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I am considering to buy an SSD disk for my laptop. I know it's very fast, but i am concerned about its lifetime and data integrity.

Can you please share your experience about using SSD in your computers? Is it really robust? Have you had any failures? How often? What was the reason?

What about hybrid disks?

If I decide to install an SSD disk on my laptop:

  1. Which file system to use? Is EXT4 ok? F2FS - not production ready? No good support on Ubuntu yet?
  2. On which partitions to use? The root on SSD and home on HDD?
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  • 1
    This might be better suited on ubuntuforums.org ;)
    – Rinzwind
    Apr 5, 2013 at 7:07
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    I don't think that splitting ubuntu over 2 partions is a good idea. I would simply make a symlink to the hdd and automount the hhd on boot.
    – Thomas15v
    Apr 5, 2013 at 7:09

2 Answers 2

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There is a lot of talk about bits wearing out but that refers to older models. The existing SSDs will out live the life of the computer. So how you set it up is not that relevant, at least in my experiance.

I have been using a SSD in two ways.

My main computer is running with Ubuntu 12.10, started with 12.04 have been running now about a year. I use my computer 8-10 hours a day, download lots of stuff and haven't struck any issues at all. It's only a 64gig SSD and use my main hard disk which is 2 terabytes for all of my data.

I also use another SSD that is plugged into the computer via an external hard disk adapter that runs Windows 7. When I boot off that the other drive which I formatted as NTFS so both Linux and Windows can access it without any issues.

The only issue you will run into with NTFS partitions is that you cannot make a file executable. So if you have scripts and need to run them while using Linux you have to run them through the bash command.

The biggest descision will be the brand of SSD you purchase. There are some bad SSDs out there so do your research, and dont belive everything you read. My SSD was an Intel and another brand I use was not as good, but still works.

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  • You have Ext4 file system on your main computer's SSD?
    – warvariuc
    Apr 5, 2013 at 9:31
  • @warwaruk yes and the swap partition is on the ssd as well. The 2 terra disk has 4 other partitions, nfst, ext4, swap and a boot partition. Use that in a emergency when the SSD doesn't boot, which hasn't happened yet
    – Meer Borg
    Apr 5, 2013 at 9:35
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Which file system to use? Is EXT4 ok? F2FS - not production ready? No good support on Ubuntu yet?

You can not choose F2FS yet (during installation or in gParted) so it will be ext4.

On which partitions to use? The root on SSD and home on HDD?

I have my root on a ssd and my home on a hdd.

This How to enable TRIM? is a must read.

but i am concerned about its lifetime and data integrity.

Don't worry. The discs are cheap(ish) and will be cheaper in a year. Just set up your system with that in mind: if the ssd suddenly decides to quit on me I can get a new ssd and re-install Ubuntu from scratch since all my data is on the other disc. The only thing on the ssd are system files.

Besides that I have NOT has a single issue with the SSD I am using for over 1 year now. (I am using a OCZ 120 Gb SSD).

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