Info and precautions for SSD drives

I picked this up from a post on the Dell users forum.  Those that are considering SSD "drives" should take special note:
 
 
Microsoft doesnt go out of its way to make systems SSD friendly.  If you dont Nerf the auditing and swap file and automatic defrag and
many other things your drive can fail in a few hours.
 
[link=http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=43460]http://www.ocztechnologyf...om/fo...ad.php?t=43460[/link]
Flash-memory drives have limited lifetimes and will often wear out after 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 P/E cycles (1,000 to 10,000 per cell) for MLC, and up to 5,000,000 P/E cycles (100,000 per cell) for SLC.[/link][link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-43][/link][link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-45] Special file systems or firmware designs can mitigate this problem by spreading writes over the entire device, called wear leveling.[/link][link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-CWorldLackluster-22] However, effective write cycles can be much less, because when a write request is made to a particular memory block, all data in the block is overwritten even when only part of the memory is altered. The write amplification, as referred by Intel, can be reduced using write memory buffer.[/link] In combination with wear leveling, over-provisioning SSD flash drives with spared memory capacity also delays the loss of user-accessible memory capacity. NAND memory can be negatively impacted by read and program (write) disturbs arising from over accessing a particular NAND location. This overuse of NAND locations causes bits within the NAND block to erroneously change values. Wear leveling, by redirecting SSD writes to lesser-used NAND locations, thus reduces the potential for program or write disturbs.[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-48] Wear leveling used on flash-based SSDs has security implications. For example, encryption of existing unencrypted data on flash-based SSDs cannot be performed securely because wear leveling causes new encrypted drive sectors to be written to a physical location different from their original location—data remains unencrypted in the original physical location. It is also impossible to securely wipe files by overwriting their content on flash-based SSDs.[/link] SSDs using [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling]wear leveling cannot be defragmented[/link] in order to provide maximum sequential read speed. Optimizations like [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_buffer#Read-ahead.2Fread-behind]read-ahead do not work efficiently if files are fragmented (access time of flash-based SSDs is about 0.1 ms[/link]). [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling]Wear leveling used by most SSDs intrinsically induces fragmentation.[/link]Moreover, defragmenting a SSD by a defragmenter is harmful since it adds wear to the SSD for no benefit.[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-53] Vista and Windows 7 include automatic defragging enabled by default.

I've read that you don't have to de-frag ssd's at all.

you cant use a standard program to defreg. (fry the drive) if you use an SSD for an OS drive a defreg will be required
the only program i know of is Perfect Disk that defreags an SSD correctly.
 (could be more now) i am on my 3rd SSD (not from wear but they kept getting faster.

while being on win7 will deal with the trim issues for the most part you need a program like PD.
(lots of temp files on an OS drive)
with a samples drive its not near as critical as you are installing once and then reading only.

having the temp files on the ssd is one of the reasons you want an SSD for an OS.

frankly after 3 versions each faster than the other i am somewhat let down they are not all that and a bag of chips.
i could care less about hows fast it boots i never shut my system down and only reboot about once a week.

alot of what i do is on the c drive (SSD) and sometimes things just do not open instantly while other times they do.
overall i am not sure how much faster it feels anymore but i have also had an SSD for like 24 months.
when i use someone elses system around here (or go home) i guess i tend to write it off as i have a super fast system vs the others.

i will say this 60G SSDs are very affordable now so its hard to say its not worth it anymore.
if you are going to use an SSD as an OS you really need to buy Perfect disk.