BL SSD discussion thread

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-26 01:14:41

devil

If you have an SSD, Welcome to the dark side!

If you don't have an SSD, it is highly recommended that you do join the dark side, you get lightning powers!

Dead serious here!

Joking aside, just a place to worship discuss SSDs... tongue

o9000 · 2015-12-26 02:14:24

I have a dead SSD. Does that count?

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-26 02:19:30

what did you even do to it?

o9000 · 2015-12-26 02:35:41

I kept it almost full (>90%) for a few months while also running some data processing applications that write a lot to disk. As in tens of GB/day. Apparently SSDs don't work well when almost full because the writes cannot be distributed evenly.

After a while it became really slow (20 MB/s seq write) but still worked for a few weeks, then one day it gave a few read errors, and a few minutes later after a reboot it was completely dead.

Since then I always leave about 10-20% of space non partitioned; I also run those applications on HDDs.

Edit: TRIM was enabled, but with the disk full it's useless.

I also have a new SSD now, although just a tiny one this time, which was quite cheap. I like the fact that SSDs are perfectly silent, and I also don't have to worry about moving the laptop while it's running.

How about you?

Last edited by o9000 (2015-12-26 02:42:36)

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-26 03:21:59

Good thing I get big SSDs, or at least, I only use them for boot if I can help it ( and 120GB's is generally enough for that ), although it will be interesting to see how my system does with >600GB's worth of SSD space, since I ordered a 512GB SSD the other day.

and my laptop has a 240GB, enough to run a windows VM with a VHD size of 50GBs and my music and a few other things lol

Probably even more ambitious, Going all SSD with my next server, since it seems like SSDs are only going to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

Last edited by C#Coder4ever (2015-12-26 03:24:02)

eight.bit.al · 2015-12-26 03:36:28

Best computer investment I ever made.

Tom's Hardware says SanDisk Extreme Pro

StorageReview Leaderboard says Samsung SSD 850 Pro

AnandTech says both.

If your thinking of upgrading mobos, go for Z170 and Samsung 950 Pro.

M2 Adapter and the 950 Pro for older motherboards.

I'm thinking of a RAID with 3 850 Pros and an Intel 12 G/s adapter. Trying to justify spending $1000 on it.

8bit

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-26 04:30:09

at that price might as well just get a PCI SSD lol.

also iirc, samsungs have some TRIM issues, but from a little more research, it seems like it's been resolved, ( even the source says so too ).

Although my dad did get a 250GB 850 EVO, should be good for what he'll use it for ( nothing linux related, except for maybe inside a VM. )

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-12-26 11:11:14

C#Coder4ever wrote:

samsungs have some TRIM issues, but from a little more research, it seems like it's been resolved, ( even the source says so too )

Only RAID0 arrays using the "discard" option were hit by that and it was fixed quite a while ago wink
EDIT: Sorry, different bug ops

I have just bought a "250GB" Samsung EVO 850 (with a 5 year guarantee!) and it's fantastic smile

`hdparm -tT` gave ~530MiB/s compared to my "120GB" Kingston V300 @ ~265MiB/s

On the downside, it looks like my Kingston V300 is from the late production batch that had the cheap & crappy NANDs and controllers sad

I've put OpenBSD on it and filesystem (FFS) doesn't have a TRIM option but apparently this might not be as important as I thought:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/222829

If I notice any slowdown, I'll just backup then perform a factory reset on the drive and re-install.
glasses

Do people still buy spinning rust drives?

I know I wouldn't...
tongue

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-12-26 11:12:41)

eight.bit.al · 2015-12-26 11:37:48

eight.bit.al wrote:

I'm thinking of a RAID with 3 850 Pros and an Intel 12 G/s adapter. Trying to justify spending $1000 on it.

C#Coder4ever wrote:

at that price might as well just get a PCI SSD lol.

Well, this is PCI SSD; A 12G/c PCI adapter with three drives in RAID 0. Blink and the OS is loaded. smile

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Do people still buy spinning rust drives?

Sure. At pennies per gigabyte, large storage drives are a bargain. At least for now. smile

8bit

o9000 · 2015-12-26 11:44:36

@Head_on_a_Stick

I've just remembered that I had not one, but two SSDs that died. The other one was a replacement for the first one, and got bricked in the first week of use when my laptop's battery ran out. Luckily I was able to return it to the store.

Most SSDs on the market cannot handle a sudden power loss, either corrupting the data or getting bricked. So overall I'm not so enthusiastic about them as you... losing data and money is not fun.

Last edited by o9000 (2015-12-26 11:45:38)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-12-26 11:48:14

@o9000 -- which models were they?

AFAIUI, modern production SSDs may even outlast their spinning rust cousins.

See http://techreport.com/review/27909/the- … e-all-dead

EDIT: I've run my laptop down to zero battery a few times with no SSD problems.

I will have to watch that in future though, thanks for the advice.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-12-26 11:50:04)

o9000 · 2015-12-26 12:19:48

The one that died due to wear was an Intel, I don't remember the model. One of the cheaper ones from 2012.

The one that died due to power loss was a Samsung 840.

ratcheer · 2015-12-26 14:52:22

I have a Samsung 850 Pro (256 GB). I need to rip open my case and make sure it is connected to a 6 Gig SATA port; I don't think it is. Even at that, my system boots in 4 seconds.

I have Arch Linux and openSUSE Linux installed on it, with their respective home directories. My big pure data (docs, photos, etc) and my swap partition are on a 6 Gig/sec 1 TB HDD.

Tim

tknomanzr · 2015-12-26 16:20:20

I am running BL on a Crucial BX100 250GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Internal SSD and love it. I still use mechanical drives for mass storage but want to migrate both of my laptops to SSD's in the future. Also, I should really consider getting an SSD for my external USB storage unit, given that I have already lost a couple of mechanical drives from shock. Given the amount of storage I have now, that is really pretty low priority.

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-26 16:20:47

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Do people still buy spinning rust drives?
I know I wouldn't...

Only while my server is alive, although when I build its successor, I officially won't either wink

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-26 16:32:02

o9000 wrote:

@Head_on_a_Stick
I've just remembered that I had not one, but two SSDs that died. The other one was a replacement for the first one, and got bricked in the first week of use when my laptop's battery ran out. Luckily I was able to return it to the store.
Most SSDs on the market cannot handle a sudden power loss, either corrupting the data or getting bricked. So overall I'm not so enthusiastic about them as you... losing data and money is not fun.

Funny how you say that, I live in an area where I am prone to instant power outages, and my server running 24/7 whenever possible, the SSD is still in tact.

I actually worry more about the fairly recently acquired WD red 1TB than I do the SSD.

then it is an older crucial C300, reading about those, those seem to be trooper SSDs lol.

Last edited by C#Coder4ever (2015-12-26 16:34:15)

arti · 2015-12-26 17:19:27

Got one in each of my Linux machines, not had a problem so far.
They are also easier to "dispose of" than their mechanical brethren.

pingu · 2015-12-26 17:59:19

r2d2 ~ # smartctl /dev/sdb -a
smartctl 6.4 2015-06-04 r4109 [x86_64-linux-4.3.3-gentoo-smp-hyperthreading] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-15, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     SanDisk based SSDs
Device Model:     SanDisk SSD U100 24GB
Serial Number:    124671403996
LU WWN Device Id: 5 001b44 81293a3dc
Firmware Version: CS.56.02
User Capacity:    24,015,495,168 bytes [24.0 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      1.8 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 T13/2015-D revision 3
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Dec 26 14:13:19 2015 BRST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
					was never started.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever 
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection: 		(  120) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x51) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					No Auto Offline data collection support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					No Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					No Conveyance Self-test supported.
					Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)	Saves SMART data before entering
					power-saving mode.
					Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
					General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (   7) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       7489
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2288
171 Program_Fail_Count      0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
172 Erase_Fail_Count        0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
173 Avg_Write/Erase_Count   0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       472
174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       329
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
230 Perc_Write/Erase_Count  0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1573
232 Perc_Avail_Resrvd_Space 0x0003   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
234 Perc_Write/Erase_Ct_BC  0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1192
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       783905379
242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1916018593

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

This one came on my laptop as one of those cache drives. It had some sort of softraid setup (two 10gb partitions) and I don't know how it worked, or if it even did something in a non windoze enviroment, so I decided to repartition it and use it for the boot and root partitions. It's running on 95%, and I think it slowed it down now. I've had numerous power failures (329 apparently) since it's a laptop and I usually don't care about the red blinking light). luckily, it didn't bring me any problems. My data is backed up to a wd red everyday, so I don't care if it dies(and I hope it does soon so I can buy a real ssd free of consumer's guilt). ops

Last edited by pingu (2015-12-26 18:01:48)

C#Coder4ever · 2015-12-27 05:57:36

my other server just got an SSD upgrade, from a 4GB to an 8GB lol

that is... if flash drives can count as SSDs devil

pvsage · 2015-12-27 08:59:00

^ IMHO flash drives totally count as SSDs. Really slow SSDs, but they're persistent storage and they're solid state. I put my Android Jellybean seedbox with a micro SD card in the "all SSD" category as well.

Temetka · 2015-12-27 10:52:15

My primary machine is my Thinkpad T410 with a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO (latest firmware applied).

It's running BL just fine.

redcollective · 2015-12-28 01:16:01

Temetka wrote:

My primary machine is my Thinkpad T410 with a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO (latest firmware applied).
It's running BL just fine.

Hey Temetka, how do you do your SSD firmware updates on linux?

Red

KrunchTime · 2015-12-28 04:55:20

@redcollective: I can't speak for Samsung SSDs, but Crucial offers their firmware updates using a specialized Linux distro. Reference the second page of the firmware guide for the M550 SSD here. And...oh no, I need to update the firmware for my SSD! yikes

Last edited by KrunchTime (2015-12-28 05:00:23)

redcollective · 2015-12-28 09:49:33

@KrunchTime - Sounds like Crucial are more progressive than Samsung (mine), I've been googling - looks like I can use my Mac to make a bootable USB.

Red

brontosaurusrex · 2015-12-28 10:11:17

Which one for mid 2010 mac-pro, do I need some 3.5 enclosure or are there models that come with that? Should I go sata or some sort of pci?

#1 2015-12-26 01:14:41

BL SSD discussion thread

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Re: BL SSD discussion thread

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