SSD and Linux

[gkorjax]

I am not sure if this is a stupid question or not, or if it is based on tech myths...but I'll ask anyways.

I remember reading on some posts that SSD perform at their best when new and their performance degrades as they age (still better than non SSD) due to the SSD becoming fragmented...and one can't defrag a SSD.

I also have read things about linus, to the effect of "You don't need to defrag when using linux, it handles file use in a different manner than windows", or something to that effect.

So, would Linux plus SSD be a win win situation, with the ssd not ever degrading, or degrading much less than with windows?

Or are parts of this just myths?

 

[Devastator_uk]

Fragmentation has no effect whatsoever on the performance of a SSD.

As for Linux not needing defragging, I'm pretty sure it's more down to the file system used.

However Windows can suffer from the page file being fragmented (on non-SSD), whereas Linux is not affected by this since it had a dedicated swap partition instead.

I think the HFS+ file system (Mac OS X) is one that doesn't need defragging, but I don't know of any others that are.

 

[blackwidow_rsa]

SSD performance degrades after the drive gets filled, this is normal behaviour and it doesnt matter what filesystem you use. Just make sure the Linux distro and SSD you're going to use has TRIM support, it stops the SSD's performance from degrading once it's filled. Most popular SSDs support this now, some only do after a firmware upgrade. Windows 7 also supports this feature. Just google it, there should be an almost endless amount of articles about TRIM and how SSDs degrade after use.

 

[blackwidow_rsa]

Forgot to add: NEVER defrag an SSD, it degrades the NAND flash cells and will make the drive fail earlier (most NAND cells can only survive 10 000 write cycles.)