I'm purchasing an ultrabook with an SSD (I've used only HDDs hitherto), and am slightly worried by the drive's read-write longevity. Should I store frequently read/written directories (e.g. downloads, cookies, documents) on a flash drive (easily replaceable after protracted use) to minimize wear and tear on the SSD itself? Would there ultimately be a noticeable positive effect, or should I not bother? If yes, then what should I store on the flash-drive (caches, etc.)?
2 Answers
I wouldn't worry about it too much. Any computer that runs SSDs as the primary drive, I always recommend running SSD Tweaker which will do a lot of automatic configuration to help the life of your drive. Also, if you do not plan on using Hibernation (which you shouldn't really since SSDs boot fast enough), run powercfg -h off in the command prompt as an administrator.
Also, if you're using Firefox, disable hard drive caching and enable memory caching.
I wouldn't worry about it. For normal usage, SSD's will last the life of the computer. They differ based on the drive and memory type used, but manufacturer specs range somewhere between 2,000 to 10,000 writes. Assuming you have a small drive of 128Gig, you'd have to write the equivalent of something like 200 terabytes to 1 petabyte worth of data before you killed the drive. Based on your minimal write usage, I wouldn't worry. People who experienced massive failure rates often had older drives, older OS which didn't do trim, or drives in a series that were known to have problems, or their use case may have been extreme. Based on the fact that Apple's Macbook Air's, Dell's XPS-13's and many other "sealed" systems have SSD's (which would cause massive repair headaches and major uproar if they were dying at an inordinate rate) I'd say that the technology has matured.
