Basics
- Use a reasonably recent Linux (kernel)
- Use the latest firmware for the SSD
- Use a command like: "sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda" to check for issues.
- Use the ext4 filesystem (the most mature filesystem) unless you have reason not to.
- Have enough DRAM required to operate without swap space under normal workloads
Mounting SSD filesystems
The performance of SSDs is also influenced by filesystem mounting options:
- Add the "noatime" (or the default "relatime") mount option in /etc/fstab, to disable (or significantly reduce) disk writes whenever a file is read. This improves filesystem read performance for both SSDs and HDDs.
- If desirable, enable the "discard" filesystem options for automatic online TRIM.
- Set "issue_discards" option in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf for LVM if you want LVM to discard on lvremove.
- Set "discard" option in /etc/crypttab for dm-crypt.
- Enable weekly trim.
sudo systemctl enable fstrim.timer sudo systemctl start fstrim.timer
- Alternatively, and often not recommended: Set "discard" mount option in /etc/fstab for the ext4 filesystem, swap partition, Btrfs, etc.
-
The "discard" options is not needed if your SSD has enough overprovisioning (spare space) or you leave (unpartitioned) free space on the SSD.
SmartMonTools
sudo smartctl -H /dev/nvme0n1
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.2.0-20-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
sudo apt-get install nvme-cli
