[kwlug-disc] OT: SSD disks?

[B.S.]

I have generally been going to tomshardware.com when trying to get a read on an ecosystem. Going there now to make sure I had the right link to paste here, I see a Best SSD's link at the top of the page. By searching there then excluding forums, I generally find 'authoritative' articles i.e. linear presentation of elements in a coherent fashion from a 'trusted' source, rather than a google and getting many duplicate links and having to chew through it all. I may then google "<product>" "review" for more specific info. Often amazon has useful comments surrounding the ecosystem, and reviewer's notes on comparable products - but you have to watch that a review isn't about something in the same family / similar product, instead of the actual product you are investigating.

I often head to shopbot.ca on a product to get a sense of market pricing. I can then determine whether Canada Computer or Best Buy is reasonable, has stock, and can head out to solve the problem immediately, or not.

wikipedia articles are often useful, particularly the see also and other links at bottom. e.g. on ssd's there is a link to 
http://www.storagereview.com/ssd_reference_guide

I've long seen commentary on MLC vs SLC drives, which seem to have a non-trivial price difference, but I also seem to have come across notes where for the use case we're talking about here ('small' os / system drive) there is no significant advantage for one over the other. (These days.)  i.e. Both are 'sufficiently' fast, and both die in similar fashions, when they do. Both SSD's are faster than the SATA bus that connects them, so faster doesn't necessarily buy one anything. Confirmation / correction on this would be welcome.

One thing that seems true for drives in the last few years is check the warranty length - longer (5 years) seems to indicate a better made product even the manufacturer believes will last longer than their other (3 year) offerings. WD Black vs Green drives come to mind.

I saw SSD reviews on longevity (torture tests) in the last year or so where the majority indicated warnings long before they up and became inaccessible - but not all. I expect going forwards those that didn't will fall from the marketplace. The smartmontools package seems prudent. Watching for a non-zero reallocated sector count seems to be the red flag.

I've recently had two btrfs drives, 2TB & 4TB, same system, fall over for root node software corruptions. All health and manu diagnostic tests indicated no hardware problem, so I was forced to conclude software bug. So much for vaunted btrfs file integrity / checksumming if your root node goes corrupt. It's possible there was a bad memory chip (1 byte) that got me in a power failure / glitch that hit in the one in a million really bad manner. [Thankfully, I replicate and send 'images' off system nightly. Still, a PITA.]

Which has me wondering (on these small system / ssd drives) about mirroring the 30GB OS partition, so the btrfs self-healing functionality can kick in. (And instituting the recommended weekly scrub in cron.) I also wonder if doing so presents noticeable overhead, to the point where the SSD type (MLC/SLC) matters - vs a faster processor to keep up with the overhead.

I have had a hybrid [750GB Seagate Momentus XT] in my laptop (Asus 1201N) for a few years now. Ultimately I don't believe I can conclude real noticeable speed advantage - but one does gain larger than typical SSD capacity. Boot speed matters less and less as one reboots less and less.

Good luck in your quest - let us know what you conclude. I expect we all will face the same buying decision you are in the not too distant future - especially as even small spinning drives are getting ridiculously big for the cost / just a < 60GB system partition. [The btrfs failure also minds me to consider two drive laptops, SSD + spinning, where the OS could be imaged to the spinning, nightly. Thank you mondoarchive!]

>________________________________
> From: Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com>
>To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> 
>Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2015 2:45 PM
>Subject: [kwlug-disc] OT: SSD disks?
> 
>
>
>A while ago I posted on this group about me replacing a spinning disk with an SSD disk for my laptop. I later gave a presentation on how I did it.
>
>So, the OCZ Vertex SSD that I had died yesterday with no warnings. Now slow I/O or anything. The disk I/O light went on, and the entire laptop froze. Upon rebooting, the BIOS would not even recognize the disk and tries PXE netwook booting.
>
>I swapped the old spinning disk back and copied the daily backup that I had for my home directory. But this disk is not very healthy per SMART.
>
>I am looking for a disk to replace the one I have now, preferrably an SSD disk, but I want a reliable one this time, but not too expensive. 
>
>
>My laptop uses only 30GB of the current disk, so even a 120GB disk is enough. If there is a good deal, I will go up to a higher capacity (250GB or so).
>
>
>There is $10 off on Silicon Power (a brand I never heard of before).
>
>http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/silicon-power-silicon-power-s60-120gb-520mb-s-sata-iii-slim-solid-state-drive-sp120gbss3s60s25-sp120gbss3s60s25/10362950.aspx
>
>
>There is a Kingston for about the same:
>
>http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/kingston-technology-kingston-technology-ssdnow-v300-120gb-solid-state-drive-sv300s37a-120g-sv300s37a120g/10241483.aspx
>
>Similar models and prices are available at Canada Computers.
>
>Any recommendations on what models are reliable, reasonably priced, and where to buy?