SSD for Adobe Audition

[mcp6453[_2_]]

For best performance, should Adobe Audition (1.5) be operated from an SSD, or
should the temp drive be the faster drive?

[Norbert Hahn[_2_]]

mcp6453 > wrote:

>For best performance, should Adobe Audition (1.5) be operated from an SSD, or
>should the temp drive be the faster drive?

I run AA 1.5 off a SSD while temp drive no. 1 is a 1 GB RAM disk. The
second temp drive is a WD black caviar disk.
Win 7 Pro SP1 32 bit.

Norbert

[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"mcp6453" > wrote in message
...
> For best performance, should Adobe Audition (1.5) be operated from an SSD,
> or
> should the temp drive be the faster drive?

Loading CEP 2.x Audition 1.x has never involved a lot of disk I/O IME.

Loading the audio files can be shortcut by choice of format.

If the file processing at hand involves the Temp file then whatever you do
to speed disk I/O for it including SSD can pay off big.

If you want really good disk performance get 2 SSDs and build a stripe set
out of them. Ensuring that they are on 6 GB SATA ports can help as well.

SSDs are getting cheap enough that it is not unreasonable to simply build
the PC using them for boot, data, and everything else.

[mcp6453[_2_]]

On 12/3/2013 3:03 PM, Arny Krueger wrote:
>
> "mcp6453" > wrote in message
> ...
>> For best performance, should Adobe Audition (1.5) be operated from an SSD,
>> or
>> should the temp drive be the faster drive?
>
> Loading CEP 2.x Audition 1.x has never involved a lot of disk I/O IME.
>
> Loading the audio files can be shortcut by choice of format.
>
> If the file processing at hand involves the Temp file then whatever you do
> to speed disk I/O for it including SSD can pay off big.
>
> If you want really good disk performance get 2 SSDs and build a stripe set
> out of them. Ensuring that they are on 6 GB SATA ports can help as well.
>
> SSDs are getting cheap enough that it is not unreasonable to simply build
> the PC using them for boot, data, and everything else.

Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system with no option to
add a second one, would you use it as the boot drive or the temp drive? Most of
my files are 45 minutes or longer.

[jason]

On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:03:19 -0500 "mcp6453" > wrote in
article >
>

>
> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system with no option to
> add a second one, would you use it as the boot drive or the temp drive? Most of
> my files are 45 minutes or longer.

I'd vote for the temp drive. There is a LOT of traffic when you're
dealing with big files - I've watched with Task Manager.

[Scott Dorsey]

Jason > wrote:
>On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:03:19 -0500 "mcp6453" > wrote in
>article >
>>
>> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system with no option to
>> add a second one, would you use it as the boot drive or the temp drive? Most of
>> my files are 45 minutes or longer.
>
>I'd vote for the temp drive. There is a LOT of traffic when you're
>dealing with big files - I've watched with Task Manager.

But... it will wear out much, much faster if used as a temp drive. And
don't even think about trying to swap to it.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

"mcp6453" wrote in message
...

> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system
> with no option to add a second one, would you use it as the
> boot drive or the temp drive?

This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current SSDs
are good for about a thousand writes. (CMIIW.) Given the size of your files,
and how often they're written to the drive, you need to make an estimate of
how long the drive is likely to last.

[jason]

On Tue, 3 Dec 2013 16:21:33 -0800 "William Sommerwerck"
> wrote in article <l7lsij$9md$1@dont-
email.me>
>
> "mcp6453" wrote in message
> ...
>
> > Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system
> > with no option to add a second one, would you use it as the
> > boot drive or the temp drive?
>
> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current SSDs
> are good for about a thousand writes. (CMIIW.) Given the size of your files,
> and how often they're written to the drive, you need to make an estimate of
> how long the drive is likely to last.

Scott's right, but I think the thousand write number is way low. Tests
I've read about using an SSD for Windows' C: drive show that it will
probably last about as long as a consumer-grade HDD, i.e., 3 years or so.
I have friends who do a lot of video and simply accept the lifetime
limitations because the performance gain is worth it.

[Trevor]

"Norbert Hahn" > wrote in message
...
> I run AA 1.5 off a SSD while temp drive no. 1 is a 1 GB RAM disk. The
> second temp drive is a WD black caviar disk.
> Win 7 Pro SP1 32 bit.

Since you are running 32bit with less than 4GB addressable, I doubt wasting
1GB of it as a RAM disk is a benefit.
I don't use AA though, but it's certainly not the way to go with most
programs.

Trevor.

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Trevor wrote:

> "Norbert Hahn" > wrote in message
> ...
>> I run AA 1.5 off a SSD while temp drive no. 1 is a 1 GB RAM disk. The
>> second temp drive is a WD black caviar disk.
>> Win 7 Pro SP1 32 bit.

> Since you are running 32bit with less than 4GB addressable, I doubt
> wasting 1GB of it as a RAM disk is a benefit.
> I don't use AA though, but it's certainly not the way to go with most
> programs.

Adobe Audition 3 doesn't know about ram available to software beyond the 2
GB space and will not use 3 gigabytes of ram in a box efficiently, it
reduces the buffer because it claims it is "too large" even with 1 gigabyte
free ram in the box. Dunno if the fixed it, didn't check the new version
after hearing reports that "open append" had gone missing.

> Trevor.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Sean Conolly]

"Trevor" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Norbert Hahn" > wrote in message
> ...
>> I run AA 1.5 off a SSD while temp drive no. 1 is a 1 GB RAM disk. The
>> second temp drive is a WD black caviar disk.
>> Win 7 Pro SP1 32 bit.
>
> Since you are running 32bit with less than 4GB addressable, I doubt
> wasting 1GB of it as a RAM disk is a benefit.
> I don't use AA though, but it's certainly not the way to go with most
> programs.

I tried this experiment with CEP 2.1 and found no practical difference in
performance between the RAM disk and using a plain hard disk.

The biggest performance gain came from installing AA 3.X. Side by side on
the same system, the new version is considerably faster, I suspect by better
use of buffering in memory - but I haven't bothered to check.

Sean

[William Sommerwerck]

"Jason" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 3 Dec 2013 16:21:33 -0800 "William Sommerwerck"
> wrote in article <l7lsij$9md$1@dont-
email.me>
> "mcp6453" wrote in message
> ...

>>> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system
>>> with no option to add a second one, would you use it as the
>>> boot drive or the temp drive?

>> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current
>> SSDs
>> are good for about a thousand writes. (CMIIW.) Given the size of your
>> files,
>> and how often they're written to the drive, you need to make an estimate of
>> how long the drive is likely to last.

> Scott's right, but I think the thousand write number is way low. Tests
> I've read about using an SSD for Windows' C: drive show that it will
> probably last about as long as a consumer-grade HDD, i.e., 3 years
> or so. I have friends who do a lot of video and simply accept the
> lifetime limitations because the performance gain is worth it.

Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years. Unlike hard
drives, SSDs have a known-finite lifespan, that can be fairly accurately
calculated. My current computer has an SSD for the OS and files that rarely
change. Everything else -- including temp/backup files for mail and the Web --
are on a RAID 5 hard drive system. I expect the SSD to last at least 10
years -- because I don't use it for stuff that changes often.

[William Sommerwerck]

Here's a recent article on SSD longevity. It, of course, represents one
particular point of view.

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
> "Jason" wrote in message
> ...
> On Tue, 3 Dec 2013 16:21:33 -0800 "William Sommerwerck"
> > wrote in article <l7lsij$9md$1@dont-
> email.me>
>> "mcp6453" wrote in message
>> ...
>
>>>> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system
>>>> with no option to add a second one, would you use it as the
>>>> boot drive or the temp drive?
>
>>> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe
>>> current SSDs
>>> are good for about a thousand writes. (CMIIW.) Given the size of your
>>> files,
>>> and how often they're written to the drive, you need to make an
>>> estimate of
>>> how long the drive is likely to last.
>
>> Scott's right, but I think the thousand write number is way low. Tests
>> I've read about using an SSD for Windows' C: drive show that it will
>> probably last about as long as a consumer-grade HDD, i.e., 3 years
>> or so. I have friends who do a lot of video and simply accept the
>> lifetime limitations because the performance gain is worth it.
>
> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years. Unlike
> hard drives, SSDs have a known-finite lifespan, that can be fairly
> accurately calculated. My current computer has an SSD for the OS and
> files that rarely change. Everything else -- including temp/backup files
> for mail and the Web -- are on a RAID 5 hard drive system. I expect the
> SSD to last at least 10 years -- because I don't use it for stuff that
> changes often.
>
>

Do SSD's have a way to "fly the write pin" so they are read-only ( at
some point in time)? I know you can mount a volume read-only
in Linux...

--
Les Cargill

[jason]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 12:57:17 +0100 "Peter Larsen" >
wrote in article >
>
> Trevor wrote:
>
> > "Norbert Hahn" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> I run AA 1.5 off a SSD while temp drive no. 1 is a 1 GB RAM disk. The
> >> second temp drive is a WD black caviar disk.
> >> Win 7 Pro SP1 32 bit.
>
> > Since you are running 32bit with less than 4GB addressable, I doubt
> > wasting 1GB of it as a RAM disk is a benefit.
> > I don't use AA though, but it's certainly not the way to go with most
> > programs.
>
> Adobe Audition 3 doesn't know about ram available to software beyond the 2
> GB space and will not use 3 gigabytes of ram in a box efficiently, it
> reduces the buffer because it claims it is "too large" even with 1 gigabyte
> free ram in the box. Dunno if the fixed it, didn't check the new version
> after hearing reports that "open append" had gone missing.
>
> > Trevor.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Peter Larsen

AA latest version is 64-bits top to bottom. That's good and bad - 32-bit
VST extensions don't work, but all the memory is available. The new
version also supports multiple cores. Task Manager shows that it is
indeed using them. Open Append has returned but there's some griping in
the forums about how it works now.

[jason]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 07:48:55 -0800 "William Sommerwerck"
> wrote in article <l7nita$95m$1@dont-
email.me>
>
> Here's a recent article on SSD longevity. It, of course, represents one
> particular point of view.
>
> http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

Thanks!

[jason]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 10:07:38 -0500 "Sean Conolly" >
wrote in article >
>

>
> The biggest performance gain came from installing AA 3.X. Side by side on
> the same system, the new version is considerably faster, I suspect by better
> use of buffering in memory - but I haven't bothered to check.
>
> Sean

According to some developers' blogs on the Adobe site, the new version is
a rewrite. That's why they dropped some features to meet schedules but
have been adding them back in. They also claim to have improved many of
the algorithms which were apparently pretty good already but dated back
to Cool Edit days.

From experience, I know that legacy code gets more and more hairy until
doing it over again is the only reasonable choice, but try selling that
to schedule-driven management. btdt...

[Norbert Hahn[_2_]]

"Trevor" > wrote:

>
>"Norbert Hahn" > wrote in message
...
>> I run AA 1.5 off a SSD while temp drive no. 1 is a 1 GB RAM disk. The
>> second temp drive is a WD black caviar disk.
>> Win 7 Pro SP1 32 bit.
>
>Since you are running 32bit with less than 4GB addressable, I doubt wasting
>1GB of it as a RAM disk is a benefit.
>I don't use AA though, but it's certainly not the way to go with most
>programs.

AA version 1.5 is very similar to CEP 2.x and the roots of CEP and CE
date back to the day of Win 95. At that time RAM was a big issue -
because it was expensive and poorly managed by the OS. Disk performance
was less an issue, as SCSI was available.
So CE, CEP and AA make heavy use of overlay programming techniques:
All effects, filters and other gadgets are fetched from disk, executed
and then forgotten - the memory is re-used by the next effect.
I check a stereo recording, 10 minutes, 96 kHz S/R, 32 bit: AA 1.5 uses
123 MB in physical RAM (241 MB in virt. RAM) while the file occupies
442 MB on disk.
In the day of Win 95 both the system and CE weren't very robust and the
program tried to keep everything on the temp file for recovery in case
of a crash. The temp file(s) contain the delta(s) to the input file and
are rewritten very often, along with the index file
(%homepath%\Application data\Adobe\Audition\1.5\recovery01.dat).
That's why I prefer a RAM disk for the temp files.

Norbert

[Trevor]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.

Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO, 20GB
drive that was in daily use for 15 years.

Trevor.

[Sean Conolly]

"Jason" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 10:07:38 -0500 "Sean Conolly" >
> wrote in article >
>>
>
>>
>> The biggest performance gain came from installing AA 3.X. Side by side on
>> the same system, the new version is considerably faster, I suspect by
>> better
>> use of buffering in memory - but I haven't bothered to check.
>>
>> Sean
>
> According to some developers' blogs on the Adobe site, the new version is
> a rewrite. That's why they dropped some features to meet schedules but
> have been adding them back in. They also claim to have improved many of
> the algorithms which were apparently pretty good already but dated back
> to Cool Edit days.
>
> From experience, I know that legacy code gets more and more hairy until
> doing it over again is the only reasonable choice, but try selling that
> to schedule-driven management. btdt...

The last 'port' I was asked to do was from a platform running Interactive
Unix - pre Sun OS - to Linux. With some difficulty I convinced Management
that the code base was just a snapshot from an unknown release, with no way
to correlate it to the production code. I won the discussion, rewrote it
from the ground up and it's been humming along for seven years now with very
few patches. It's a hard sell, but if you really understand how the app is
supposed to work the results are a lot better.

Sean

[William Sommerwerck]

"Trevor" wrote in message ...
William Sommerwerck wrote:

>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.

> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working
> 17 YO, 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.

Am I correct in assuming that most of these drives ran 24/7 and were rarely
shut down?

[Sean Conolly]

"Trevor" > wrote in message
...
>
> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.
>
> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO,
> 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.
>
> Trevor.

By contrast I have a number of servers in our data centers and racks of SAN
storage, maybe 200 drives total. They are all 'high-end' (read
'over-priced') 'Enterprise Level' drives, but we have to replace about 10%
of them every year.

Sean

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Jason wrote:

> AA latest version is 64-bits top to bottom. That's good and bad -
> 32-bit VST extensions don't work, but all the memory is available.

I only use one, that one is however critical for the live sound recordist,
thanks!

> The new version also supports multiple cores. Task Manager shows that
> it is indeed using them. Open Append has returned but there's some
> griping in the forums about how it works now.

Are you saying that it works any different from selecting from bottom to top
and getting them appended in proper order?

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Trevor]

"Sean Conolly" > wrote in message
...
>>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.
>>
>> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO,
>> 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.
>>
>
> By contrast I have a number of servers in our data centers and racks of
> SAN storage, maybe 200 drives total. They are all 'high-end' (read
> 'over-priced') 'Enterprise Level' drives, but we have to replace about 10%
> of them every year.

Not much of a contrast really. On average that's about 10 years per drive,
very reasonable for a server, and far better than 3 years.
You will always get a few that die of infant mortality.

Trevor.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Sean Conolly wrote:
> "Trevor" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.
>>
>> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO,
>> 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.
>>
>> Trevor.
>
> By contrast I have a number of servers in our data centers and racks of SAN
> storage, maybe 200 drives total. They are all 'high-end' (read
> 'over-priced') 'Enterprise Level' drives, but we have to replace about 10%
> of them every year.
>
> Sean
>
>
>


Tom's Hardware has very lengthy threads about this now and again. It's
pretty complicated.

--
Les Cargill

[jason]

On Thu, 5 Dec 2013 06:36:13 +0100 "Peter Larsen" >
wrote in article >
>

>
> Are you saying that it works any different from selecting from bottom to top
> and getting them appended in proper order?
>
It's not a feature that I use, so I cannot say how it differs from its
previous incarnation.

[Gray_Wolf]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 23:55:28 -0500, "Sean Conolly"
> wrote:

>"Trevor" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.
>>
>> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO,
>> 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.
>>
>> Trevor.
>
>By contrast I have a number of servers in our data centers and racks of SAN
>storage, maybe 200 drives total. They are all 'high-end' (read
>'over-priced') 'Enterprise Level' drives, but we have to replace about 10%
>of them every year.
>
>Sean

I'm wondering if there's that much difference between Western
Digital's different models besides price.

[Scott Dorsey]

Gray_Wolf > wrote:
>On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 23:55:28 -0500, "Sean Conolly"
> wrote:
>
>>"Trevor" > wrote in message
...
>>>
>>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.
>>>
>>> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO,
>>> 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.
>>>
>>> Trevor.
>>
>>By contrast I have a number of servers in our data centers and racks of SAN
>>storage, maybe 200 drives total. They are all 'high-end' (read
>>'over-priced') 'Enterprise Level' drives, but we have to replace about 10%
>>of them every year.
>>
>
>I'm wondering if there's that much difference between Western
>Digital's different models besides price.

Yes.

For one thing, some of them are made by the old Hitachi factory which makes
far higher quality products.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"mcp6453" > wrote in message
...
> On 12/3/2013 3:03 PM, Arny Krueger wrote:
>>
>> "mcp6453" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> For best performance, should Adobe Audition (1.5) be operated from an
>>> SSD,
>>> or
>>> should the temp drive be the faster drive?
>>
>> Loading CEP 2.x Audition 1.x has never involved a lot of disk I/O IME.
>>
>> Loading the audio files can be shortcut by choice of format.
>>
>> If the file processing at hand involves the Temp file then whatever you
>> do
>> to speed disk I/O for it including SSD can pay off big.

>> If you want really good disk performance get 2 SSDs and build a stripe
>> set
>> out of them. Ensuring that they are on 6 GB SATA ports can help as well.

>> SSDs are getting cheap enough that it is not unreasonable to simply build
>> the PC using them for boot, data, and everything else.

> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system with no
> option to
> add a second one, would you use it as the boot drive or the temp drive?
> Most of
> my files are 45 minutes or longer.

I use the SSD stripe set for both puposes.

[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...

> Jason > wrote:
>>On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 17:03:19 -0500 "mcp6453" > wrote in
>>article >
>>>
>>> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system with no
>>> option to
>>> add a second one, would you use it as the boot drive or the temp drive?
>>> Most of
>>> my files are 45 minutes or longer.
>>
>>I'd vote for the temp drive. There is a LOT of traffic when you're
>>dealing with big files - I've watched with Task Manager.

> But... it will wear out much, much faster if used as a temp drive. And
> don't even think about trying to swap to it.

That particular belief is pretty well debunked - no problem with putting
swap on SSD,

For example:
http://superuser.com/questions/51724/should-i-keep-my-swap-file-on-an-ssd-drive

[William Sommerwerck]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

>> But... it will wear out much, much faster if used as a temp drive.
>> And don't even think about trying to swap to it.

> That particular belief is pretty well debunked - no problem with putting
> swap on SSD.
> For example:
> http://superuser.com/questions/51724/should-i-keep-my-swap-file-on-an-ssd-drive

It depends on how much you're swapping and how often. You can make a rough
calculation of the drive's life, given how you intend to use.

The hard drive on my current computer is at least 10 times as fast as the
hard drive on my 11-year-old machine. For example, Word starts and loads in
less than two seconds, whereas on the older machine it took "forever".

[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
> "mcp6453" wrote in message
> ...
>
>> Let me ask it this way. If you had only one SSD in the system
>> with no option to add a second one, would you use it as the
>> boot drive or the temp drive?
>
> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current
> SSDs are good for about a thousand writes.

You are off by a factor of from 3 to 1,000 (your estimate was well under
actual) for the raw memory cell, but SSDs have intelligent controllers that
relocate data to unused areas when failure is probable based on overwrites,
so apparent performance is far better. SSDs are overprovisioned so that
relocation happens without loss of usable storage.

[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
> "Arny Krueger" wrote in message
> ...
>
>>> But... it will wear out much, much faster if used as a temp drive.
>>> And don't even think about trying to swap to it.
>
>> That particular belief is pretty well debunked - no problem with putting
>> swap on SSD.
>> For example:
>> http://superuser.com/questions/51724/should-i-keep-my-swap-file-on-an-ssd-drive
>
> It depends on how much you're swapping and how often. You can make a rough
> calculation of the drive's life, given how you intend to use.
>
> The hard drive on my current computer is at least 10 times as fast as the
> hard drive on my 11-year-old machine. For example, Word starts and loads
> in less than two seconds, whereas on the older machine it took "forever".

I don't know how long it takes to load Word on my new computer because it is
loaded and open for business about the same time I release my finger from
the second mouse click.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...

>> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current
>> SSDs are good for about a thousand writes.

> You are off by a factor of from 3 to 1,000 (your estimate was well under
> actual) for the raw memory cell, but SSDs have intelligent controllers that
> relocate data to unused areas when failure is probable based on overwrites,
> so apparent performance is far better. SSDs are overprovisioned so that
> relocation happens without loss of usable storage.

The estimates I found were from 1000 to 3000 writes -- for MLC drives. SLC
drives are good for perhaps 1000 times that. Multi-layer-cell drives are less
expensive and slower.

These estimates take into account wear leveling, etc.

[Trevor]

"Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
...
> "William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
>> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current
>> SSDs are good for about a thousand writes.
>
> You are off by a factor of from 3 to 1,000 (your estimate was well under
> actual) for the raw memory cell,

Yes they do keep improving.

>but SSDs have intelligent controllers that relocate data to unused areas
>when failure is probable based on overwrites, so apparent performance is
>far better. SSDs are overprovisioned so that relocation happens without
>loss of usable storage.

Which is true is far as it goes, but that's not very far actually! You would
have to save half the drive capacity for "overprovisioning" just to double
the life expectancy without loss of *apparent* useable capacity. Personally
I'd rather use it all and throw the drive away a little earlier. You can be
sure they will be cheaper when you have to replace it.

Trevor.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Trevor" wrote in message ...
"Arny Krueger" > wrote in message
...
> "William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message

>>> This raises the issue of the finite lifespan of an SSD. I believe current
>>> SSDs are good for about a thousand writes.

>> You are off by a factor of from 3 to 1,000 (your estimate was well under
>> actual) for the raw memory cell,

> Yes they do keep improving.

Actually, they're getting worse, particularly as die size shrinks for a given
capacity. The smaller the cell, the fewer times it can be written to before it
"clogs". There's also movement to the shorter-lived MLC structure.

It seems reasonable to use SSDs for buffering your work. But for stuff that
has to last, it might not be the best choice. As I said, my SSD has stuff that
doesn't change often. Swap, temp, backup, etc, files are on an HDD RAID array.

[Chuck[_10_]]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2013 23:55:28 -0500, "Sean Conolly"
> wrote:

>"Trevor" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> William Sommerwerck wrote:
>>> Most of my hard drives have lasted a lot longer than three years.
>>
>> Nearly all mine have (dozens). I still have a perfectly working 17 YO,
>> 20GB drive that was in daily use for 15 years.
>>
>> Trevor.
>
>By contrast I have a number of servers in our data centers and racks of SAN
>storage, maybe 200 drives total. They are all 'high-end' (read
>'over-priced') 'Enterprise Level' drives, but we have to replace about 10%
>of them every year.
>
>Sean
>
>

The Segate server hard drives from 6 years ago actually have the
coating on the platters fall off. We are constantly replacing them in
our Dell and Facilis servers.