[ale] (OT) Head's-up on cheap SSD: OCZ SATA III 120GB (today only!)

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

forgot this link

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-520-sandforce-review-benchmark,3124.html

ron

"Ron Frazier (ALE)" <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

>Hi Rich,
>
>You've convinced me that I want one.  I did some reading after your
>message posted.  I think I'm going to save my money for an Intel 520. 
>(Or maybe a 2nd monitor, but I digress.)  This looks to be one of the
>most reliable in the industry, and they put a lot of effort into that. 
>It has top shelf NAND and they overprovision it to allow for potential
>wear and chip failures.  The drive has a 5 year warranty.  Their media
>wear chart indicates that, if you really torture the drive, it would
>last about 5 years.  If you really don't torture it, it could last 75
>years.  I'm not really sure what that means in real life, but I guess
>if you start with the most reliable system, your odds are improved. 
>Newegg's current price for the 120 GB unit is $ 132, which is a good
>bit more than the special you mentioned.  Oh well.  By the way, what
>geek DOESN'T have the need for speed?
>
>Assuming you migrate your desktop and you cannot put both OS's on the
>SSD, how are you going to structure that?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Ron
>
>
>Rich Faulkner <rfaulkner at tux86.org> wrote:
>
>>I would not use a SSD for archival and ALWAYS have a back-up or
>>fall-back.  But if you feel the "need for speed" these are hard to
>>beat.
>>(And, "yes", I do use Raptors as well).  Thinking of migrating my
>>desktop to a hybrid of SSD and Raptor and dual booting RHEL and
>Ubuntu.
>>Already running my laptop on a SSD and happy with it so far.  (But I
>do
>>keep things simple).
>>
>>RinL
>>
>>
>>On Wed, 2012-09-05 at 16:42 -0400, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Rich,
>>>
>>> That offer looks pretty enticing. What is it that's ending today?
>The
>>> link you posted says the rebate is $ 20 (as a "reward card") and
>ends
>>> on 09/14/12.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, all my boot hdd's are 500 GB with a Windows, Linux,
>>and
>>> Data partition. I'd have to figure out how to tinker with things so
>>it
>>> boots either Windows or Linux and then link over to the spinning hdd
>>> for the other system.
>>>
>>> Here is some other interesting SSD data.
>>>
>>> This podcast, This Week In Computer Hardware, specialized on the
>>topic
>>> with lots of info and Q and A. They had an SSD specialist on and it
>>> was very interesting.
>>>
>>> http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-computer-hardware/184
>>>
>>> Here are some interesting things they said.
>>>
>>> This person said he only buys Intel or Samsung drives.
>>>
>>> If you clone an OS, you must use an SSD aware cloning tool.
>>Otherwise,
>>> the sector boundaries don't line up properly and performance
>suffers.
>>> Or, you can install the OS from scratch. I think he mentioned the
>>name
>>> Paragon, but cannot remember for sure.
>>>
>>> You definitely want TRIM on.
>>>
>>> Sandforce controllers are way cool and maintain performance better
>>> than some others.
>>>
>>> (From another source) I read that some drives have built in
>>background
>>> garbage collection. That sounds cool too.
>>>
>>> I was looking at some magazines in Frys. It was either Linux User
>and
>>> Developer or Linux Format that had an article on SSD's. Apparently,
>>> wearing out the memory cells can still be a concern if you keep the
>>> drive for extended periods of time. Unlike magnetic media, which can
>>> be refreshed periodically to maintain the data, the SSD memory cells
>>> have a finite life. The article recommends moving things like swap
>>> files, /var, /tmp, etc. to a spinning hard drive. Also, it mentioned
>>a
>>> command you can use when you mount the partition, which I don't
>>> remember, which will change the way status information is written to
>>> the drive. If I recall, Linux normally writes the date that a file
>is
>>> accessed or modified to the meta data. For files which are read
>>> frequently, that can thrash the drive a lot. They recommended
>setting
>>> it to only update the date when the file is modified.
>>>
>>> Having to worry about such things at all bothers me. I know that,
>>> barring a mechanical failure or controller failure, etc., I can run
>>> something like SpinRite on my spinning drives periodically to read
>>and
>>> rewrite the magnetic fields of each bit and keep that data there
>>> essentially forever. You cannot do that with the SSD. The idea that
>>> the data could just suddenly start to become unreliable after 5
>years
>>> is very unnerving.
>>>
>>> Having said all that, I may have to buy one of these to try it
>>anyway.
>>> 15 second boot times sound very exciting.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> Ron
>>
>>
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>>
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>
>--
>
>Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9
>Mail.
>Please excuse my potential brevity.
>
>(To whom it may concern.  My email address has changed.  Replying to
>former
>messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the
>wrong
>address.  Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)
>
>(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
>call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate
>energy
>mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
>quickly.)
>
>Ron Frazier
>770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
>linuxdude AT techstarship.com
>
>
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