Linux & SSDs (Solid State Drives)

undoIT

With the new Intel G2 SSDs coming out, I'm thinking about upgrading my hard drive. However, there seems to be an extra level of software support needed for SSDs. From what I have read there can be performance degradation over time and other issues.

Does anyone know how well solid state drives are supported in Linux and also if there is support for the TRIM command or if it is planned?

disi

Not personal, yet. But the EeePC and some small notebook ship with ssd inside running Linux.

Also this guy tested it: http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-i-got-one-of-new-intel-ssds.html

Goineasy9

Tweaking SSD's depends on the type of SSD and what your using it for. Some, like flash drives, need to be protected from constant journaling (like in ext3), or the constant time stamping. Then there's the problem of turning off journaling and dealing with power failures.
I remember when the eeepc first came out and advertised 8GB SSD, then, when people started playing with it, there were stories about how the first 4 GB were on a fast SSD (a true SSD whatever that is), while the later 4GB were a cheaper form without the same i/o speed (I guess more like a flash drive).
I guess when the prices drop and file systems like brtfs (I think) enter the mainstream, then I'll start playing with them more.

A couple of articles I found that are interesting:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=9190

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/linux/125019-tuning-linux-ssd-operation.html (Post #4 is interesting)

Yes, there was one hidden away in the Linux.com archives (next to Indies box)
http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/peripherals/8223-ssd-vs-sata-raid-a-performance-benchmark-
There was more info in this article then just benchmarks.

Hope this helped.

Wawrzek

Please check the link under the following article on my blog:

http://larryn.blogspot.com/2009/08/stone-redskin-comparision-of-apache2.html

BTW. In the article there are some test of Apache on HDD and SSD. Might be interested for some.

woboyle

Given current pricing and performance, I would recommend holding off on SSD's as primary system drives for another couple of years, especially given a 7200rpm 1tb disc is under $100 USD these days. Also, the file system support for SSD's (noting your query about support for TRIM, etc) is still coming along. Even the drives themselves are just now getting support for TRIM in their firmware, and there are still problems with that (see current problems with Intel SSD's wrt TRIM support firmware updates). So, rather than spending big $$ to fall over the bleeding edge, wait awhile and let things settle down, both from the technology as well as the price perspective.

cjcox

SSD is very well supported in Linux. The "feature" that many will talk about that isn't really there in Linux is for "trim" support (well.. I don't think it's quite there yet). But "trim" is a hack... not really a solution, but a way of attempting to do a batch post processing repair job on SSD. In general, though, you can probably get by without "trim" support for now.

We plan to use some SSD with some db's (Oracle, DB2, etc) on Linux. We're in test right now.