Re: Debian not suitable for SSD due to apt/dpkg?

[<shyamal@member.fsf.org>]

>>>>> "Frank" == Frank Bauer <frank.c.bauer@gmail.com> writes:

    Frank> Hi, I am considering migrating my Debian testing system to a
    Frank> SSD to speed things up.  Since SSD lifetime is severely
    Frank> limited (about 5000 overwrites for consumer grade MLC), I
    Frank> wanted to know beforehand, how much writes does my system
    Frank> generate.

Hi Frank,

Here is a data point for you.

I've been using a relatively inexpensive SSD (120G OCZ VERTEX-2) and I
have run Debian testing on this device for around 18 months now.

The machine in question is powered on 24 hours a day, every day of the
year but for a truly warm summer weekend or two (which are very
infrequent in Northern California). The machine is now six years old,
the SSD and additional RAM being the latest and only modification to
it. I use LVM like I would use it on a HDD based system, but I do not do
disk encryption.

I upgrade this machine to the latest packages in testing every working
day based on what apt-cron downloads overnight. I have performed no SSD
optimizations (e.g. no discard/TRIM settings for the ext4 file system,
don't do the no noatime thing). The file system hosts several large code
bases that see heavy edit/compile usage on a daily basis.

I have seen absolutely no performance degradation on my system for
typical use (edit/compile code), and no trouble from the SSD in my
logs. I would say that Debian testing is perfectly suitable for an SSD
based on my experience.

You can make the math suggest that this SSD should have died a while
ago, or you can make it suggest the SSD will last a decade. I've got 18
months of real usage out of it, and I expect a few more years to be
honest.

OK, now that I've said it, I'm waiting for the meltdown... ;-)

Cheers!
Shyamal