Just got a new ssd disk - is there anything i should know?

[frazelle09]

Before installing it in my system?

It's a KINGSTON HyperX 3K 120GB SATA III SSD that i got through e-Bay.  Just wanted to begin to upgrade my system and thought that this might be a good place to start.  i've got to check my MoBo to see what connector it uses - even if this only can use a SATA II, it'll be worth it.  i'm also looking to decrease my monthly electric bill - lol.

Have a great evening! 

[parnote]

The one thing you should know ... it's fast.

When I installed my SSD, I did nothing special ... formatted as ext4, then installed the OS on the 30 GB SSD. I use a 2 TB HD for data storage and my /home partition. After nearly a year, no problems noted, whatsoever.

[ruel24]

If I'm not mistaken, I think you have to enable TRIM support.

http://techgage.com/article/enabling_and_testing_ssd_trim_support_under_linux/

[YouCanToo]

Like Parnote, I just plugged mine into the laptop and installed. I looked at the /etc/fstab and trim was already setup.

 Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=a2350d10-979a-4b28-a8dc-2a1f7d9157bf / ext4 discard,noatime 1 1

I have done several machines know and all have been done automatically.

[frazelle09]

Thanks, guys!  Do you think i could try and make a LiveCD before installing so i can just transfer at least my "/" and basic "/home" to it? Or can i install it as a second HD and make a basic PCL install?

Have a wonderful evening! 

[muungwana]

Lots and lots of voodoo goes on in them to prolong their lives.Delete a file and the drive may simply hide it from the file system,rewrite a file in an attempt to erase its content before deleting it and and all rewrites may go in one place and the file in another.

All in all,the file system can not guarantee a file is actually gone or totally overwritten with them. If you are paranoid about your content.Dont put them in an ssd drive.

[The Chief]

Delete a file and the drive may simply hide it from the file system,rewrite a file in an attempt to erase its content before deleting it and and all rewrites may go in one place and the file in another.

All in all,the file system can not guarantee a file is actually gone or totally overwritten with them.

Not sure about the Linux files systems, but that is normal operation with the MS file systems (and some others).  Deleting a file simply removes the name from the directory (once upon a time, just changed the first character to an illegal character) and marks the space as available.

[pags]

Delete a file and the drive may simply hide it from the file system,rewrite a file in an attempt to erase its content before deleting it and and all rewrites may go in one place and the file in another.

All in all,the file system can not guarantee a file is actually gone or totally overwritten with them.

Not sure about the Linux files systems, but that is normal operation with the MS file systems (and some others).  Deleting a file simply removes the name from the directory (once upon a time, just changed the first character to an illegal character) and marks the space as available.

Yes, but what muungwana is pointing out is, if you do a secure delete ("wipe") of a file (be it Linux, Windows or whatever) on traditional media, the sectors will be erased...on an SSD, the drive intercepts and re-routes where the data gets put (this is known as "wear-leveling", I believe), so there is no guarantee that the data that should be wiped, will be wiped (and you only added additional, unnecessary write to other cells)...

[Just17]

Makes me wonder what would be the result of wiping all free space, which is the approach I like to use .....

After deleting unneeded filesm write zeros to a file and continue to write to that file until the partition fills up.

then delete the file returning all the free space again ....  only now it is wiped of all previous content.

I imagine this would work just as well on SSDs as on HDDs.

[Yankee]

BCWipe from good old Synaptic should wipe
off what you want erased.

regards,

FF

[muungwana]

Makes me wonder what would be the result of wiping all free space, which is the approach I like to use .....

After deleting unneeded filesm write zeros to a file and continue to write to that file until the partition fills up.

then delete the file returning all the free space again ....  only now it is wiped of all previous content.

I imagine this would work just as well on SSDs as on HDDs.

My limited understanding of how they work,the ssd drive keep a certain sectors to itself,away from access from outside,when it notice a sector is going bad,it marks it as invalid and take a piece from its reserved space to replace it. This reserved space is also circulated to prevent it from being 100% unused while the "exposed" space is being over used.

So, you may, for example, create a file,delete it and the space of the deleted file may be taken to be part of the reserved space the file system has no access to and does not know it exists and overwriting the ssd multiple times will not overwrite the file because its in a location that can not be reached normally from outside.

Erasing a file on an ssd drive by conventional tools is not a guarantee the file is gone.

[Just17]

Makes me wonder what would be the result of wiping all free space, which is the approach I like to use .....

After deleting unneeded filesm write zeros to a file and continue to write to that file until the partition fills up.

then delete the file returning all the free space again ....  only now it is wiped of all previous content.

I imagine this would work just as well on SSDs as on HDDs.

My limited understanding of how they work,the ssd drive keep a certain sectors to itself,away from access from outside,when it notice a sector is going bad,it marks it as invalid and take a piece from its reserved space to replace it. This reserved space is also circulated to prevent it from being 100% unused while the "exposed" space is being over used.

So, you may, for example, create a file,delete it and the space of the deleted file may be taken to be part of the reserved space the file system has no access to and does not know it exists and overwriting the ssd multiple times will not overwrite the file because its in a location that can not be reached normally from outside.

Erasing a file on an ssd drive by conventional tools is not a guarantee the file is gone.

Standard HDDs also reserve space in the same manner ......  except they do not rotate that space.
So the same applies at any given moment with either .....  there will be reserved space that is not accessible to standard applications.

[muungwana]

Just17,
you dont seem to be that easy to convince 

People who i trust to know what they are talking about say they behave differently.

You can read some of the opinions about them in section 5.19 from here:

http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

You may not believe this yourself,but i think its important to pass it along when asked about it.

[pags]

Makes me wonder what would be the result of wiping all free space, which is the approach I like to use .....

After deleting unneeded filesm write zeros to a file and continue to write to that file until the partition fills up.

then delete the file returning all the free space again ....  only now it is wiped of all previous content.

I imagine this would work just as well on SSDs as on HDDs.

My limited understanding of how they work,the ssd drive keep a certain sectors to itself,away from access from outside,when it notice a sector is going bad,it marks it as invalid and take a piece from its reserved space to replace it. This reserved space is also circulated to prevent it from being 100% unused while the "exposed" space is being over used.

So, you may, for example, create a file,delete it and the space of the deleted file may be taken to be part of the reserved space the file system has no access to and does not know it exists and overwriting the ssd multiple times will not overwrite the file because its in a location that can not be reached normally from outside.

Erasing a file on an ssd drive by conventional tools is not a guarantee the file is gone.

Standard HDDs also reserve space in the same manner ......  except they do not rotate that space.
So the same applies at any given moment with either .....  there will be reserved space that is not accessible to standard applications.

Standard HDD space reservation is a function of the OS and filesystem.  SSDs reserve space on the drive itself, regardless of OS or filesystem...

[frazelle09]

You guys are great!  It's been fun watching this thread meander about -- hither and yon --.

However i still have a question -- i've tried mylivecd and it's just taking too long, so i thought, maybe i can just do a new install on the ssd and set up  my /home/me partition and copy from my old disk to the new one all of my /home/me files.  Can i do this with the dot files under /home/me as well so i can at least keep my settings?

i'll still need to update it through Synaptic and reinstall all the old programs, but that'll be the fun part... lol

Have a great evening!