> From: [email protected] [mailto:discuss-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Adler
> 
> I'm thinking of upgrading my linux system by adding an SSD drive to use
> as my system disk. Has anyone done this? Any pros and cons regarings
> using SSD's? I'm more intrested in the cons. I'm worried about the life
> expectancy since there is a limited number of writes one can do to the
> NAND memory. Do I need to setup a raid array to ensure the SSD contents
> are correct?

That is legend.   ...   Meaning ...  something that once was true which is no 
longer true ...  Actually it's still true, but now it's irrelevant in all but 
the cheapest junkiest devices.  And it may not even be a problem in the 
cheapest junkiest devices.  It's very likely that all 2.5" SSD's have 
intelligent controllers in them...  The same is not true for USB and SDCard 
devices, etc.

The solution to NAND lifetime was wear leveling (obviousl requires an 
intelligent controller).  Every time you write to a block of the SSD, the SSD 
internally maintains a mapping table and remaps everything around physically.  
You think you keep writing to block 0 or whatever, and internally the SSD 
spreads it out across all the blocks.

There was also a problem with garbage collection, which is really a non-issue 
anymore, thanks to intelligent controllers.

Performance on day 1 will be the greatest.  It will degrade over time, but it 
will take a fair while before you could notice or measure the difference.  And 
even after a couple years of continuous usage, it'll still be way faster than 
the HDD.

When you upgrade, you tend not to notice.  But if you ever need to downgrade, 
you suddenly realize you've become a snob, because how can the rest of the 
schmoes in the world live with this crap.    ;-)
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