My unsolicited, unprofessionl, free advice:> Is it better than fstrim.timer
mentioned in this thread?> > Some years ago there was a warning on the>
<https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Solid_state_drive/NVMe>> > page that Intel
did not recommend continuous TRIM aka discard. Currentlythere are some words
against discard in>
<https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Solid_state_drive#Continuous_TRIM>.>>> Do you
have more details on this story, what was behind Intel suggestionand what has
changed since that time?I just set 'ssd' in fstab options and leave it. From my
reading (which I unfortunately can't cite and could be wrong) when SSD was a
newish technology, file and operating systems had to play catchup. To my
understanding, that's mostly been done, so the default SSD options ought to be
sufficient.Like, I had to tell my Windows clients years ago not to defragment
their SSD, because it would cause unnecessary writes. Microsoft has since
updated their defragment command not to do that (and they've further renamed it
as 'optimise') so now I can tell my clients to optimise however often they
like. I understand that Linux is much the same, if not a little ahead of the
curve.My understanding is that setting constant ftrim and/or discard just hogs
bandwidth, as the firmware busily clears writeable memory instead of doing what
you want it to do.> As to secure erase, I have seen comments claiming that
sometimes ithelps to recovery performance degraded after some period of usage.
Ihave not tried to collect details if it is related to specific models orto low
end drives.I don't understand that logic. I've been told to believe that SSDs
have finite write cycles, so you don't want to change a 1 to a 0 if you'll only
have to change it back to a 1 again when you save something. I've also read
that the firmware tries to optimise writes, so abstracts access to the
hardware. Therefore, where you can tell a HDD to "fetch sector X of platter Y,"
there's no analogue in an SSD. The file system just says "fetch me address Z,"
and the firmware figures out which cell of which chip by magic.Furthermore, I
understand that telling an SSD to write a terabyte of zeros to the drive may
not actually write a terabyte of addresses, as the SSD firmware will try to
economise writes to reduce wear. I understand that the only way to wipe an SSD
securely is to re-encrypt the drive, as the SSD will then take the protective
measures to make the data inaccessible without a password.But, please, I
encourage the people here who are smarter than I am to correct any of my
factual inaccuracies.> Today's SSDs, even consumer brands, have much higher
endurance, and thissort of advice is quite complicated and consumer-hostile, so
you don'tsee it any more.I have a fairly inexpensive Crucial 2TB that I do all
my living on. It was a Samsung but their customer service was horrific so I'm
boycotting them now. It runs at about 80% full. Aside from disabling swap, I
use my computer without considering writes. I regularly download, delete,
change my mind, download the same thing again, write a script that outputs to a
file, then run the same command dozens of times as I debug it, and so on. I
even had BOINC running on it until recently. Nevertheless, I check the SMART
readout every so often. It's down to about 96% health after about 2-3 years of
regular use. At this rate, I'll probably have to replace the drive in about 40
years. So I'm not losing sleep, and neither should you.
