Get one already!

Klaus

Thu, 03 Apr 2014 23:34:45 +0200

#^Solid-State Drives: Get One Already! | Linux Journal

I've been building computers since the 1990s, so I've seen a lot of new technologies work their way into the mainstream. Most were the steady, incremental improvements predicted by Moore's law, but others were game-changers, innovations that really rocketed performance forward in a surprising way.

I have ordered my first #SSD today.
Need to test bit with dm-cache and the other ways to use it before setting up my new home virtualisation server.

Hardware

[+] show all 9 comments

Arto

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 06:22:06 +0200

The difference will be revolutionary. I can't imagine not using an SSD at this point. There's no turning back.

Klaus

Sat, 05 Apr 2014 21:42:31 +0200

It arrived today and looks so tiny. Quite impressive indeed.
How do you use it? System or data or some kind of caching device?

Seth Martin

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 00:32:40 +0200 last edited: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 00:33:38 +0200

System, makes it blazing fast!

Thomas Willingham

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 00:51:07 +0200

What are you doing all day that an SSD makes any real difference?

On the server, when you're using a lot of text or blob and stuff, fair enough, but I've never sat there thinking "God, I wish git merge were reduced from 3 to 1 seconds"...

Arto

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 06:00:35 +0200

Seems like Klaus will be using it to run VPS instances on his laptop?

Thomas Willingham

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 06:07:34 +0200 last edited: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 06:07:35 +0200

Yeah, this was probably a bad choice of thread, but I meant more generally.

There are lots and lots of posts about how great SSDs are lately, and most of them sound like they're end user machines.

But I can't think of any time I'm ever waiting on disk access (unless you count things like when git decides to do it's compression stuff for a couple of seconds, or scheduled tasks like the 41st boot where fdisk insists on running).

Seth Martin

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 06:08:49 +0200

Cutting 2/3 the time off of anything is a big deal. Think about how long it takes to load Firefox though. You just gotta try it @Thomas Willingham - you'll never go back.

Thomas Willingham

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 06:13:17 +0200

Yeah, but if I ever start Firefox, I go for a cup of tea while they start the hand crank. Sometimes, I do it before I go out for lunch - that way it's nearly finished by the time I get back.

Konqueror is loads faster, and even if it wasn't, I only start it once every couple of weeks anyway.

2/3 of a couple of seconds every couple of weeks doesn't even buy you the extra time to scratch and itch.

Arto

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 06:14:45 +0200

On laptops, SSD seem to also improve battery life, by improving the thermal profile of the machine.

This website is tracked using the Piwik analytics tool. If you do not want that your visits are logged this way you can set a cookie to prevent Piwik from tracking further visits of the site (opt-out).