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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?

Zanna
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Tamás Szelei
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2 Answers2

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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.

Community
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Lekensteyn
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  • An informal but slightly larger sample size survey found that Crucial and Intel have the lowest return (defect) rate of the main SSD manufacturers. – Corey D Aug 25 '11 at 22:21
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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
psusi
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    This answer needs clarification. – N.N. Jun 30 '11 at 21:13
  • @belacqua, no, it's a direct answer to the question. – psusi Aug 23 '12 at 23:53
  • @psusi -- sorry, that was the auto-boilerplate from the review mechanism. However, this could definitely be fleshed out -- as it is, it doesn't respond to the question in the title, or second question ("is there or was there a problem with TRIM support"?), etc.. It does 'directly' answer in the sense (implied) that the only necessary answer is the one you provide -- that any SSD can be used. I originally did not read this that optimistically. – belacqua Aug 24 '12 at 18:36
  • @belacqua, I suppose I can add a bit more about TRIM. – psusi Aug 27 '12 at 18:27