[kwlug-disc] OT: SSD disks?

[B.S.]

>While reading this thread, I realized I could upgrade the RAM of my old Thinkpad x201 from 4GB to 8GB. I did it. I could see apparent improvement


Makes sense / I've noticed the same from increases in memory. Less swapping, less disk access as it swaps in/out, response time / 'snappiness' improves.

You might have a peek / people might chime in as to how to reduce swappiness. I forget what tweaks I came across, but apparently linux systems try to maintain large amounts of free memory in case of new program starts wanting it. If you know things can normally be left in RAM there are some settings and tweaks you can set. (You could even turn off all swap and see how long before something whines, and whether you care.)

Let alone, with an SSD, even that swapping is faster due to faster disk access.


>If the hard disk breaks, I'll definitely switch to SSD.

Bear in mind the SSD warnings though - swapping increases SSD wear, and keep total use lower (70-80%?) so it takes longer to hit a 100% worn out point. Let alone SSD friendly mount options such as noatime, nodiratime, discard. Mind you, I believe I've seen test results that show SSDs are at least as reliable as spinning disks now, which is to say at least a 5 - 10 year lifespan. (Never mind I've have more than a few spinning disks that are rather older than that.)

Apparently you can help swapping / memory footprint by regularly minimizing browsers such as Firefox. Apparently it turfs some cache at minimization, or something. Certainly on my laptop it is the browsers that significantly impact performance of everything else. Run firefox and chrome together, both with many tabs open, and things start grinding.

Given the cost, appropriate SSD size baffles me. Keep some space for media files when in flight / disconnected, but otherwise I can't predict how much space I'm ever going to want locally. Spinning disks get bigger and bigger, we use it (storage expands to fill the space available), but SSD costs increase significantly with size.

I'm not sure dropbox et al is the answer, as wi-fi speeds are seldom sufficient, and I'm not keen about lugging around an external drive - even an SSD. Never mind keeping things in sync across the local net, external drive, and cloud. (And I don't do data on the cell, not willing to pay such prices for caps so small, never mind the speed even vis a vis vpn'ed 'free' wi-fi.)

>________________________________
> From: Raymond Chen
>To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> 
>Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2015 8:24 AM
>Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] OT: SSD disks?
> 
>
>
>While reading this thread, I realized I could upgrade the RAM of my old Thinkpad x201 from 4GB to 8GB. I did it. I could see apparent improvement in task switching. The startup time of Ubuntu and some application still take time. But like it's said in a post, restarting system has become rare. I always suspend it when I'm done.
>If the hard disk breaks, I'll definitely switch to SSD. Hope this can last my desktop some more time.