[SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

amghwk · 2022-05-29 01:19:55

Not sure if to put this in Hardware or Newbie, but I felt Newbie section is more appropriate for this non-specific question.

Arch is a rolling release, and I Syu everyday since it has become a habit for the past few years.

Since this requires downloading and writing a considerable amount of hundreds of MBs everyday, and with SSDs reputation for lower write-tolerance threshold, will Arch wear out the SSDs faster than say a Linux with fixed release?

Last edited by amghwk (2022-05-29 02:35:14)

Trilby · 2022-05-29 01:23:00

amghwk wrote:

... SSDs reputation for lower write-tolerance threshold

This is not the case for any even remotely modern SSD (or even some slightly older ones). I run arch on several SSDs and have for many years.

amghwk wrote:

... will Arch wear out the SSDs faster than say a Linux with fixed release?

Technically perhaps. But this will still be slower than on a HDD in most cases anyways - so it'd make more sense to ask whether arch would wear out a spinning hard disk faster than fixed release OSs would ... those drives are likely to wear out in your lifetime. An arch linux system on an SSD might wear out the drive in just 10 times longer than you'd ever imagine owning the computer rather than the 20 times over you might get with a fixed release OS - but should you care: nope.

EDIT: for some context, I use hardware until it dies (and vehicles, and pretty much everything else). I've had several HDDs die and have to be discarded. I have many SSDs, not one has ever failed. I have several SSDs in storage waiting to be pulled out if ever needed. They've been stripped from laptops whose other components failed. One illustrative example is the SSD in my "media center PC" which is really just the remnants of a Lenovo X200 laptop whose screen has long since died. Prior to the screen dying, that laptop served me well in daily work and personal use for years - and I initially got that X200 with no drive; I took the SSD out of the *previous* laptop I had and put it into the X200. That SSD is still going just fine - and keep in mind any SSD made more recently should be expected to do far better than that one too!

EDIT 2: and I do absolutely nothing special in my configuration for SSDs. No "trim" settings anywhere. Nothing. I don't know if this is wise, and I'd certainly not recommend ignoring the advice in our wiki on different methods of configuring 'trim' for SSDs. But I've done nothing, and my drives are fine. I also don't buy "the best" SSDs to start with. I avoid buying junk: I look for respectable brands, but I buy fairly meager "budget" options.

Last edited by Trilby (2022-05-29 02:33:04)

HalosGhost · 2022-05-29 02:05:30

I'll echo Trilby's experience. I've run Arch (and other rolling-release distros) on SSDs for well over 8 years. TRIM and general advancements in the art of making SSDs have made a massive difference.

I don't think you need to worry about this unless the SSDs you have are genuinely quite old.

All the best,

-HG

mpan · 2022-05-29 02:17:57

Let’s consider a thought experiment using unrealistically bad scenario. A daily -Syu would write 1GB of data on an imaginary 128GB SSD, expected to start failing after merely 1000 writes. That gives 128 thousand days of updates. About 350 years. Are you still worried?

That’s a serious simplification, because SSD failing from wear is probabilistic and isn’t a single event. It is neither sure to happen after writing any particular amount of data, nor is the device guaranteed to survive to that point. But this should give you some feel about the magnitudes we’re talking about.

Trilby · 2022-05-29 02:26:49

mpan wrote:

... expected to start failing after merely 1000 writes.

Also consider that phrasing is peculiar. When a manufacturer provides these numbers (e.g., 1000 writes), that is the number after which they consider it no longer under warrantee. In actual wear tests of major SSDs failures don't tend to start until many times over this number of writes: so to go from under-warantee-to-not-fail to expected-to-fail we'd take that 350 year ballpark and make it more like 3500 years.

amghwk · 2022-05-29 02:33:39

Thanks for all your valuable information. That really does help to pacify any remaining doubt.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-05-29 01:19:55

[SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

#2 2022-05-29 01:23:00

Re: [SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

#3 2022-05-29 02:05:30

Re: [SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

#4 2022-05-29 02:17:57

Re: [SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

#5 2022-05-29 02:26:49

Re: [SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

#6 2022-05-29 02:33:39

Re: [SATISFIED] Is Arch okay for SSDs?

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