Should I do this SSD optimization thing?

[kevink2]

My comments on that:

2. Local snapshots are a great feature, why would you want to turn it off?

I've never reported this to Apple, but I think local snapshots helped trigger disk corruption on my MBP. Twice, where i had to restore from time machine, and once a year ago before I did TM backups.

A hard thing to figure out.

It was always a quicken file that showed incorrect block counts. Would fix by booting off of recovery partition, at least until it wouldn't boot.

The quicken file always had the rename done by dropbox for their deleted file cache.

I ran Quicken using crossover.

I finally noticed that it was the local snapshots, which I didn't know about, when I had manually deleted the cache directory, I did a recovery partition disk check, and it mentioned one of these files. Found it in the time machine directory.

Since disabling local snapshots, the disk corruption has not recurred. I had never seen it on my Mac Pro, where the other elements were the same. But that is a desktop with an always attached TM drive.

 

[dusk007]

I don't understand RAM disks

I know that RAM looses its information when the power goes out. So things that are stored there might get lost, while they would survive on the SSD. I guess that since only temp files are stored there, nothing would actually happen - I had missed this piece of information earlier.

RAM disks are also rather a bad idea here.
a) You really need to know your ****** to make them any use. Directing the right files there is anything but trivial and if you do it wrong, you will loose data you needed.
b) Even if you have enough know how, it is still incredibly complicated to deal with for very little gain. It is just a huge hassle.

Ram disks used to be useful because of their speed, if the alternative is an HDD scratch space. For some intents and purposes that was just a huge performance boost. Also for letting the HDD sleep and stay quite in some situations.
With SSDs there is just very little one stands to gain in speed. The CPU is usually already is the limiting factor and not the SSD read/write speed.

The whole write cycles mattered when the write amplification was 10-30 and the total NAND available was 32GB or 64 if you were lucky. Now almost everybody has 256GB. Using a RAM disk to save write cycle is only worth it for people that just enjoy needlessly complicating things.

 

[thundersteele]

If one follows the "Source" link in the first post, it links to a blog from April 2012. There, if you check the sources for some of the tips, they point back to articles written around 2010.

As dusk007 said, back then SSDs were small, and people were still very insecure about the whole "finite number of read/write cycles" thing.

By now most people should have enough SSD storage to keep the system, applications and home folder there, and still have space for the sleepimage and/or local backups. By now people should also have realized that the average lifetime of a SSD under normal use is as long as that of a HDD.

 

[puffo25]

I have a question to everyone. According to several SSD blogs, disable sudden motion detection and disable journaling (for example by using Cocktail utility), you can extended a bit the life of your SSD (I have a Samsung Evo SSD 1TB with a Mac OSX 10.9 and a MacBoor Pro mid. 2012).
Some people say this is indeed useful, others says that better to leave the Mac OSX 10.9 as it is.

What is your personal opinion? Shall I change or not those 2 settings?
Andrea
Ps: I do NOT use trim enabler or chameleon because they give me kernel panic error. I use same settings through terminal and all is OK now...

 

[Weaselboy]

I have a question to everyone. According to several SSD blogs, disable sudden motion detection and disable journaling (for example by using Cocktail utility), you can extended a bit the life of your SSD (I have a Samsung Evo SSD 1TB with a Mac OSX 10.9 and a MacBoor Pro mid. 2012).
Some people say this is indeed useful, others says that better to leave the Mac OSX 10.9 as it is.

What is your personal opinion? Shall I change or not those 2 settings?
Andrea
Ps: I do NOT use trim enabler or chameleon because they give me kernel panic error. I use same settings through terminal and all is OK now...

My opinion... leave it alone. SMS does nothing with an SSD anyway so you accomplish nothing by disabling it. Journaling is used by the file system to prevent file corruption and should not be turned off.

Don't concern yourself with all these "tweaks" for fear your SSD will die a premature death. Give this a read. Also a good test here. Even if you write 10GB a day every day to your EVO, it will last over 20 years. By then I'm sure we will both have new computers.

 

[puffo25]

Weaselboy, I truly appreciate your help. I am following your remarks.

many thanks indeed.
Puffo

My opinion... leave it alone. SMS does nothing with an SSD anyway so you accomplish nothing by disabling it. Journaling is used by the file system to prevent file corruption and should not be turned off.

Don't concern yourself with all these "tweaks" for fear your SSD will die a premature death. Give this a read. Also a good test here. Even if you write 10GB a day every day to your EVO, it will last over 20 years. By then I'm sure we will both have new computers.