SSD partitioning and life of the drive question

[xeddex]

Like a lot of folks I'm planning out a new system in the near future and I plan to go SSD for boot/apps.

Even though I know that Win7 reinstalls will be few and far between when compared to XPPro I still am going to set up 2 partitions. One boot and one apps. The boot partition will also hold the page file.

From what I've read my understanding is that the SSD's sprinkle around the writes so that the memory chips "wear evenly" (like rotating your tires) but I haven't been able to find any information about how that works with partitions.

So my question is this... Is the partition viewed as an abstract concept with regard to how the writes are sprinkled around the drive? or will the pagefile writes be sprinkled around only on the chips which participate in the boot partition?

Since the boot partition will be the smaller of the two partitions I'm concerned that the pagefile may prematurely "wear out" the boot partition.


I hope that made sense. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[masteryoda34]

Why not move the page file to a larger partition?

 

[taltamir]

why do you want to seperate your boot and apps partitions? the files created by those apps is one thing, but the app exe's and dlls and other program files are not necessary to separate since you have to reinstall those anyways.
I wouldn't make a partition under 60GB. just have a secondary spindle HDD for... stuff...

 

[xeddex]

Originally posted by: masteryoda34
Why not move the page file to a larger partition?

I could but it's still the same question. Will the pagefile only be sprinkled around only within the partition (even if it's a bigger one) and therefore shorten the lifespan of the memory that participates in that partition or are the files sprinkled around evenly all over the chips irregardless of the abstract concept of a partition?

Originally posted by: taltamir
why do you want to seperate your boot and apps partitions? the files created by those apps is one thing, but the app exe's and dlls and other program files are not necessary to separate since you have to reinstall those anyways.
I wouldn't make a partition under 60GB. just have a secondary spindle HDD for... stuff...

Sometimes you have to reinstall them, sometimes you don't. If nothing else then keeping them on their own partition functions as a "you were using these apps before your OS went south" list. You would be surprised how little you really need to reinstall. Also config settings for programs are priceless vs having to reconfig everything. I understand why some people don't run apps on their own partition but I've never heard of anyone who stopped running a dedicated apps partition once they tried it.

 

[taltamir]

If you don't even remember to install a program, do you really NEED to? It takes a lot less time to reinstall my system now that I don't install programs I don't need. I can go several OS reinstalls before installing some programs.

the vast majority of programs do need to be installed, and do not keep their config data in the same directory as the program itself (username\appdata is the typical location). For those rare few programs that require no install and keep their app data inside them, you can go ahead and put them on your secondary storage spindle drive. CPUz, MPC-HC, and OCCPT et don't really need to be ran off of an SSD...

My 80GB SSD is windows and most apps. a 640GB WD spindle drive contains those few install free apps (all small efficient programs... split into "mobile programs" like CPUZ, and config dependent like uTorrent), most games, and so forth.

Partitioning a tiny SSD will make things more messy, not less, while most programs that are that flexible don't need the speed. Of course, only you know your own needs and it might work out better with your exact program combination.
I would recommend not putting a pagefile on a partition under 60GB

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: xeddex
So my question is this... Is the partition viewed as an abstract concept with regard to how the writes are sprinkled around the drive? or will the pagefile writes be sprinkled around only on the chips which participate in the boot partition?

Since the boot partition will be the smaller of the two partitions I'm concerned that the pagefile may prematurely "wear out" the boot partition.

The way I understand wear leveling, it ignores partitions. The controller on the SSD will spread out writes over the entire range of flash cells regardless of partitions. Anything else wouldnt make sense in my opinion.

As for the habit of separating OS and programs - why dont you just put OS and your software on one partition and regularly make an image of that partition? That way, you can just restore your system when needed and it will only take a couple minutes too.

Vista and W7 alike arent as bad as XP when it comes to cluttering and performance loss over time. My current vista installation is from april 08 and still feels as snappy as it did on the first day with over 50 installed programs. I did roll back the system using previous images a few times but only to take back driver installations that turned out to be bad - much cleaner and faster than trying to clean the mess manually...

A good software for this is acronis true image. Been using it for years.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Griswold

Originally posted by: xeddex
So my question is this... Is the partition viewed as an abstract concept with regard to how the writes are sprinkled around the drive? or will the pagefile writes be sprinkled around only on the chips which participate in the boot partition?

Since the boot partition will be the smaller of the two partitions I'm concerned that the pagefile may prematurely "wear out" the boot partition.

The way I understand wear leveling, it ignores partitions. The controller on the SSD will spread out writes over the entire range of flash cells regardless of partitions. Anything else wouldnt make sense in my opinion.

As for the habit of separating OS and programs - why dont you just put OS and your software on one partition and regularly make an image of that partition? That way, you can just restore your system when needed and it will only take a couple minutes too.

Vista and W7 alike arent as bad as XP when it comes to cluttering and performance loss over time. My current vista installation is from april 08 and still feels as snappy as it did on the first day with over 50 installed programs. I did roll back the system using previous images a few times but only to take back driver installations that turned out to be bad - much cleaner and faster than trying to clean the mess manually...

A good software for this is acronis true image. Been using it for years.

yap. that is a good way to do it.. or you can use something like second copy to make a backup of just the files. It can be set to make an exact backup (deleting outdated files and copying only modified / new files)

Originally posted by: GriswoldThe way I understand wear leveling, it ignores partitions. The controller on the SSD will spread out writes over the entire range of flash cells regardless of partitions. Anything else wouldnt make sense in my opinion.

Heh, if it all "made sense" then trim would have been there from the get go and the jmicron controller would have never been made.

 

[chansuresh]

I have done a lot of reading, and can confirm that SSD partitioning is entirely "logical" and so all the old rules of HDD don't apply and the underlying controller uses all the page/sectors regardless of partition to even out the wear. So no impact on fragmentation, etc. So the only reason to partition are: a) dual boot OS b) logical organization and c) backup/recovery convenience and doing so for these reasons will not affect efficiency.

However, the one thing I am not sure of is this. The W7 partition will be aligned properly if using W7 installer (and partition alignment to multiples of 4096 is critically important to performance). I am not sure how to manually achieve the same for the other partitions - it is for this reason that many folks simply use the SSD as one drive for OS+Applications and HDD for all data (different partitioning rules apply).