
....First or second-gen disks only survived around 100,000 write cycles....for a permanently stressed 8GB disk, this would be about 115 days...the rule to avoid jouranling filesystems on SSDs is a thing of the past; it just applies to first-gen Eee PCs and rally cheap solid-state-disks....

[cascade9]

@ jarlath- dell stiopping selling something can have little, or no, connection to how popualr/useful etc something is. Dell,a ndyour local stores, could well be selling less SSDs because a lot of users dont know what an SSD is, or the speed increases you can get from them.

Lots of people buy computers of numbers-

laptop 'a' with 2.2hz CPU (Core 2 Duo T5900) , 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD

vs

laptop 'b' with 2.13Ghz CPU (Core 2 Duo SL9600), 2GB RAM, 64GB HDD

"ooh, laptop 'a' is much better".

Nope. Laptop 'b' has a faster CPU (Ghz isnt everything) that uses less power, runs cooler, and an SSD. Mr/Mrs/Ms 'buying from the numbers' wont figure that out......

There is also the 'alignment' issues with at least some SSDs that could be putting of some people, but that would only be a tiny percentage of buyers.


I have seperate partitions for /, /home, and Swap on my SSD.

/home/Downloads, /home/Documents, /home/Pictures, etc are on a 2TB drive, so I have the best of both worlds, storage and speed

IMO, perfect, apart from swap on the SSD. I'd have it on the mechanical HDD myself, or just turn swap off totally. ;)


I forget where I figured it out but at my current usage rate, mine will last for 110 years.

If you figured that out from MTBF, like I've seen some people try to do, then its probably wrong-


MTBF is commonly confused with a component's useful life, even though the two concepts are not directly related. For example a battery may have a useful life of four hours, and an MTBF of 100,000 hours. These figures indicate that in a population of 1,000,000 batteries, there will be approximately ten battery failures every hour during a single battery's four-hour life span.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures

[ubunterooster]

I figured it from a site that asked exact: Model, size, usage.

It checks: failure rate of the controller and flash chips in your disk, multiplied by capacity and usage; i wish I still had the site.

I have a Patriot Torqx 128GB

[cascade9]

It checks: failure rate of the controller and flash chips in your disk, multiplied by capacity and usage; i wish I still had the site.

Almost certainly using MTBF, but without the site, no way of knowing.

Not that it matters much anyway, as even if your SSD does die, you'll only have to install a newer drive and reinstall an OS.....dont you love having a data drive :)

[ikt]

I never saw an appeal to SSDs.

if I ever get a toughbook, I will put a SSD in it, simply to further decrease the damageability.

little bit of a contradiction?

+ the speed is massive, I hate waiting for anything especially 2 minutes + for wow to load up, so naturally ssd's appeal to me.

[libssd]

The SSDs that were shipped with early netbooks (e.g. Asus and Acer) were both small and slow. I switched from an Acer AA1 with a 16gb SSD to an AA1 with a 160gb HDD, and the HDD is noticeably faster. Last month I switched from the HDD to a 32gb SSD, and the difference in performance is even more noticeable.

As others have observed, early (especially cheap) SSDs had lousy controllers and (possibly, although I believe this has been exaggerated) short lifespans. I believe these problems have been resolved with newer models, such as Intel and OCZ (and others that use the Indilinx controller). Realistically, with the way price/performance evolves, I'm not worried if my SSD lasts only 3 years -- the netbook (and probably the SSD) will be obsolete by then anyway. If I can move it to a new machine when the time comes, fine.

I toss my netbook on a motorcycle a lot, and the improved shock resistance and lower power usage of an SSD made it worth the $97 it cost me to switch. As SSD prices come down, I think that SSDs will become the norm for ultra-portable laptops, although perhaps not for low-end netbooks.

For a Linux netbook, 32gb seems ample; I currently have about 23.4gb free after adding about 3gb of documents and photos. For those still concerned about a finite amount of writes, a little bit of tuning can minimize this.

I LOVE my SSD. :-D

[98cwitr]

You really have to see an SSD in action to appreciate it. Watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26enkCzkJHQ

[user1397]

Yeah, they're fast as all-get-out. If you use one of those with Ubuntu and preload, your computer will start in like, 3 seconds practically. Maybe in Maverick XD.

But yes, they are definitely expensive.
how do you preload?

[ubunterooster]

Preload:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preload_%28software%29
"files of more frequently-used programs are, during a computer's spare time, loaded into memory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_storage).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preload_%28software%29#cite_note-thesis-0) This results in faster application (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_application) startup times as less data needs to be fetched from disk."

[Paqman]

how do you preload?

Just install the package preload (apt:preload).

[libssd]

Thanks for the pointer to Preload. Note, however, that it does have some impact on RAM usage, but not alarmingly so, as long as you have adequate RAM. More info: Drastically Speed up your Linux System with Preload (http://techthrob.com/2009/03/02/drastically-speed-up-your-linux-system-with-preload/). Preload has an exceptionally well-commented configuration file: /etc/preload.conf

Since preload can be installed through Synaptic, it can also be uninstalled if you don't like what it does to your system.

[andrewabc]

With preload, it will use up your ram, but if you were to say open a large program that wants ram, preload would dump stuff to free up ram.

Preload doesn't try to completely fill your ram up, it always leaves what I would call a 'buffer' to make sure there is always some free ram available.

Oddly for some reason
sudo tail -f /var/log/preload.log
is not working for me and I had it working yesterday after I added
OPTIONS="-V 5 -l /var/log/preload.log"
to /etc/default/preload

[UbuWu]

With the current size and prices of SSD's, hybrid drives are the most attractive. The Seagate Momentus XT is probably the best out there at the moment.

[WinterRain]

I have seperate partitions for /, /home, and Swap on my SSD.

/home/Downloads, /home/Documents, /home/Pictures, etc are on a 2TB drive, so I have the best of both worlds, storage and speed

If you are not using swap, then there will be no benefit. Most pc's these days come with enough ram to make swap basically obsolete. So no, you are not getting the best of both.

[Shining Arcanine]

I've noticed that Dell (Ireland) no longer provide any SSD options, and in a few local stores they seem to be on the decline. Just curious - did they do something bad? :)

I use SSDs in both of my computers.


If you are not using swap, then there will be no benefit. Most pc's these days come with enough ram to make swap basically obsolete. So no, you are not getting the best of both.

While they help with swap, the point of them is to load programs more quickly. If you are swapping, it is a wise idea to try to get more RAM, because swapping to a SSD is a good way to reduce its life time.

[Windows Nerd]

You really have to see an SSD in action to appreciate it. Watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26enkCzkJHQ
That is some ridiculously high Read/Write times. It would probably faster if he used some high speed DDR3 RAM and a ridiculously overclocked CPU. And used the more modern SSDs that saturate SATA II speeds.

I'm looking at getting a SSD and the only reason for me not getting one is the price...I'm debating whether or not to buy a new GPU (My current one from my dad is an ATi ><) or buy a SSD.

[spoons]

The problem is they're producing them as fast as they're being sold - hence the massive price gouging and the lack of supply.

[Shining Arcanine]

The problem is they're producing them as fast as they're being sold - hence the massive price gouging and the lack of supply.

Price gourging is a misnomer. Prices always increase when supplies are low to ensure that supplies remain sufficient. It is a natural effect.

[andrewabc]

With the current size and prices of SSD's, hybrid drives are the most attractive. The Seagate Momentus XT is probably the best out there at the moment.

No. Hybrid drives at the moment are no good.
They would only be good if used in a laptop and you are travelling, and no access to other storage devices.

Otherwise for desktops, you are better with HDD+SSD. For laptop, SSD + external HDD would work.

Hybrid drive speed is still bad.

Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review-finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd)
It has terrible random 4kb.
Even sequential read/write is similar as normal hard drive.

[Shining Arcanine]

With the current size and prices of SSD's, hybrid drives are the most attractive. The Seagate Momentus XT is probably the best out there at the moment.

Hybrid drives do not work well. If you want a "hybrid drive" that actually works well, nothing stops you from using a unionfs with a squashfs containing your most frequently used files on a flash drive and the actual file file system on a hard drive. I can guarentee you that you will have a better experience than you could possibly get from a "hybrid drive", which is really just a conventional drive modified to use flash in addition to its memory buffer.