I got the feeling many people still underestimate the power of new SSDs, but since I am no expert I hope you guys can help me out on some questions I still got after so much reading. If I state anything incorrectly below, please correct me.
Maximizing SSD Performance
- Enabling TRIM Meant to avoid that the SSD slows down over time by a phenomenon called 'write amplification'. enable by mount flags - recommended by [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives#Apply_TRIM_via_cron[/url] apply via cron - recommended by [url]http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/enable-trim-on-ssd-solid-state-drives.html[/url] [i]What are the pros and cons of enabling TRIM by mount flags and apply TRIM via a cron job?[/i]
- I/O Scheduler Because on a SSD seek times are identical for all sectors, the I/O scheduler doesn't need to re-order or group I/O requests that are physically closer on the disk in the way this is usual for HDDs. [i]There seem to be two I/O schedulers to choose from, namely NOOP and Deadline. From what I understand the perfomance difference between these is small, the most important thing is not to use CFQ, am I right?[/i]
- Swap Space A swap partition can be used by the OS when there is not enough internal memory, but with modern computers with more than 2GB of RAM this is rarely used. [i]Don't really understand how swap space could maximize the performance, but read that if the computer has enough memory it won't be used, unless you use hibernate. If I won't use hibernate, will I need it?[/i]
SSD's have a limited number of write cycles and therefore minimizing the number of writes will add longevity to an SSD. (Often the reads are also mentioned, but these don't have an effect, or do they?)
Since SSD's have improved a lot over the last few years, I am actually doubting whether (some of) the following options are still worth the effort. After all, I chose an SSD to use it, not to avoid using it as much as possible. So please tell me which of the following is worthwhile.
- noatime Mount Flag This eliminate the need by the system to make writes to the file system for files which are only being read. [i]If this can be disabled, why isn't it by default? It sure has a purpose, hasn't it?[/i]
- Mount browser temp files into RAM It is possible to mount temporary files, for example of a browser, into RAM to reduce the number of writes to the SSD. [i]I understand this reduces the number of writes to the SSD drive and will therefore improve it's longevity, but won't it reduce the life expectancy of the RAM memory? And if so, how bad is that?[/i]
As a final remark I would like to add that I think it would be better if linux Mint (and other linux distributions) would automatically detect a SSD and apply the appropriate settings for the user, this sure is possible, isn't it? Especially because SSDs become more and more apparent, I believe it would be well worth the effort of implementing it.
However, that's not my most important concern now. If anyone has an answer to any of the above questions I will love to hear them. Thanks!